2:00 a.m. — Eldervale Forest, Brambleshire
Deep within Eldervale Forest, darkness stretched endlessly between the trees.
Only pale moonlight filtered through the dense canopy above, spilling in thin silver ribbons across the ground.
Sian moved quietly through the undergrowth, a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. Beneath his tall leather boots, dry leaves and brittle twigs crunched softly with every careful step.
Several paces ahead of him, Beatrice lowered her long white snout to the forest floor, sniffing intently as she followed a trail invisible to human eyes. After a while, the trees began to thin, and they reached the edge of a quiet lake whose still waters reflected the pale moonlight like polished silver.
Beatrice stopped, her furry ears twitching. Then a faint rustle came from the trees on the opposite side of the lake.
Sian's hand immediately went to the rifle on his shoulder. He slipped it free and sank into a crouch behind the thick trunk of an oak tree.
Moments later, a deer emerged from the shadows on the far shore and stepped into the moonlight. Unaware of the eyes watching it from across the water, it lowered its head to drink.
Sian slowly raised the rifle, resting it against his shoulder as his grey eyes fixed on the animal. He steadied his breathing and waited, keeping the dark barrel perfectly aligned with his target. The rifle's silver fittings and intricate engravings were barely visible in the faint moonlight filtering through the trees.
Just a little closer...
His finger settled against the trigger. He waited for the deer to raise its head, holding his aim steady as he prepared to fire.
Then a twig snapped somewhere in the darkness.
The deer's head shot up, droplets falling from its muzzle as it froze, its ears twitching. Sian tightened his grip and pulled the trigger, but the sudden movement had already thrown off his aim.
The gunshot tore through the forest's silence. The bullet struck the bark of a tree on the far shore, sending a small burst of splinters into the air as the deer bolted into the darkness.
For a few seconds, Sian remained frozen in place. Then he lowered the rifle with a quiet sigh.
It had escaped.
Beatrice suddenly lifted her head. Her ears perked up, and for a moment, she stood completely still, staring into the darkness. Then, without warning, she bolted between the trees.
"Beatrice!" Sian called out and hurried after her.
Sian gave a short whistle and stood still, listening for a response. The sounds of the woods surrounded him—the distant hoot of an owl and the soft scraping of branches against one another. Then, after a moment, a bark echoed somewhere in the distance. He immediately followed the sound, weaving between the trees until they gradually began to thin, revealing a small cabin.
It stood alone, swallowed by silence, while Beatrice waited before it.
As he approached the door, Beatrice let out a soft whine and glanced back at him, her gaze lingering on him for a moment before returning to the door. Sian slowly pushed it open. The hinges let out a long, unsettling creak.
A heavy, suffocating wave of air seeped out from within, thick with the unmistakable scent of death.
Inside, a woman's body hung motionless from a thick rope tied to one of the wooden beams above.
Her feet dangled a few inches above the floor, swaying ever so slightly, while a wooden chair lay overturned on the floor beneath her.
___
A constable in a long, forest-green coat fastened with brass buttons and a round, flat-crowned hat stood like a statue beside the cabin door, keeping watch over it and guarding the scene against any curious onlooker who might approach. Several paces away, Inspector Silas Gray stood with Sian.
Inspector Silas Gray was a man of average height and build, dressed in plain, almost stereotypically inspector-like clothing in muted earth tones. He held a small notebook in his dry hands, where he had recorded every statement. From time to time, he lowered his deep-set eyes to it to review what he had written, the fine lines around his mouth becoming more pronounced whenever he spoke.
"So, let me make sure I have this right," Inspector Silas Gray said, glancing down at his notebook. "You were out hunting, found the cabin, and went inside because you believed it was abandoned."
"Yes, sir," Sian replied, standing before him.
The inspector lowered his eyes to the notebook again, continuing to read through the details and verify them with the witness.
"We received the report after three…"
Sian's attention had already begun to drift away from the inspector's words.
Reality seemed to slip from his grasp. The inspector's voice grew distant and muffled, as though it were coming from somewhere far away.
His eyes remained fixed on the cabin.
From where he stood, he could still make out the victim hanging inside, her beautiful golden hair falling over her shoulders as her feet dangled above the floor.
Then—
The body was gone.
The rope still hung from the wooden beam, swaying gently.
His eyes remained fixed on the cabin.
No one seemed to have noticed.
A young woman stood several paces away, pale and motionless. A dark mark encircled her neck, exactly where the rope should have been.
"Sir… Mr. Lumière?"
The inspector's voice pulled him from his daze.
Sian blinked.
The body was there again, hanging exactly where it had been before.
No woman.
No ghostly apparition bearing the mark of the noose.
Only the corpse.
"Are you all right?" the inspector asked in his hoarse voice.
Sian raised a hand and pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose, visibly affected.
"My apologies. It seems the sight of a corpse affected me more than I expected. Could you repeat what you said, Inspector?"
The inspector studied his expression for a moment before straightening his inner coat and slipping his notebook back into his pocket. 'All right. I could hardly blame him. Seeing a corpse was not easy for anyone, especially if it was their first time.'
"Fill this out, please." Inspector Gray held out a wooden clipboard with several sheets of paper clipped to it and a fountain pen. "Put down all your personal information, including your address. We'll send someone there if anything comes up."
Sian took it, then glanced down at his wristwatch. The hands had already passed a quarter past four.
Gray slipped his hand into the other inner pocket of his coat and pulled out an open pack of cigarettes along with a lighter. He raised the pack to his mouth, caught a cigarette between his teeth, and pulled it free before returning the pack to his pocket without bothering to close it. He flicked open the lighter, lit the cigarette, and took a slow drag.
He held it between his fingers as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke downward, then muttered to himself, "Is it possible she ended her life because of some scandal? Or perhaps poverty. Debts."
Gray turned toward the cabin, bringing the cigarette back to his lips for another drag. This time, he left it between his lips as he spoke, his words slightly muffled as a thin wisp of smoke escaped from the corner of his mouth. "But why come to a place like this? If she intended to end her life, why go through all the trouble of coming here? Was she ashamed of her death to such an extent? It makes me wonder whether someone staged the scene to make it look like suicide."
His expression carried a certain indifference, the kind that came from years in a profession until even a corpse became less a tragedy than another puzzle to solve.
"But we won't know for certain until the doctor arrives. He's the one who can give us a definite answer."
He spoke through the smoke of his cigarette, his tone carrying a trace of irritation.
"He always takes his time and comes whenever he pleases. Sometimes he makes you feel as though our work is less important than his."
"If you had hanged yourself in that position, you would have had to push the chair away from beneath you," Sian said, causing the inspector to turn away from the cabin and look at him.
"And I would expect the chair to have fallen at roughly the same angle as the one beneath the body," Sian added, a pen still resting against the section of the form asking for his occupation.
"Couldn't anyone have pushed the chair away afterward and arranged the scene to make it look like suicide?" the inspector replied casually, his eyes slightly watered by the cigarette smoke.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and dropped the butt to the ground, grinding it beneath his shoe. Without much thought, he reached into the inner pocket of his coat for the cigarette pack, slipped a fresh cigarette between his lips, and tucked the pack back into his pocket. The lighter was still in his other hand as he raised it toward the new cigarette, ready to light it, when Sian spoke.
"The rope marks around her neck rise toward the point of suspension. They follow the direction of the rope rather than pressing evenly around the neck."
The inspector stopped.
What he had just heard did not sound like the idle speculation of someone who simply enjoyed playing detective and sticking his nose into matters that did not concern him. It sounded more like a precise piece of medical analysis.
There was something suspicious about this hunter.
"May I have a cigarette?" Sian asked politely.
Inspector Gray looked at him in surprise for a couple of seconds.
"Ah. No problem."
He reached into his coat pocket and took out the open pack, holding it out to Sian. Sian took a single cigarette, then returned the pack to him. Gray handed him the lighter as well. Sian lit the cigarette and gave the lighter back.
Gray's gaze dropped to the rifle slung over Sian's shoulder.
"Is that rifle licensed?"
"Yes," Sian replied, exhaling a thin stream of grey smoke.
The inspector's eyes lingered on the rifle for a long moment before returning to Sian.
"Have you ever had any experience with criminal investigations?"
Sian looked at him.
"I'm just a hunter."
He said it so casually that the inspector's question seemed to him more like a joke—or perhaps a compliment—than anything worth taking seriously. At the same time, Sian handed the completed clipboard back to him, holding his cigarette between the fingers of his other hand.
The inspector raised his eyes and studied the man standing before him. Sian's grey eyes seemed almost empty, the colour resembling the smoke curling lazily through the air. There was something about them that unsettled him, though he could not determine why.
He reached out and took the clipboard.
Before he could say anything else, a sudden burst of barking broke the silence, making both men turn toward the sound.
Beatrice stood only a step away from the constable assigned to guard the cabin. He was struggling to keep her at a distance.
"I'm sorry, sir," the constable said. "She became aggressive when I tried to keep her from approaching the cabin."
Sian gave a single sharp whistle. Beatrice stopped fussing immediately and hurried back to his side.
"Sorry, sir. She barks at strangers."
The inspector watched the dog for a moment.
"All right. You may leave now. As I said, if anything comes up, we'll send someone to the address you provided."
Sian turned without another word and began to leave, Beatrice following close behind.
The inspector watched him disappear down the road.
'He was pretending.'
Inspector Gray had known from the beginning that the hunter was pretending. He had seen enough bodies to recognize genuine distress.
'Trembling, nausea, difficulty standing, an inability to speak clearly—those were the signs of genuine distress. The hunter had shown just enough to make his reaction convincing, but he had answered every question and noticed details most people would have overlooked. And his eyes… they had not belonged to a man who had just witnessed a corpse. There had been no emotion in them at all.'
Judging by the time the report had reached the station and the distance between the cabin and the nearest post office, which was no less than a forty-minute walk, the hunter must have been wandering through the forest long before dawn.
'Long before dawn, then... Strange. Most hunters didn't venture deep into the woods until shortly before sunrise.'
Inspector Gray frowned slightly, unable to understand why he was bothering himself with it. Perhaps it was simply the nature of his work. Suspicion was, after all, a natural part of being an inspector.
"Excuse me, Inspector."
A voice behind him broke through his thoughts.
The doctor had finally arrived, carrying a leather medical case in one hand. He wore a long dark coat over a waistcoat, with a high white collar visible above it. A low, rounded hat sat neatly on his head. Small, round wire-rimmed spectacles rested on his nose, while a neatly trimmed, greying beard framed his mature and focused face.
"Sorry for the delay," the doctor added.
Inspector Gray gave a brief nod. He had no intention of complaining; he simply wanted the doctor to do his job so they could finally leave this remote place.
The doctor got straight to work. He set his leather case on the ground, opened it, and put on his gloves before entering the cabin and approaching the body.
Several minutes later, once he had finished his examination, the doctor returned and stopped beside the inspector. He removed his gloves, folded them together, placed them inside his leather case, and closed it.
"Suicide."
Inspector Gray sighed, without showing much emotion.
"People escape the misery of life with their own hands," he said before adding, "Can you tell me how you came to that conclusion?"
"The rope marks around the neck and the position of the body... they all indicate that she was hanged. I found no clear signs that the body had been placed there after death," the doctor explained without hesitation.
Inspector Gray considered this for a couple of seconds before adding, "And what about the angle at which the chair fell?"
"Yes. That as well," the doctor agreed.
"That is a very important observation. It supports the conclusion that she took her own life. Your observation was sharp and entirely justified. Exactly what I would expect from an experienced inspector."
"It wasn't my observation."
The inspector's eyes shifted toward the road Sian had taken.
"It was the observation of the hunter who reported the body."
"The hunter," the doctor repeated, following the inspector's gaze toward the empty road.
"Perhaps he has some experience with investigations."
"Nah. He seems too young to have retired from that kind of work," Inspector Gray replied.
"Then perhaps he is simply very observant."
The doctor shrugged as he picked up his medical case and adjusted his hat on his head.
Inspector Gray remained silent, his eyes still fixed on the road where Sian had disappeared.
The first light of dawn was beginning to spread across the forest. A soft golden glow crept along the empty road, slowly washing the edges of the trees in pale amber as the darkness receded between their branches.
"He's just a hunter," he muttered.