by Joanne Smedley

Created on: April 20, 2008   Last Updated: June 11, 2008

Suspects:

Tim Finnamore
Robin Karner
Anna Nandra
Colin Templeman

MURDER IN THE DARK

Abigail James listened to the uproar going on around her and tucked herself a little neater under the table.

It didn't matter that no-one really understood the rules of the game. These days "Murder in the Dark" was just an excuse for the guys to get their hands on the girls they had been eying up all evening, and for those already paired off to find a quiet spot and get on with the more interesting business of kissing.

Abigail wasn't interested in boys, nor was she interested in some stupid elementary school game; which was why she was tucked underneath the table avoiding the trampling feet that were rushing past.

She heard a yelp as someone impacted on a sharp object in the room, and then, at long last, the blood curdling scream which indicated to all the murder had occurred.

The scream she recognised as belonging to Robin Karner long before the lights came on. But it wasn't Robin on the floor as she had supposed. It was Julian Frakes the class bully. As Robin screamed again, Tim Finnamore and Anna Nandra ran across. They had both been in the room when Colin switched on the lights.

Abigail crawled out from under the table and walked across. The gathered friends stepped aside as she approached. She was the daughter of both a medic and a detective and this seemed to give her an authority amongst her peers which she felt she didn't really deserve.

She bent down and placed two fingers on his neck, groping for the pulse. It was faint, but just there.

"Phone an ambulance."

As she rolled him into the recovery position, her fingers touched something warm and sticky. On closer examination she found two identical puncture wounds on the underside of his neck a vampire bite? It WAS a Halloween party and yet that didn't particularly ring true as a cause of death, especially when she could still feel a pulse from a heart beat! It was nothing but a cheep trick, and one, Abigail felt, was in very poor taste.

She looked around at the gathered classmates. Four were in vampire costume tonight:
Robin Karner who had found the body, Tim Finnamore, Julian's best friend, Anna Nandra, an ordinarily quiet and shy girl, and Colin Templeman whose house they were all at tonight. The rest of the class were an assortment of mummies, witches, ghosts and monsters, there was even a witch doctor, a costume probably prompted by the class's recent studies into the Amazonian tribes and the visit by Colin's mum, a biologist who

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