No one knows

Lying on the cold forest ground Scarlett Sheridan slowly gives up on life. And for the first time in her life, no one is around to save her. Alone, is the popular girl with thousand of friends at university. Alone, is daddy’s girl with a horde of servants at her service. Alone, is the girl who knew too much and is dying for that reason. She’d always thought that secret would serve as a guarantee of her life, but she is slowly realising, that it was the cataclysm of her demise. Ignorance for her, had always been the worst thing, but at this particular moment, she finds herself thinking that maybe, just maybe, it never was. Alone and lying on dead leaves, Scarlett breathes in for the last time air as cold as the blood flowing down her sliced neck.

*

Midleck University was one of the best universities in the country, if not the best. Built in 1914 in the state of Massachusetts, it was seen by many as being the next member of the Ivy League. Lilith Andersen, the head of the university had everything to facilitate its ascension to the top, but in the wake of the tragedy she found herself incapable of doing a thing. As a result, Midleck University sank so low that it has now become a source of taboo. ‘Do not mention M.U and what do you mean you would want to send your kids there?’, ‘Haven’t you seen the news?’, ‘Are you crazy?’, ‘Don’t you love your kids?’ were some of the questions, one would get, if they were to ever mention the name of what was once a prestigious university. And that is all for one reason; Scarlett Sheridan, one of the most promising students at Midleck University had been murdered and for such university, once you’d gotten so close to the top, there was no way to go, than down, down and down. 

Prior to the unfortunate event, the city of Midleck was known to attract a good number of tourists mainly because of its esteemed university. Indeed it resembled an old castle and stood in the heart of a forest, far from civilisation yet close enough to be accessible. Having said that, no bus could be found in the direct vicinity of the university, so one needed a car or a taxi to get there. Students utterly adored the privacy that the forest gave them and were sometimes caught venturing into it, especially at prohibited times. It was not like anything was ever meant to happen, but one could never be too cautious. Spring was the only time of the year were they could freely go in and out. 

It is in this atmosphere of games and secrets that the body of Scarlett Sheridan had been discovered in her room by none other than Madeleine Richards, her best friend. Covered in her blood and completely numb, the young redhead was then transported to the hospital. The news of the popular girl’s death travelled like crazy and caused quite a ruckus. That morning, the chief of police Jordan Hardy interrogated at least twenty students. It led to Sion Finns (the boyfriend of the deceased) and Madeleine Richards being labelled as persons of interest in the murder. Where Sion claimed he’d last seen the victim at around 11pm on the night of that night, leaving her to sleep as she was feeling sick, Madeleine assured the police it was all a lie and they had in fact fought. She revealed to have left Scarlett at around 2am and going back to the room to fetch her for breakfast. If one was to ignore Sion and Madeleine’s history together as -according to their peers- they were an item behind Scarlett’s back and secretly wanted to get rid of her, it struck officer Jordan how their testimonies contradicted one another. Furthermore, Madeleine’s mother, the mayor of that small city had also become involved and had tried to shield her daughter. To make it worse, a detective, named Léonard Sais-tout had been sent to help police intendant Jordan Hardy with the investigation. He was as french as one could get and said stuff like “ madame le maire”,“c’est inadmissible” and when the mayor, tried to take Madeleine away from Mrs Andersen’s office, he said “you are just delaying the inevitable” in a very thick accent. 

By afternoon, however, things had severely changed. First of all, Harriett Lloyd and Elena Lairs had come forward with life-changing information. It appeared that Scarlett had gone to a club that night and had left with a group of people at around 6 or 7am. Elena had spent most of that time with her and confessed to the police that Scarlett had seemed unsteady and really prickly. When asked about the identity of the group members with whom she’d left, Elena could not produce a suitable answer. She was of the view that they were from the city and were possibly Scarlett’s friends. No one recognised portraits of them later drawn from Elena’s recollection. Moreover, the gardener announced that he’d seen Scarlett go back alone to the girl’s hostel around 7am. For that reason, Sais-tout and Hardy angled once again their investigation towards the boyfriend and best friend. It did not help that once confronted with the revelation that Scarlett had told Elena that night that she’d learnt of her best friend and boyfriend’s relationship, Madeleine changed her testimony. She blamed Sion for her best friend’s death before trying to kill herself. Following the result of the autopsy, which correlated with Elena and the gardener’s testimonies, it was concluded that someone was waiting for Scarlett in her room and had killed her then. Armed with no alibis to defend themselves, Sion and Madeleine were arrested on suspicion of murder.

In all honesty, Detective Sais-tout had been a bit reluctant to arrest both students, claiming it was too easy and they’d surely been set-up. Hardy, on the other hand was convinced of the opposite.

“ I don’t know what kind of cases you have back in the city, but here in Midleck, suspects are usually the murderers.” He’d said, while handcuffing Sion. 

The whole of Midleck mourned Scarlett Sheridan and were getting ready to turn the page (after all the suspects had been caught and the murder trial was fast approaching), when some shocking information surfaced. Unbeknownst to all, Sais-tout had continued to work on the case and had discovered by looking at multiple camera surveillances that Scarlett Sheridan had not in fact been killed in her room but somewhere else. The murdered had killed her, transported her frail corpse to her room and staged the perfect crime scene (her pyjama had been changed and everything that indicated where she’d been was wiped clean). By the end of that week, it had become clear that Sion and Madeleine were not the murderers after all. Multiple questions subsequently arose, who’d killed her? Who was that girl the gardener had seen? Who was the group of people with whom she’d left that party? Where had she been killed? And most importantly, why did someone ever want her dead?