Clooney stood up and went over and got a cup of tea, and sat back down, and sipped it and watched us both.
“I can’t really remember at all!” I moaned, and made Clooney gasp and cough out all the tea in his mouth, blasting it all across his front, and he instantly started cleaning it up.
When I offered to help clean it Godfrey screamed, “Leave it!”
After resting and calming himself he looked over, and he finally asked, “Why do you think people join the army?”
“To go and see the world and universe!” I replied, wondering why they did join up.
“Universe!” he moaned back. “We’re the Home Guard! You’re hardly going to see anything…”
“Or to get about and do things people normally don’t get to do!” I continued.
“Let me explain!” he moaned, staring into my face for a few seconds, staggered by something, and putting his elbow in his tea cup and making it spill over the table, in a puddle, and he swiftly grabbed an old pair of pants out his bin and started using it to clean it up.
Once he finished he calmed himself, showing his hidden depression and inner despair, by the situation and his job ahead, and start of the war.
He calmly started saying, “Once upon a time, in the old days, about a century ago or so, people joined the French Foreign Legion to forget! Problems! Things they just wanted to escape out of! Escape from weary existences! The problems of the world! Even hide away from crimes they committed!”
He suddenly stared straight into the depths of my eyes, almost trying read my thoughts, searching my consciousness.
“Well, I’m sure I’d have recalled doing that! As you said it’s just the Home Guard! Not the Foreign Legion!”
“Really!” he replied, smiling. “How do you know you never?”
“I’ve little recollection of much at the moment! So I can’t properly answer that!”
Suddenly I realized what he had replied with and it struck me that he might have been trying to suggest something to me that I should know, and I realized I could have done something and have forgotten it and that he might know of it! I sat in horror for a few moments contemplating it, and if he could have found out about it, and I gasped as I realized my mind was more blanker than I had contemplated, and I had hardly any memories of many things, and I could not grasp what!
While I sat considering this Godfrey sat making absurd strange faces, which I had not seen before, as though in pain, and he slightly bent over and held his head firmly in his hands, and relaxed there, and his shoulders quivered and slackened, and he remained like it until he recovered, and I watched him calmly return to what he normally did.
“Perhaps you should just leave!” he moaned firmly, looking sad, almost looking as though he might cry, and he turned away from me and looked away, and the situation left me confused and I realized my goal now was to find out what the hell had happened!
Later I was sure the captain and sergeant thought I was up to something, and hiding something.
“I’ve another question!” I quickly asked the captain.
“What?” he moaned back, not looking directly at me.
“What the hell will we be doing? Surely the military doesn’t need the Home Guard at the moment?”
“We’re getting ready! We’re also doing other things! At the moment we’re helping the police search for a killer! Perhaps you can help us with that?”
“Perhaps I can!” I replied, wondering why the police needed the army. “What sort of things has he done?”
“You’re a reporter! It’s classified! We don’t want the newspapers getting it! They can have the killings but not the whole story! Got it?”
“Yes!”
“The police don’t want the public panicking! There have been a large amount of killings by someone! He virtually destroys his victims…”
“Are there any witnesses to anything?”
“No! But the police have just started their investigations!”
“Perhaps this war is having more of a reaction on people than they think!”
“Well! We can help them! We can use you to investigate what’s going on, and get some information for us on what’s happening!”
A shiver ran through me, and I shuddered, and I considered the dangers, and the guy who could do such a thing!
“Why are they so sure it’s the one person?” I asked.
“I don’t know! Perhaps as that is what normally is the case, and that their investigations have not shown anyone else! So they take everything on what they prove!”
I could not grasp if it was the way he had given the case, my memory condition, or if there really was something occurring that was new, and far more deadly than they had encountered.
Chapter 5
Outside my hotel bedroom window Loch Ness stretched out in bright sunlight, and I rested against the window frame, and dreamily watched its waves shifting up its shore, and away in the distance I saw a mysterious mist shift over the surface of the loch and the castle become visible.
For a few seconds I saw its prehistoric look and I now realized some kind of monster or large creature could exist in its confines, even though it was not entirely isolated, and it never seemed big enough, but with carefully examinations I accepted it could be and it could be deep in places.
The bedroom seemed alright. The two psychic researcher’s equipment was all over it, everywhere, and they speedily had porters bring it in while they unpacked it, and examined it for breakages or other damage.
I had never seen anything like it, and most of it was new, and new technology, and I gasped again at what their profession was!
It was the occurrence at Craigmillar Road, with the metal detector, which persuaded me to take the investigation, and I persuaded Marple to give it to me, even though I never properly knew what it was and what I was to do, and in the end why I was needed to accompany two paranormal investigators, Oswald and Higgins, to the Loch Ness location, and I continuously read through the documents on the case, and my mission, and their mission, and found little, and I could barely make anything out.
The documents were virtual missing anything that said anything about anything!
It suggested the Loch Ness monster somewhere, and never said anything of what was needed, and at the time I had heard little on the subject, and was confused why the paranormal investigators were interested in it, and even though I had done a little research into them I consistently tried to grasp what they did, and were doing at Loch Ness.
I examined their carefully placed thermometers, which Oswald carefully placed about the room. It was at less than fourteen degrees centigrade, and I estimated the temperature outside.
“What are you looking for here?” I finally enquired.
“We’re just checking everything about this place!” he replied, and took out a book, which he had filled with details from their research, and I wondered what they had found! But I now knew they would not give me anything, but I was sure they might accidentally give me a clue if I kept checking.
“But why the hell have I been taken here?” I moaned. “They’ve forgotten to give me anything! There has to be something here for me to have been put here, and Marple to take the case!”
It was my best argument, and I waited for a reply, and I watched Oswald fidget and look alert and I suddenly saw Higgins shift over to him.
Before he said anything he stopped and examined me, and stood confused about something, and he examined my shoes and stood back.
I started to realize how far they were going to go to avoid giving me anything!
He whispered something in Oswald’s ear, and they both started examining me, and they took measurements of me.