When The Snow Falls

"Are you going to share this theory with me?" Felix asked.

Daniel shook his head.

"I need to find more evidence before I'm truly sure. It's a lot of guesswork."

Felix didn't ask any more questions and Daniel knew he understood.

"Are we going to try and find which tree here is a cherry blossom tree?" he questioned. "We should get going soon."

They locked the padlock again and Daniel turned his attention to the trees outside. There were a lot of trees. Planting them had definitely done the job of hiding the old building. If Amien had never said anything, they would have never known the building was there.

He went up to the nearest tree and directed his torch at the branches. It looked like a cherry blossom tree. The next tree looked the same as well. How were they supposed to find which tree the mystery related to?

Perhaps this mystery was also to distract from the secrets in the building and didn't actually mean anything.

"These are peach blossom trees," Felix noted a few minutes later. "I haven't come across a cherry blossom tree yet."

"Peach blossom?"

"Yes, they look quite similar to cherry blossom trees if you don't know the difference."

Daniel really didn't know the difference and was willing to take Felix's word for it. Botany was not his strong suit.

"There's at least a hundred trees here," Felix said. "I can't say I want to check all of them in this light and it's cold."

The older detective made a decision.

"Let's go home."

It was going to take a very long time to get through all the trees just to see if there was a cherry blossom tree somewhere. What were they going to do with the cherry blossom tree anyway if they found it?

At the moment, Daniel preferred going home to get some sleep. They could always sneak off in the day to check for a cherry blossom tree.

***

Finding evidence for his theory was put on the back burner when something was announced at the breakfast table the next morning. The announcement was enough to make Daniel drop his toast.

"Someone wants to invest half a million pounds into the company!?" Vanessa exclaimed. "That's wonderful news."

That woke Daniel up from his stupor. He exchanged dark looks with Felix. The investor had to be the headmaster of the British International School.

Colin grinned at her.

"It is good news," he paused. "The only thing is that I can't work out why the chairman of a pharmaceutical company wants to invest in our company. We have nothing to do with anything like that."

It was definitely the headmaster at work.

"Dad, I don't think you should agree to it. It sounds sketchy," Felix said immediately.

"I'm inclined to agree," Vanessa said. "What company is it? It could be someone wanting to use us for money laundering."

"Nakayama Pharm," Colin informed them. "It's big so it can't be anything dodgy."

Daniel could tell that Colin wanted to take the investment no matter what. Vanessa seemed to be the more cautious one.

"If our years in business have taught us anything, it's that big known companies can be just as dodgy as small sketchy companies if not worse," she warned. "Is there an expiry date on the offer?"

Vanessa had the right idea. If he just knew how to push her into not agreeing completely. He nudged Felix to speak up.

"We have two days to decide," Colin said. "I'm not sure about it now."

"I think it sounds very out of the blue," Felix commented. "It does sound like they just want to use the company as somewhere to keep their money rather than investing because they have a genuine interest in the company."

Felix's father didn't reply and Daniel could tell the words were having an effect.

"Do you really want an investor that doesn't actually have an interest in what the company does?" Daniel added to press the issue.

"I'm not happy with it," Vanessa said. "I say we should reject it. As it stands, we're doing fine without extra money."

Colin nodded.

"I'll make a call to refuse him as soon as we get to the office. Thank you for all your opinions."

Daniel breathed a mental sigh of relief. That was one issue dealt with.

"Oh, I think he mentioned he was the headmaster of your school," Colin said suddenly. "He must not directly run it if he's busy with a company."

Daniel realised Felix's father might have some clues for them without knowing it.

"What did he look like?"

Colin screwed his eyes up in concentration.

"It's a shame Vanessa wasn't there. She's much better at remembering details than me. He had white hair and was fairly old, his hair was slicked back and he was very sharply dressed in black."

It did sound like the man from the theme park.

"I've got his card with me," Colin said and drew it out his pocket. "I was going to show Vanessa."

Daniel and Felix leaned in at the same time to have a look at the card.

Graham Noble.

Chairman of Nakayama Pharm.

It was definitely the headmaster. Daniel connected the surname with Noble Pharmaceuticals which was supposed to be the company that had used the old school building.

***

"The headmaster is going after my parents' business," Felix stated the obvious on the way to school. "Can you speed up your theory at all?"

Daniel could understand his frustration.

"I need to ask Lily something first. Then we need to find out the original teachers here and make a visit to the Drama Club. Then I think everything should come together."

Felix nodded.

"Right, we can ask our former club members for the second one. They did say they could help us out in subtle ways. We just need to contact them. I just don't have any of their numbers."

"We gave our contact information to Meredith when we first joined and she wrote it down in her notebook. We just need to get to the meeting room. Did Oliver give you the key?"

Felix tapped his pocket. "I'm the leader of the Mystery Club now. You weren't there so I snatched the title."

Daniel poked him. He was appreciating the light tone despite the circ.u.mstances.

"How dare you," he snorted. "Where does that leave me?"

"You can be the accountant," Felix suggested.

"I prefer to be known as the brains."

Their banter continued until the school came into view. Felix became silent and Daniel's mind started working on the mystery again.

"Let's get this done as quickly as possible," Daniel said.

Fortunately Meredith had put everything related to the running of the Mystery Club back into the cupboard and everything was in place. Daniel flipped through her notebook and found the newest list of members and their phone numbers.

"Found-"

The door was opened and Daniel froze. If it was the headmaster or that woman from the theme park…

Instead it was a different teacher with a friendly smile. Daniel noted she was young and eliminated her as being someone involved with the past of the school. If the deaths had occurred 20 years ago, any staff members below 38 could be excluded.

"Are you two the only members of the Mystery Club?" she asked and put down her coffee flask on the desk. "Don't mind me. I just wanted to mark some work in peace."

"We are," Felix confirmed and pushed the notebook discreetly out of sight. "It wasn't popular this year…"

"That's sad," the teacher commented. "I've been keeping this room specially for them since six years ago. I was actually paid to by the club leader at the time."

Daniel and Felix looked at each other. Daniel couldn't quite work out the significance of that information.

"Why was that?"

The teacher shrugged.

"The club leader just before the end of the academic year requested that I do him a favour and ensure the room the Mystery Club uses is always this room and never a different one. He paid me a large sum of money and told me to never tell any member of staff."

"I wonder why that was," Daniel commented.

"I kept my side of it," the teacher replied. "I never questioned anything. Perhaps this room has good mystery solving vibes."

Daniel tucked the notebook into his backpack and they left the room after making an excuse. Felix checked the time on his watch. That tidbit of information was something they could wonder about later.

"Let's get to the Drama Club before first lesson."

The Drama Club were special enough to get to use a huge room by the assembly hall. It was also quite a busy room full of people walking around with scripts and costumes. Daniel looked around for someone that looked like they would be able to answer his question.

"Hey, you two aren't members," someone behind them said.

Daniel turned to see a tall blond boy staring at them. He looked to be around the same age as Amien which was exactly what he wanted to see. He needed someone who was around six years ago.

"Are you in your final year?" he asked.

The blond looked confused at the question but gave an answer.

"I am. Why?"

Daniel held up the photo they had found in the old school building which showed the bloody face at the window. It should make sense to someone who had been at the school six years ago.

The blond clapped his hands.

"Ah! Are you members of the Mystery Club? Six years ago, someone came to ask me about it then as well."