Kronberg Crimes 01 - The Devils Grin

and climbed down. The inner wall reached an elevation of only six feet and wouldn’t be too hard to scale.
    I rubbed dirt onto my too-white face and started running. With a leap, I caught the top of the wall and pulled myself up. Patches of silvery light moved over the lawn. I gazed up at the sky. The cloud cover had opened and revealed a too bright half-moon.
    Aware of my sudden visibility, I dropped down on the other side of the wall, producing a soft thud. A bush provided limited cover and I used it to take a look around, but could see no one. I waited and listened for a long moment, but Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum appeared dead quiet. I wondered what Holmes was doing. Or, for that matter, what I was doing — a woman disguised as a man and now pretending to be an asylum burglar.
    I shook off the thought and almost jumped at the hooting of a tawny owl. With my fist over my heart, I took a few slow breaths to calm myself and then ran to the next hiding place — a small tool shed close to the high security block for males. Cautiously, I snuck up to the building and pressed against its wall. There was a window low enough for me to reach; I peered inside and swallowed.
    I had expected to see a cell. Last time I had been here, this block consisted of parallel rows of cells housing insane murderers. There was no need for a large hall — they neither socialised nor ate together. These men were extremely dangerous; they were kept isolated in small rooms they never left. But from what I saw, this block had been re-built dramatically. The rows of cells were partially replaced by a large hall. There was no one to be seen, but the number of small bunks sent goosebumps up my spine: each was equipped with four fetters — two for the ankles, two for the wrists. The room looked tidy, as though recently cleaned up.
    With a heavy heart, I turned away and started towards the female block, when suddenly I came across fresh wheel tracks in the grass. The cart must have been fully laden, for the tracks were deep despite the dry soil. They led me towards my final destination. My stomach started growling with foreboding. I turned a corner and the heating facility came into view. Its heavy iron door stood ajar, letting the glow of fire lick the trodden lawn.
    Inching closer, I took each bit of cover I could find. Voices inside the building reverberated on the thick stone walls and trickled through the dark. One of them was the rasp of Nicholson, Broadmoor’s superintendent, but no matter how much I strained my ears, I could not understand what was being said.
    I was so close now, I could see through the door into a room with a large oven. One man was talking — Nicholson, another shovelled coal while two men hurled one large sack after another into the fire. The effort it took them and the sharp downward bend in the middle of each sack identified their content. Strangely, my mind swallowed the information without stirring up the slightest trace of emotion. Only after the sweet smoke had crawled from the chimney into my nostrils did the horror shake my limbs.
    Gasping, I pressed my face into my sleeve and hugged my knees tightly, trying to resist the urge to run inside and rip Nicholson’s eyes out. It took me a while to collect myself. There was nothing to be done, except to leave quietly.
    Running over the lawn, breathing became almost impossible with that large lump in my throat. To scale the inner wall wasn’t easy, either. I found my oak and the rope hanging down from it and made my way up. Then I lay flat on the thick branch and wept.

    ~~~

    ‘I’d have preferred that you stayed in London,’ a quiet voice said.
    My head jerked up and I stared at Holmes, who sat on the very same branch, leaning his back on the massive trunk.
    I rose to my feet. ‘Leave me alone,’ I choked while undoing the rope and pushing past him.
    ‘Wait,’ he urged.
    I couldn’t bear his company now. Or any company for that matter. Ignoring him, I slung my rucksack on my back and climbed down the tree. He exclaimed quietly while making his way down, too. Quickly, I started off to a place where I had spotted a small clearing earlier tonight, and was gone long before Holmes’s shoes had touched the forest floor.
    After a while of racing my lungs out, I reached a small bog lake — a circular, black velvet cloth, its rims decorated with clumps of grass, fenberry shrubs and pale green sphagnum moss. I dropped my rucksack and shed my clothes. More than