TALES OF CRIME AND FICTION

When I opened the car door to sit inside, Matt was on the phone.

"Are you sure?" He was talking to someone

I sat down and closed the door.

"Okay, I understand. Thank You, Shawn." He disconnected the call, started the car and started to drive hastily on the road, it was somewhere near six o'clock now, and the sun was all down, cold and chill wind started to blow through the streets of London. The clouds started to take over the sky and it was darker than it usually was at six o'clock. I looked at Matt with a questioning look. He saw my look and started to explain without further ado.

"Shawn said that the company did send them interview emails and they also accepted them, they also sent them tickets to come to Washington but the thing that surprised them was that they never showed up. That means that something happened between the flight take-off and landing. I am guessing a kidnapping. Then something in between the kidnapping and the murder: the thing we are missing is what happened in between the flight take-off and landing and then what happened after the kidnapping and before the murder." He went on "They didn't die weeks ago Allison, they died just a day before the tourist smelled them, they didn't die because of drowning or the water, neither did the numbness occur because of the water, it was the poison Allison, the poison did this. They were first given the poison then they were thrown into the water."

"How come you know so much about the poison? Which snake's poison was it?" I asked him eagerly

He looked at me, a look of dread in his eyes, "A one of its kind, the most dangerous snake that ever existed Allison: The Echis Columbrum, you might not have heard of it. Only those who have studied Snakes in-depth know about this breed. MetaX7 must have found it and they must have kept him in their laboratories or wherever it is they keep animals, but it must have been stolen..."

"Stolen? How can you be sure? I mean it could have escaped as well." I interrupted

"No, Allison it was stolen for sure because if it escaped then its venom couldn't be used because not just any person can catch it" he looked at me "It needs a proper procedure to be caught and MetaX7 knew that procedure, that's why they caught it without dying. The worst mistake they made was that they didn't report it to any detective agency!"

"So, now we are headed to the river. Why?"

"I feel as if we are missing something, we are missing it if my hunch is right of who did this murder. Also, I need to talk to the MetaX7. Gosh, what a long name they have!"

And with these last words, the car drove at high speed towards the Dalby forest, the place where it all began. Things started making sense now, the murder was committed in the night, and in the morning the tourist must have smelled the rotting smell called MetaX7, who discovered the bodies and called the officers who called us. The five bodies were numb, their skin torn, all because of the poison of that snake, I had to know more about the snake. All the families of the victims stated that they were experts in Venom to medicine making, they got an interview email from Washington, from a very famous Venom to Medicine industry and they accepted it. They got on the plane but we do not know what happened after the plane landed. We know that they never reached the industry. Some days later they were found dead in the Dalby forest river.

"Hey Matt, How come the snake's information is in no book that is in Dr. Michael's Laboratory?" I asked him.

"Echis Columbrum is a scientific name and it is in books but not in every book. It is found in just those books that are about it and very few people know about it these books are now very hard to find because discoverers stated that no such snake existed, it's present on Google but not its detail. MetaX7 made a very interesting detail by finding out such a snake that was known to be extinct." He told me

"Then how do you know that it was the venom of this snake that killed them?"

"Like I said, I read its book, I know the skin becomes numb and dead just after an hour of its venom. It is very dangerous Allison and if in the wrong hands, it becomes more dangerous. Also, Venom is the only type of snake venom whose description isn't anywhere but in particular books. Another thing that shows which venom the victims were given was the nails, they were strangely green and only this venom makes the nails green, Allison. "

"Did our victims know about it?"

"They must have, they had in-depth knowledge about snakes and their venom."

"WAIT!" I jumped up on my seat "What if the snake was stolen by those who kidnapped the victims? And also maybe they kidnapped them because they wanted to extract the snake's Venom?"

"Why would anyone want such a dangerous venom? And why would they extract that venom? If they knew that no medicine can be made with the venom of that snake?"

"Maybe they were not kidnapped," I said "Maybe Identity Theft was also done for kidnapping. What if the Kidnappers took the victims saying that they were from the Washington industry?"

He looked at me, his eyes glinted as if his biggest fears had come true "Allison, I do not like where this is going."

"Intelligently planned and executed this murder was Matt"

"Not all criminals execute their plans with such cleanness Allison, only one criminal gang exists that does everything this perfectly and I have a hunch it was them."

"Who? You know them?"

"Let's just say we know one another too well."

He said with a mischievous smile and he increased the speed of the car.

By the time we reached the Dalby Forest, it was 7 o'clock and the street lamps were ignited for light. The door of the Dalby Forest was, like before, closed with police tapes and a security guard sat there. Next to the door seven people stood, three females and five males. Matt parked the car and we both went towards the door. The security guard stood up to greet me, I signaled him to open the door for all of us and he did. Matt was the first to go inside, I followed him and the other seven followed me. When we had entered the forest, Matt turned around,

"MetaX7, finally we meet," He said

MetaX7 was a group of seven people who made discoveries on zoological and geographical biases. There were three females: Alexa, Jane, and Janice and there were five males: Cole, Kevin, Rick, Ralph, and Daniel. The leader of the group was Kevin, who was a middle-aged man with dark brown hair and brown eyes, he was a tall, slim fellow. When Matt greeted them, he came forward.

"Kevin, Pleasure, and” He said, “I know Detective Allison over here but who are you supposed to be?"

"Me, I am Matt Jones. A friend who is helping her solve this case." Matt told them

"Well, I already told you my name" He turned around and pointed towards a stout man with a black bushy beard on his face and curly hair on his head, perfectly combed, "This is Rick"

Rick raised his hand as a greeting, and then Kevin pointed towards a completely bald man who didn't even have a beard, he stood straight, confusion in his light blue eyes. His hands folded on his chest, "This is Ralph."

"Ola!" Ralph raised his hand, and then Kevin pointed towards a man with a bob cut, his hair straight and brown, his beard clean shaved. He looked starved to me by his body, but his face looked fresh "This is Cole"

Cole gave a smile, then Kevin pointed towards the remaining four, A short stout man with spiked hair, his hands tied behind his back, wearing round spectacles on his green eyes, a tall girl, nearly twenty with a bob cut and pink hair, another girl nearly her age, her blond hair were tied behind in a messy bun and she wore square glasses on her grey eyes and finally a middle-aged woman, who looked the wisest and oldest in all the three females, her hair tied behind in a French braid, her hands folded on her chest. "Daniel, Alexa, Janice, and Jane" He introduced them all, and they all raised their hands as a greeting.

"Well, if the introductions are done shall we get to business?" Matt asked

"Yeah sure, what happened?" Kevin asked him

"I am pretty sure it is us who is going to ask the questions," Matt said delightfully clapping his hands together.

"Oh Okay," Kevin gave an awkward answer.

"So, it’s going to be just yes and no for now, if I ask for further detail, then you will answer otherwise just yes or no." Matt said and without waiting for an answer he continued "You caught the world’s most dangerous and venomous snake called Echis Columbrum?"

"Well...." Kevin began but Matt interrupted

"No, no, no" He moved his index finger left and right "Just yes or no"

"Yes," Kevin replied

"And you didn't tell about it to any authority?"

"No," Kevin said

"We were going to but then there was a change in the plans" cut in Alexa

"Oh," Matt opened his eyes widely "Were the plans changed because of a thievery?"

The whole group turned white except Ralph, I noticed that he was very anxious, but then again the whole group was.

"Yes, it was stolen" Rick replied "but we didn't report its thievery"

"Why?" Matt asked

"We couldn't, it wasn't reported to be found so it was illegal, and reporting it would land us in court," Kevin explained

"You will land in court still or maybe even in prison," I said

"Why?" Rick asked, worriedly

"The five people were killed with the venom of this snake" Matt explained, inserting his hands in his pockets again "You're responsible for that. Where did you keep the snake?"

"In a high-security vault in our laboratory," Kevin replied

"All right" Matt's face showed that he was in deep thought "Tell me, Kevin; how did you catch it?"

"Well, it needs a proper procedure to be caught. Not everyone can catch it that easily, so after failing at least three times we learned that to catch it there must be a proper plan planned out. That is when we also learned that this snake is very dangerous and its venom can kill a human in hours and there is no cure for it, we also learned that its skin is also dangerous to human life. Thankfully, none of us had touched that snake. So we took proper measures and planned out how to catch the snake. We succeeded in the end but decided not to report that we had caught it because we had very little knowledge about it. We decided to make some more discoveries on that snake but....it was stolen a few days after we caught it." Kevin sighed

"So, did no one other than the seven of you know that you had caught the world's most dangerous snake that ever existed?" I asked

"Yes" Kevin replied

"One more thing," Matt asked "The password of the vault, how many of you knew it?"

"All seven of us," Kevin replied

"All seven of you?" Matt raised his eyebrows

"Yes," Kevin replied "I...I just do not understand how this happened and it has been used to. It’s just too much to dissolve"

"Well, thank you very much, Kevin, we'll call you if we need your acquaintance again but I must say, your whole team must pay a visit to the court because what you did puts your hand in the murder," Matt said and turned away to move forward.

"I understand" Kevin replied "See you soon Detective," he said to me and turned to leave the forest. I turned around to follow Matt.

"I think it was one of the members of the team that stole the snake," I said

"You think right Allison" He replied, walking straight with his hands in his pockets

"Where are we headed?" I asked him

"To the lake" He replied

"Why?"

"I want to make sure tonight if it was the criminal Gang that I think it is who committed this murder"

"How are you going to do that?"

"You'll see Allison, You'll see" He replied and went walking towards the river bank.

The river bank was just as beautiful as always, though it was now a sight of dread because five bodies were found under it. The sky was filled with clouds and the moon wasn't seen tonight. The river lay still as some far tropic sea where no winds murmur, nor waves be. The two of us stood near it, the breeze flowing through the sleepy forest. I stood there quietly, watching Matt go to every tree and observe its trunk, I had no idea what was going on in his mind, then again: I never had any idea what he was doing. It took a while as he went to every tree that stood near the river bank and observed its trunk then he observed the mud beneath the trees. When he had observed everything he turned towards me.

"Well, let’s call it a night shall we Allison?" He asked me, a beaming smile on his face.

"What?" I asked him, confused

He laughed, whether at my confusion or the expression my face gave while my mind was confused. I don't know but his laugh was just very pleasant, lifting, inspiring it was as if we weren't solving a murder case but sitting in a coffee shop drinking coffee and enjoying the evening.

"What's so funny?" I asked him

"Nothing, come on," He said to me as he went walking towards the exit, I followed him quietly. We reached the door, the security guard was still standing.

"Everyone out, I suppose?" He asked us

"Oh yes, there was a group of people and then there is the two of us. No one is inside now" Matt told him.

"Okay," he replied and closed the door behind us. The two of us went walking towards the car and we sat in it, Matt started the car and reversed it back on the road.

"So?" I asked him

"So?" He repeated

"So, did you make sure who the murderer was?" I asked him

"Ask me tomorrow and I'll tell you, right now we are headed home. At least you are." He said as the car drifted swiftly on the road.

"What a person!" I said to myself, peering out of the car window.