The Secrets Within Pages

Panic and Prose

Dominic Quill. That was the name of the man who was found under the Radcliffe Camera. An elderly man, Osbourne's senior by a good twenty years. Up until this point, the murderer has killed two people. Men. Not of the same age range but I'd work with what I had. 

Standing in my dorm, I stick photos of all those I've identified onto a cork board from the pile of "evidence" I've collected from Osbourne's office and bits and pieces from anything else I've witnessed or heard. The three journals lay in the centre, the letter opened and sat in the corner and his computer that'd I'd stolen the night everything changed. The one I've read and reread countless times trying to find a code, a riddle, something I can connect to form a pattern or clue to make sense of all this. Yet, I stare at the table smothered with stolen goods, all arranged neatly. An organised chaos. 

In attempting to solve this, I'd made an effort to emulate the tactics of all the detectives I'd read about or watched in films. But I'd soon realised, no matter how much red string I'd attached to that cork board, I was never going to figure this out in under 300 pages with as much ease or as effortlessly as Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. Life isn't as swift as books, nor is a happy ending ever guaranteed. 

I cracked open a window, urging some fresh air in to chase away the fog of confusion surrounding me. I fall onto a chair, my body sore and aching, yearning for sleep but my brain refuses, longing for answers. I grab the first of the three journals laying in front of me. A black, leather bound number, the one the photograph had fallen from. I flick through it, an array of images appear. It was a photo book. I restart from the beginning paying more attention to each one. All of them were of Osbourne in his youth during his early years at Oxford. Nearly all the pictures were of him with the other two men- Vincent, the man I'd met at the funeral, who invited me to his home and Waylen Chamberlain. I'd met all except the last. It seemed they were very close friends. My fingers halt when a picture of the three men with a woman appears, of them all sitting down on a park bench. A woman with porcelain skin and jet black locks. Four signatures detail the bottom of the page. All their names, including a Miss. Vivienne Wǔ. 

Mrs. Vivienne Osbourne, I soon realised.

Professor's wife. They had all attended Oxford together. That's why she was staring at Vincent and I at the funeral. He wasn't just Osbourne's friend, he was her friend too.

I set aside the first journal and open the next, brown one. On the first page, it reads 'The Diary of Gael Osbourne'. A tinge of hesitance tugs at me, these are his private thoughts. The private thoughts of my Professor no less. It was stupid, really. I'd already stolen half the contents in his desk, flipped through his old photos but now the guilt hit. 

God, I was horrible at this. Why he chose me to figure this out, I will never understand. 

I bit my lip and skimmed through the book. Just normal diary entries. Diary entries older than me. As I begin reading, I realise the torn pages. I flick through the book in its entirety to see pages ripped in an identifiable order. Pages from the middle of the book then towards the end. The last diary entry that hasn't been torn out, dates back a couple years ago. Meaning someone ripped specific pages, not wanting anyone who ever read it to know whatever was on them. It couldn't have been Osbourne. Why would he rip out pages from his own personal diary? Whoever ripped them out must've been the one who killed him and no doubt Dominic Quill too.

I quickly place it down and grab the last, deep green journal. Thicker than the rest and embellished with a buckle, harder to open- more secrets to hide. Like a predator preying for food, I claw at the buckle tearing it open. A waterfall of papers cascade to the table, some falling on the floor. Snatching the first one, I devour the contents of the paper. A letter. No, blackmail. I grab another and another. All of them. They were all blackmail. I spread them all out on the table, trying to discern which was the most recent one. I grasp each, realising that they all have dates on them in a another pen. Osbourne. He was dating them, keeping track of them. 

09/4, dates one of the letters.

Professor died on the 10/4. The day before he was killed. 

Below the date, a riddle?

A poem.

Thieving claws that stole the rose from a garden that was not yours. 

How cowardly you ran when the deed was said and done. How swiftly you forgot. Now I, a byproduct of your disaster suffer the consequences. While you smell the sweet floral scent, I wither, petals falling away. Piece by piece you stole my life away. Shall I indulge you in how that feels?  By sword or by poison? I grant you the mercy of choosing. More than you ever did for me. You thought you won, a fools mistake. 

Now I shall come as the shovel and dig you in the same soil you stole the rose, my future and my past.