When The Snow Falls

Sunny and George turned to look at him expectantly.

"Who is it then?" George enquired eagerly.

Daniel was all too keen to explain. This had always been his favourite part of solving a mystery in his past life. Now he had his first opportunity in a number of years to enjoy being in his element.

"It's Robert May of course. As you said, Hugo Barnes isn't overly popular with other students. Whilst he's clever and influential in some ways, he's not that well liked himself. Jack never told Felix about him. If it was Hugo he would have told him there and then. Instead he kept quiet so it had to be someone that was well liked and he respected. It has to be Robert May."

His listeners exchanged looks and then nodded.

"It does make sense," Sunny agreed. "There's not much proof though. Hugo could have just threatened Jack to keep quiet."

Daniel was glad that Sunny was sharp enough to pick up that it was all still just a theory. He liked to think that she was learning and not wanting to defend Hugo because he was good looking.

"He's a dedicated member of the Drama Club whereas Hugo rarely turns up and didn't look that invested in the Pudding Club either. The observer has to be a member of both clubs and the past prefects wouldn't have picked someone with poor attendance and no enthusiasm for both clubs," he explained.

Sunny still looked skeptical.

"Do you have any other proof?" she questioned.

"No," Daniel admitted. "I need to talk to Felix about it."

"You can do it now," she replied with suspicious eagerness.

George nudged her again and Daniel rolled his eyes. At some point he would have to ask Felix what was going on between him and Sunny. She did have a point despite her ulterior motives. The best person to ask for clarification was Felix and he needed to tell him about his initiation to the Pudding Club.

"Hello," Felix said silkily once he had picked up.

Daniel was ready to roll his eyes and then he saw that Sunny looked like she was overheating at the sound of Felix's voice. Was she all right?

"Hello. I have a few things to say. The most important things are that I'm now a full member of the Pudding Club and I think I know who the observer is."

It took five minutes to get Felix up to date with the current state of events at Kingston Royal Academy.

"So, people think you look good in a blindfold and want you to join the dating club. I told you that you should never join," Felix said smugly. "I hope you appreciate that."

Daniel blinked. He had been expecting Felix to be more concerned about everything else he had told him not that one small detail he mentioned.

"Is that all you took from what I just told you?"

"I got everything else. You need to resolve everything before you get pulled in any deeper," Felix summarised neatly.

"Can't he go to the Police with the evidence he has?" George asked. "That would be the proper way to end this."

It had been a possibility once he had his hands on the four folders detailing the history of the secret society and the record of drugs but he had dismissed it after a moment of consideration.

"It's circ.u.mstantial evidence," he explained. "It isn't believable on its own. If they got charged by the Police, the charge wouldn't stick and we would all be in danger later on. They could claim it's something they all made up for a joke. I picked up some of the used syringes as well, however that doesn't prove much either. It could still get blamed on someone else."

"What do you need then?"

"To have evidence of them having drugs in their possession or distributing them to others," Felix answered for him. "The best way would be to secretly film their meetings- that is too dangerous, so we're going to have to find something else. We need to get the evidence before Daniel has to go to a secret society meeting."

"How are we going to do that?" George asked.

Daniel was reassured by the use of 'we'. He had been expecting Sunny and George to back out when it got too dangerous. That being said, now was the time to warn them away from any danger.

"Are you sure you two want to help? It's getting precarious now," Daniel reminded them.

"Of course we're going to help," Sunny assured him. "You can't do everything by yourself. Just let us know when you want us to find something out for you."

Felix cleared his throat.

"How touching," he teased. "On a more serious note, you need to find the source of the drugs and use that. I never got a chance to work out where the supply was coming from."

The drug ledger flashed in Daniel's mind. It had said 'usual route'. He was going to have to keep an eye on the prefects. He didn't know quite enough about drugs to work out where four school pupils were getting mass amounts in without it being noticed. He hadn't been involved in any cases with drugs in his past life.

"Are there any avenues of investigation that you can suggest?" Daniel asked. Felix might know a few things that could be hints without realising it. Felix had been attending Kingston Royal Academy a lot longer than him.

"There's some connection with the farm across the fields. The Pudding Club used to get eggs from there and would give them to me to make puddings," Felix said.

"They supply the school kitchen with eggs and milk as well," Sunny spoke up. "Do you think the drugs are coming in from the farm?"

"They do require a source that is consistent and doesn't appear suspicious. The farm route does fulfil those requirements," Daniel acknowledged. "I guess I would have to get hold of the delivery before they do."

***

His opportunity to gain evidence arrived before he had expected it. He was walking back through the front entrance in the afternoon after a quick revision trip to the library when the secretary called after him.

"Daniel, there's a parcel for you."

That had to be the parcel from his mother in this life. It felt like it had been ages since he had requested those boots from her. He was handed the parcel and he checked the label in case it was another mutilated animal. The handwriting was definitely hers and he breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't have to see another blood covered cat. Not that he'd got round to burying the original one.

"Is Felix coming back anytime soon?" the secretary asked as he signed for the parcel. "There's something for the Pudding Club that came in with yours."

Could it be a shipment of drugs? He needed to get hold of it. It was time to pull out his best acting skills.

"He's got amnesia," he explained with a disappointed pout. " Do you think I should take it to him in hospital to see if it reminds him of something?

It made absolutely no sense to take pudding ingredients to the hospital to show an amnesia patient, but he was hoping that the secretary would be too caught up with Felix's plight to realise.

"Oh dear," she gasped. "If it helps, I can let you take it."

She quickly handed him the parcel which was large, but had no real weight to it when he took hold of it. He smiled at her and left the scene as quickly as possible.

Once he was outside he hesitated over where to open the parcel and decided to make another visit to Sunny's house instead of going to the dormitory building where he would see more people. The last thing he needed was for a prefect to see him with it or worse, Robert May.

Alvin bumped into him on his way down the outside path and knocked the parcels out his grip. Daniel quickly picked it up again and made sure the address label on the Pudding Club parcel was covered by his mother's parcel on top. Alvin spent a long time apologising and making sure he was all right before Daniel could press onto Sunny's house.

Sunny and George were surprised to see him again so soon, but were excited once he had explained it. George closed the curtains in her bedroom whilst Sunny went looking for something to open the box cleany with and came back with a sharp knife.

Daniel took it off her quickly in case she had an accident and carefully slit the tape on the box. There was a chance he would need to seal it up again so he needed to be careful.

The first look at the box was disappointing. It was only cardboard boxes of eggs. Daniel opened them just to make sure they were actually eggs and to his disappointment, they were. He frowned and then took out the egg boxes. Beneath them was thickly filled plastic bags and he knew that he'd found the source.

"Is that weed?" George asked wonderingly. "I've never seen it before."

"It looks like it," Daniel agreed. "I've seen these in the news before. There might be some harder drugs on the next layer."

He pulled out the bags of weed and found syringes and bags of powder on the next layer. It certainly was a well stocked package. There had to be a meeting soon.

A meeting that he was probably supposed to be invited to.

"Can you go the Police with this?" George enquired.

"Well, there's enough here to get them interested enough to investigate. As far as I know, the Police do like finding drug stashes," Daniel said. "I am keen to get it into safe hands as soon as possible. The prefects are going to want to collect the parcel soon and the secretary will tell them I picked it up."

"Ben is leaving soon in his van to collect some supplies for the kitchen from the town, he can take you directly to the Police station," Sunny offered.

Daniel's plan had been to call the non-emergency Police number to report his findings, but Sunny's idea was better and much quicker.

"I'll tell him to wait for you," she said and jumped up to leave.

Ben was soon dragged in to her bedroom and agreed to drop him off at the local Police station. Daniel didn't explain the purpose of the visit in case it caused Ben to change his mind. He couldn't tell how Ben would react if he found out about the drugs.

"I'll meet you at the back in twenty minutes," the chain smoker said and left the room.

Daniel packed up the drugs again and waited under the overhanging arch at the back of the main building. It was raining again and the sky was completely grey. He was glad that he had thought to take his coat out with him. He went to pull out his phone so he could tell Annabelle where he was going and found nothing in its usual place. That was odd. His phone was always in that pocket.

He searched through all his pockets frantically and came up short. Could he have left it behind at Sunny's? He hadn't taken it out whilst he was there. Daniel didn't have time to speculate where it could be as a white van with the Kingston Royal Academy logo on the side pulled up by him. The windows were tinted so he wasn't able to see Ben's face.

Daniel walked round and opened the passenger door and got in. He looked over at the driver and received a fright. Instead of Ben sitting in the driver's seat, it was Robert May.

"Are you going somewhere special?" he enquired with a sinister grin that caused Daniel's blood to run cold.

He took the parcel swiftly from Daniel's slackened grip. "That's not going anywhere near the Police. Fenston, do it."

Daniel barely had time to react to the sudden presence behind him before he felt a prick in his neck. His vision began to swim and then fade completely as he lost consciousness.