by Heide Goody
“It should always be bolted,” said Delia. There was sufficient doubt in her voice.
“Bolted or not?”
“Bolted. I’m a certain percent certain.”
“And it happened in the night?”
“Between me putting them to bed and this morning when…” Delia looked to the sky and clutched her chest to forestall more tears.
Sam looked at the top of the gate and imagined an unfolded coat hanger being slipped over the top and hooked through the bolt or some other burglar’s trick. “And that’s definitely your plank?”
Delia blinked at the blood-stained board. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m just wondering — if they intended to kill the turkey, why didn’t they bring their own murder weapon?”
“Crime of passion? Heat of the moment?”
“Why would anyone want to kill a turkey anyway? Someone with objections to you raising them for Christmas? An angry vegan? No, that doesn’t work.”
“We never said that these were going to be anyone’s Christmas dinner,” said Delia firmly. “After this upset, young Twizzler is going nowhere.”
Sam shook her head. “The motive is just not there. The means and the opportunity. It seems straightforward, but it doesn’t add up. If only there was a witness.”
Delia stepped aside and gestured plainly at Twizzler. The turkey made a ‘blobble-obble’ noise and pecked at an orange bucket of feed.
“A witness who can talk, perhaps,” Sam suggested kindly.
Delia hmphed.
Sam looked at the windows of the Otterside retirement village. At least two of the second floor apartments had a view of the garden unobstructed by trees. And was that a CCTV camera on the side of the building? If she was supremely lucky, it might even be a DefCon4 camera.
“Right, I’ve got work this afternoon. A mammoth to collect.”
“A what?”
“Exactly. But this investigation will continue. And…” Sam gestured to the covered corpse of Drumstick. “I’ll take the body away.”
“For forensic analysis,” nodded Delia.
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Thanks. That means a lot,” Delia sniffed and her expression suddenly brightened. “Hey, I’ve got something for you.”
“Oh?”
“An early Christmas present.”
She nipped into the kitchen for a moment and came out with a dinky plant pot, holding a small but perky powder puff cactus.
“A replacement for Doug,” she said.
“A Doug Junior.”
“No one should work alone. You need a colleague.”
Sam took the young cactus. “More of an apprentice,” she said. “That’s lovely.”
It was a touching gesture. It made Sam feel guilty that when Delia had mentioned forensic analysis of the turkey, her mind had already gone to cranberry sauce and stuffing and all the trimmings of Christmas dinner.
5
Polly and Strawb walked a route that roughly followed the perimeter of the Otterside property. He pointed out the main features of the retirement village: the swimming pool, the outbuildings, the path to the gate that led to the beach, the pitch and putt course.
“Pitch and putt?” she said, staring at the overgrown lawn of weeds. “At a care home?”
“Retirement village, not care home,” said Strawb. “Big distinction. And yes, there used to be a pitch and putt out there. Lost in the mists of facking time.” His accent seemed to bloom when he swore. “Like everything here. Otterside, out of mind.”
It was a weak pun, but she smiled anyway.
To her surprise she found Strawb to be exceedingly good company. He had an obvious charm, a working class lad happy with his place in the world. As they continued their walk, he rolled his shoulders, filled with a restless energy, as though merely walking was too little for him. He was an outgoing man, yet he didn’t dominate the conversation. He guided it, he nudged, but let her do all the talking.
She was saying something about her late sister (though she couldn’t remember how they’d gotten onto the topic) when Strawb pointed at the trees ahead. “Look. A robin.”
She peered at the undergrowth and saw a flash of brown and orange.
“I bladdy love robins,” said Strawb. “Cheeky buggers they are.”
“They’re used to human company.”
“Scavengers.”
“Our mum used to say they were Father Christmas’s spies, checking if we’ve been good.”
“Like I say, cheeky buggers. And have you been good this year, Polly?”
“I was never a good girl,” she said with feeling.
Strawb laughed. “You know what,” he said, gesturing at the little-used lawn around them. “We should have something out here. Games and stuff.”
“I don’t think I was ever a fan of pitch and putt,” she said.
“What about some crazy golf, eh?” He grinned. “Everyone loves a bit of crazy golf.”
Polly would have disagreed except, reflecting on the matter, she had always found the game whimsically diverting.
“I know a bloke who could sort us out. Fact, I saw Ragnar’s van up at the car park. Shall we do that, Poll? Bit of crazy golf to put a smile on your face?”
She stopped and gave him a somewhat stern look. “Is this what you do, Mr Fisher? Whisk women away from the comfort of the day room and bedazzle then with promises of crazy golf?”
He thought on it. “That’d be a bladdy weird thing to do, wouldn’t it? Nah, I’m on the social committee. Me and Margaret and Jacob. It’s our job to think up ways of staving off the endless boredom. Got to keep the new blood entertained or they’ll just up sticks and leave, like Bob who used to have your apartment.”
“Oh, he actually left of his own accord?” she said.
“Yes. Why? What did you—?”
“My niece and the manager—”
“Chesney.”
“Yes. They were talking about it. I just assumed it was code for him having died.”
Strawb barked with laughter. Polly was less amused.
“People seem to talk in code a lot these days,” she said. “Like if they’re a little vague and give little secret winks, I won’t know what they’re talking about. My niece seems to think just because I have symptoms of dementia, I’ve gone completely do-lally.”
“And do you?”
“Have dementia?” She stared blankly for a moment. “I’ve behaved oddly. I swore horribly at the poor young man in the supermarket. I gave him the ‘V’s as well.”
“Did he deserve it?” asked Strawb.
“I honestly don’t recall.”
“Well, you don’t look in the least bit do-lally to me, Polly.”
“Oh, your medical opinion is clearly one I should listen to. My niece gave me some tablets.”
He pointed ahead. “Here, let’s ask Jacob what he thinks about your crazy golf idea.” He strode over to where a small man in round glasses was apparently inspecting the quality of the perimeter fence. “Oi, Jacob,” called Strawb. “What do you reckon, eh?”
“What’s that?” said Jacob. He had his shirt done up to the top button though he wore no tie. He had a shiny well-pressed air about him. He looked like a mint-in-the-box little old man toy.
“Crazy golf over ’ere,” said Strawb. “We could get Ragnar to build it.”
“Golf causes more sporting injuries than rugby,” said Jacob.
“But this is just crazy golf.”
“Forty thousand people are hospitalised each year by flying golf balls.”
“I’m not hearing a no,” said Strawb. He turned to draw Polly into the discussion. “Polly thinks it’s a marvellous idea.”
“Oh, do I?” she said.
6
Back in her Piaggio Ape 50 van, poor dead Drumstick was temporarily stored in the organ box with two packs of frozen peas from Delia’s freezer on top. She would use these to keep the mammoth specimen cool. Sam re-checked
her task list on the company app. The mammoth task hadn’t magically disappeared. Well, the only thing to do was to go to the Humber College address and collect the package from this Professor Springer.
She placed her new cactus on the dashboard and pinned him in place with a lump of Blu-Tack that was stuck to the dash for just such situations. “Welcome to the team, Doug,” she said.
Doug Junior was a quiet sort and didn’t actually respond, but she sensed a silent optimism in him that spoke of his intentions to make the best of his new role.
Her app’s suggested travel time from Skegness to the Humber College of Sciences was another example of DefCon4’s loose grasp of reality. The college was in Hessle, just outside of Hull, sixty miles north and on the other side of the Humber estuary. Her app gave her an hour and a half to make the journey, which would have been perfectly reasonable if the company had provided her with an ordinary vehicle. However, the Piaggio Ape 50, a beautiful piece of low-cost, three-wheeled Italian engineering, was a tiny van with a top speed of little more than thirty miles an hour.
She pootled unhurriedly north, out from the flat coast, through the rolling hills and scattered villages of the Lincolnshire Wolds – Wold Newton, Ashby cum Fenby, Riby, Swallow – before reaching the wide Humber. The one and half mile suspension bridge linking Lincolnshire with East Yorkshire had toll booths at the northern end. The man in the booth looked out at Sam and scowled.
“What?” she said.
“Is it a car or a motorbike?” he said.
“It’s a van,” she said, with a high-pitched defensiveness she didn’t necessarily feel.
“Van’s cost even more.”
“It’s a motorbike,” she said.
“Right-o,” he said. He nodded at the ‘organs in transit box’ beside her on the passenger seat. “You got organs in there?”
“Huh? No. It’s empty. I’m on my way to make a collection.”
“High pressure job.”
She shrugged. “As long as I get it back to Skegness before it defrosts, it’s fine.”
The man might have engaged her further but she’d handed over her coins. The barrier was up and she drove on.
As she followed the sat-nav round a looping road that circled beneath the bridge, Sam’s phone rang. It was her dad, Marvin. “You okay, dad?”
“What kind of way is that to start a conversation?” he said amiably.
“Just asking if you were okay.”
“What you were doing,” said Marvin, “was assuming I couldn’t be left alone for a day without doing myself some mischief. A heart attack while watching Loose Women.”
“Why? Does Loose Women cause your heart to race?”
“Or a fall down the stairs.”
“You live in a bungalow.”
“May the gods of light entertainment save us from facetious children. There are stairs in this house.”
He was right. Duncastin’, the bungalow home he currently shared with Sam, was a sprawling centipede of a house and probably had more individual steps than a normal house.
“Also, the implication – which wounds me deeply – is that I would only phone you if I was in trouble or needed help.”
“Sorry, dad,” she said. “What is it?”
“I wondered if you could pop to the shops for me.”
“So you do need my help.”
“Hush now. Just to pick something up for dinner. Something light. Chicken. Fish.”
“I’m on my way to Hull.”
“You don’t have to go to the docks to get it. Just a little something. We’ve got a guest for dinner.”
“Who?”
“Tez.”
“Who’s Tez?”
“A lovely chap. Thought you should meet him.”
The fear that her dad was trying to fix her up with a man gripped her. This wasn’t normal behaviour from any parent, but he had been suggesting she might be lonely in their little seaside home, and that she hadn’t had a boyfriend since she’d split up with Rich.
“Just a little chance to meet him before we have a chat man to man.”
“Er…”
“Fish then?”
“I’m busy at the moment,” she said and hung up.
She gave Doug Junior a look. “That wasn’t what I think it was, was it?” she said, adding, “Careful. He might try to set me up with you next.”
Humber College of Sciences was on a side road, down a turning beside a large supermarket. The college was a square modern building in open parkland. She went to reception, but they had some difficulty locating her contact, Professor Springer. A few minutes after Sam rang the phone number she had been given, a breathless young man appeared in reception and smiled at her.
“Hi, you phoned me?” He waved her over to a seating area.
“Professor Springer?” Sam asked.
“Ah, yes. Very nearly.”
“Nearly how?”
“Professor Springer is more of a concept than an actual person. The figurehead we use for some of our project work. I’m sure you know how it is.”
“Not really sure I do,” said Sam.
“Don’t worry about it. If it makes it easier for you to call me Professor Springer, then please do.” He mimed air quotes around Professor Springer.
“Are you engaged in something illegal?” asked Sam. DefCon4 had policies for Insider Trading and Modern Slavery, but she was certain there had to be something covering ‘generally dodgy stuff’ if she looked.
“No, not at all,” said Springer, looking shocked. “There’s a world of difference between what might pass as legal and what is acceptable in academic circles, though.”
Sam waited for him to expand on this.
He sighed. “Sometimes our research grants don’t cover all of the costs that we incur. So we are obliged to get creative in terms of sourcing alternative revenue streams.”
“What is the research you’ve been doing?” Sam asked.
“Microbial evolution in Northern Canada between prehistory and the present day,” said Springer. “It doesn’t attract big grants.”
“You surprise me.”
“It’s gone way over budget, but there’s a lot of interest in our findings, so we’re keen to see it through to the end. If we need to monetise some of our assets, then who can blame us?”
“So, to be clear,” said Sam. “The asset that you plan to monetise is…?”
“A frozen sample of mammoth tissue,” said Springer.
“And to doubly clarify. That’s mammoth as in…” She did a little mime meant to represent tusks and a trunk.
He nodded enthusiastically. “Mammuthus primigenius. Haven’t you been briefed? It needs specialised transportation.”
She raised the organ transit box she carried. “Yeah, I assumed the mammoth part was a typo. I should be fine with the equipment that I have – as long as it’s not the whole mammoth.”
“No, you’re fine. Just a chunk of ol’ Ethel.” He mimed an approximate size with his hands, something like a shoebox. “Shall we go and make the transfer?”
Sam followed him out to the car park. He led the way to an aged Volvo and opened the boot. He had a cooler in there that looked a little bit like Sam’s, except this one had a power cord snaking away to somewhere in the car. He opened the lid and indicated a pinkish, shrink-wrapped lump.
“It just looks like meat,” said Sam. “How is that even possible? Mammoths died out, like, ten thousand years ago.”
“Ethel here was trapped in the permafrost, so it is exactly like a piece of frozen meat, yes.”
Sam had mixed feelings. On the one hand, this highly specialised transport job was essentially on the same level as a supermarket trip; but on the other, she was tasked with the care of something that was ten thousand years old but looked like it had been prepared for a Sunday roast.
“Can I ask you a question?” asked Sam, as she opened up the back of her van. “Why didn’t we do this in your office?”
Springer looked
suddenly shifty. “If you recall, there are some elements of this that I would like to remain confidential. If the establishment where I work were to see me doing this, they might—”
“Wait. This isn’t even your college?” Sam asked, incredulous.
“Well … no. This is a sixth form college. A levels and such. I work … elsewhere.”
After a moment she shrugged. Whatever ethical dilemmas faced Springer, they were not hers to worry about. She had a simple transportation job. She transferred the mammoth chunk into her organ box. The bags of frozen peas were cool to the touch but no longer frozen.
“Is that your temperature controlled transport system?” said Springer.
“Yes,” she said neutrally.
“Why have you got a dead – I’m gonna say turkey – in there?”
“It’s been a busy day,” she said. “Do you care?”
“Not really,” said Springer and wandered off.
He was right though. Two packs of semi-frozen peas and a dead turkey were not going to keep the sample solidly frozen.
There had been a supermarket on the road back to the bridge. She put the lid on the organ box and drove.
She parked and went into the shop. There was a large frozen food section in the back corner. There were lots of frozen goods. but appeared to be no actual ice. Maybe it was a seasonal thing. Sam had to decide which of the frozen items would be a good substitute. She had several factors to take into account. One was cost, as she would be paying for this herself. The second was whether she could eat it later in the day: it would need to be something both she and her father would enjoy. The third was the vague concern some things might somehow be better at retaining the cold than others. It was obvious that a frozen chicken was a massive block of coldness that would stay that way for many hours, whereas ice cream would melt quickly. Why was that? There must be a scientific scale she could apply, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Did the cold from the ice cream move into its surroundings? If so, it might be better at keeping the mammoth cold. Sam suspected that wasn’t the answer.
“You wanna close that door. You’re letting all the cold out,” said a nosey shopper as she trundled by.
Sam closed the door and stared through the glass. Sausage rolls seemed like a strong possibility. The pack was flexible, so she could wrap the mammoth up in chunks of coldness, then she could cook them all when she got home. She would probably need two packets of thirty six mini sausage rolls. That was a lot of sausage rolls to eat over the coming days. She could invite Delia round and make an event of it. She wasn’t sure what sort of event would involve eating a ludicrous number of sausage rolls, but if she threw in some cocktails it might seem like an actual thing.