“Two nights this week we’ve spent together,” Joe said when she returned to the bedroom where he was dressed. “We need to watch it before it becomes a habit.”
“I didn’t notice you complaining last night.”
Joe responded with a grunt. “I don’t have time for an argument. I’ll get off down to The Lazy Luncheonette and open up. You know I’m taking young Danny to see Santa once the breakfast rush is over?”
At the mention of the child’s name, Brenda’s surly mood lifted. “He’s a lovely little lad, and he so looks forward to you taking him to the Christmas grotto every year.” Her mouth turned sour again. “God knows why, but he must be the only male in town who’s happy to see you.”
Joe slid his feet into his shoes. “What about the draymen? It doesn’t matter how much I insult them, they still turn up and hand over their money.” He made for the door. “I’ll see you down there when you’re ready.”
The engine of his car chugged reluctantly into life a few minutes later, and he drove gingerly out of the street, testing the steering for the danger of black ice on the untreated side roads. Soon he was on Leeds Road, making his way more confidently to his home, where he changed into his working clothes, and then made his second journey of the morning to Britannia Parade. But while he scooted along on automatic pilot, he was mentally running through the previous night’s disaster. He had no idea whether Sheila would go ahead with the threat to inform the police. As far as he was concerned, he and Brenda had suffered enough. As if to complement her damaged eye, his forearms were covered in scratches, and his ankle still hurt when he slipped and twisted it.
Worst was Martin’s lame excuse and Sheila’s casual acceptance of it as a measure of his love for her, his simple desire to make life as pleasant as possible, and his utter determination not to upset her.
Not for the first time, he had to ask himself how Sheila had managed to become so gullible in so short a time.
And not only Sheila. Her sons, too. Pulling around the rear of the café, killing the engine and digging into his pockets for the keys to the café, he shuddered at the memory of the angry email from Peter Jnr and Aaron. He would have replied had not Brenda advised against it.
As he opened the rear door and killed the intruder alarm, Lee’s Ford Focus come along the back lane, and spun into place alongside Joe’s beat up old Vauxhall.
“Morning, Uncle Joe,” Lee greeted him with his customary air of indefatigable good cheer.
“A good job you didn’t say good morning.”
Joe lit a cigarette and stood in the open rear doorway. As he pushed past, Lee noticed his uncle’s limp. “Have you hurt yourself?”
“No. I’m rehearsing for a part as Captain Hook in Peter Pan.”
As usual, Lee was unable to differentiate between the truth and raw sarcasm. “Oh. Right. You’re taking up amateur melodrama. That’s what Martin teaches. Him as what married Auntie Sheila. Him as is trying to kill her.”
Joe thought about putting him right, but so early in the day, he couldn’t be bothered with the argument. “Get the hobs on, get breakfast under way. I’ll just finish my smoke and open up for the mob.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Lee grinned. “D’yer gerrit, Uncle Joe? You’re gonna be Captain Buck and I said—”
“Yeah, yeah. Very droll.” A couple of minutes later, having satisfied his craving for nicotine, Joe flicked the half-smoked cigarette out into the night, and closed the back door. “Now, let’s get on with the breakfast.”
By the time Brenda arrived at seven o’clock, they had already served half a dozen truckers, most of them in a hurry to be back on the road, presumably making their way home to some distant location, and as the draymen began to turn up, it was, as usual, all hands to the pumps, a tougher proposition this morning as they were without Cheryl, who was at home, child minding, catering for an overexcited son who, according to Lee, was hyperactively waiting for his Uncle Joe and the promised visit to Santa.
The cynical and good-natured banter between Joe and the draymen was the stuff of legends. It had been a feature of the breakfast period at The Lazy Luncheonette ever since Joe took over the running of the establishment from his father, a quarter of a century previously, and Joe was more than equal to every barbed witticism from the other side of the counter.
It did not take the draymen long to latch on to Joe’s limp, causing one of the drivers, a regular named Len, to comment, “You’ve been trying it on with Brenda, haven’t you, and she’s given you a good kick to keep you in your place.”
Joe was in the act of pulling out of beaker of tea, and thinking up a snappy rejoinder, when Lee leaned through the kitchen hatch, and said, “You won’t be saying that when he’s famous for playing Captain Muck.”
Joe shook his head sadly, fervently wishing he had ignored Lee earlier on. “He means Captain Hook.”
Len frowned. “You’re gonna be playing Captain Hook?”
Joe jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He thinks I am. I think I’m gonna carry on standing here and taking a fortune off you guys.”
“And while everyone else is rocking around the Christmas tree,” Brenda commented, “Joe will be limping round it.”
Len also noticed her heavily made-up eye, but he was more cautious when dealing with Brenda. “Accident?” he asked.
She shook her head and grinned. “Joe thumped me. My fault. I spilled half a cup of tea.”
“When we’ve all done taking the p… mickey, can we get on? I have to see Santa later this morning.”
Which comment only gave rise to another round of ribaldry from both drivers and staff.
Cheryl’s two friends, Pauline and Kayleigh arrived at half past eight and helped ease some of the pressure, but even with the departure of the draymen, as busy over the weekend as they were Monday through Friday, the queue never really eased off. Shoppers, many of them haggard-faced men with their wives and children in tow, chose The Lazy Luncheonette as better value than the fast food outlets in the nearby retail park, and it was fully eleven o’clock before Joe could settle at table five for a bite to eat and a quick cup of tea.
“I don’t have long,” he said to Brenda. “Danny’ll be waiting for me.”
“No worries, Joe. I’m sure we’ll cope. You won’t be gone long, will you?”
“With the Galleries’ track record on the queues around Santa’s grotto, I should be back before tomorrow morning.”
He was about to down the last of his tea when his niece walked in, her face set in a mask of disapproval.
“You’re in trouble, Joe,” she announced.
“I’m pleased to see you, too.”
“Good morning, Gemma,” Brenda said with more than hint of worry in her eyes.
Gemma ignored Joe’s sarcastic reply, and responded to Brenda. “You too. Martin Naylor has registered a complaint against you both.”
Joe groaned and rubbed his ankle, Brenda flopped down in the chair next to him, and Gemma sat opposite.
“Bring Inspector Craddock a cup of tea, Kayleigh,” Joe called over his shoulder, and then concentrated on his niece. “So, are you charging us or just giving us the verbal?”
“The latter.” Gemma accepted a beaker of tea from Kayleigh. “The Chief Super refuses to let me book you, but it is trespass and it’s illegal. There’s a danger that Naylor will go for the throat if you don’t stop accusing him of trying to murder Sheila.”
“Tell me something,” Joe insisted. “How will you all feel when he does a bunk and we find Sheila’s body?”
Gemma was about to read the riot act once again, but Joe held up his hands for silence.
“Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re gonna say. But the medics are taking no notice of her tummy troubles, and you’re not taking our concerns seriously.”
“Bring me one scrap of evidence and I will go to town on it. But what do you have? A faint resemblance to a known killer, Sheila suffering with an unidentified gastric problem, and the word of a bloody i
diot like George Robson, and although George was right, it’s been explained to you. Until something serious happens, do us all a favour. Back off.”
In acquiescing, Brenda sought to exculpate herself and Joe. “Like I said to Sheila last night, we did it with the best of intentions.”
“The road to Hell,” Gemma retorted.
“And we were the ones who came away injured,” Joe protested.
“Serves you right. If you want to spend Christmas in the nick, carry on as you are. On the other hand, if you want to poke your nose into things, sort out Tel Bailey and Billy Trelfus.”
“I tried,” Joe confessed. “And I didn’t get very far with that.”
“Yes, well, we’ve had his granddaughter in screaming at us. Not that we can tell her much. I’ll send her to you. Maybe she can give you something to get your teeth into.”
Joe checked his watch. “She’ll have to wait. I’m due to take Danny to see Santa. I’ll catch you all later.”
“Just think on,” Gemma warned. “Any more of this, and I’ll go over Oughton’s head and book the pair of you.”
Joe removed his whites, put on his topcoat before stepping out through the rear door and climbing into his car.
Lee lived close to Joe, in a neat little townhouse which he and Cheryl had bought when they first married. That was in the days when he had a promising career in rugby, before the knee injury ended it. He never spoke about his financial situation, but Joe paid him as much as he could. Cheryl was more forthcoming, and frequently told Joe that money was often a problem, especially with Danny growing up.
As he collected her and her excited son, and began the drive into Sanford and Santa’s grotto in the Galleries mall, Cheryl admitted that since Lee had become a junior partner in The Lazy Luncheonette, the financial pressure had eased a little.
“We are not absolutely flush, Joe, but that profit share doesn’t half come in handy.”
Joe was relieved to hear it. One of his biggest fears had always been that Lee would be tempted by the lure of a large, top-class restaurant. By making him (and Brenda, and Sheila) partners in the business, he had averted the threat.
But if the move solved one problem, the latest turn of events had created another. Sheila was a partner in the business, but her attitude of previous night indicated that she wanted nothing to do with either him or Brenda again. That opened up the possibility of her demanding her share of the business in cash. They had never paid for their share. It was a gift from Joe, but when the articles were laid out by his lawyers, it granted then a percentage of the value of the business. If he and Brenda were right, and Martin Naylor really was Mervyn Nellis and Marlon Newman, he would encourage Sheila to demand her share. Even if it turned out that Martin was innocent, it may still be a hurdle Joe would have to get over, and although he did not know how much the final bill would be, he knew it would be expensive.
When they reached Galleries, the queue for Santa’s Grotto was at least twice the length of the queue formed by the Sanford Brewery draymen every morning, and while Joe waited with Danny, Cheryl disappeared to catch up with some shopping.
“I hope Santa’s not drunk this year, Uncle Joe,” Danny commented as they shuffled forward with the queue.
The child’s simple comment, spoke volumes to Joe. Although it was a couple of years in the past, Danny obviously recalled the time when Santa had been ‘drunk’. In fact, Santa had been poisoned, but Danny’s parents (with Joe’s agreement) felt that the boy was not ready to take in the awful impact of the truth.
A half hour after joining the people, they emerged from the other side, Danny having assured Santa that he had been on his absolute best behaviour all year, for which he received a toy car, the likes of which Joe could have bought him for a couple of pounds in many of the surrounding shops, they linked up with Cheryl in Ma’s Pantry, where she had already secured coffee and cakes for herself and Joe, a soft drink and ice cream for Danny.
“Some woman’s been looking for you, Joe,” Cheryl said as he stirred brown sugar into his coffee.
Joe chuckled. “I should be so lucky.”
“No, seriously. I was in Collins’s picking up a new tie for Lee, and I got talking to Mary Henley. You know her. Big friend of my mum’s. She was saying as how there’s this blonde thirty-something going round all the shops, asking for you.” Cheryl grinned. “Hey, you haven’t got a bit on the side, have you?”
“I repeat. I should be so lucky. Why would anyone – especially a young blonde – be looking for me?”
Cheryl laughed again. “Maybe she’s heard about the biscuit tin under your floorboards, where you keep your money.”
Danny’s eyes popped. “You keep your money in a biscuit tin, Uncle Joe? My dad keeps his in his wallet.”
“Yes, Danny, but if your mum’s buying him ties from Collins’ he won’t have as much as me to put in a biscuit tin.” He focused on Cheryl again. “I don’t know who this woman is, and I don’t know why she should be looking for me here, but if she’s been asking around, someone must have pointed her to The Lazy Luncheonette.”
When he returned to his café, after dropping Cheryl and Danny back home, there was news waiting for him, but it had nothing to do with a thirty-something blonde.
“Les Tanner’s had a complaint from Sheila, and called a special meeting,” Brenda told him. “Half past twelve tomorrow lunchtime. Les wouldn’t speculate on the agenda, but you’re on it.”
Joe might have expected it. As club secretary, Sheila had been instrumental in drawing up the articles, and he was sure that there were clauses relevant to personal disputes between members, especially disputes where the behaviour of one member towards another could be called into question.
Joe sighed. “Strange, blonde women chasing me in Galleries, Sheila determined to go through the 3rd Age Club to hassle me. Are you sure it’s December the twenty-second, and not Friday the thirteenth?”
Chapter Fourteen
Denny and Vanessa lived in a modest semi off Doncaster Road, about a mile towards the town centre from The Lazy Luncheonette, and unlike Joe but in common with most working folk, they rarely crawled out of bed before eleven o’clock on Sunday morning. In this final run-up to Christmas, many people had abandoned the Sunday morning lie-in, but the Dixons were not amongst that number, as Joe discovered when he rang the doorbell at midday, and Denny answered still wearing his pyjamas and bathrobe.
“Tanked up last night, Joe,” he explained, running stubby fingers through his tousled hair. “What do you want?”
“To talk to your missus.”
Joe had never fitted the template of lazing around in bed for half the morning. He was so accustomed to crawling out of bed in the early hours, that he was always up anyway, even on a Sunday, and with the threat of the extraordinary meeting hanging over him, he was keen to catch up on those problems he’d left in abeyance. Speaking to Van Dixon was one of them.
Mercifully, she was fully dressed in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a loose-fitting top. She was skimming through the Sunday tabloids and their accompanying magazines when Joe stepped into the modestly furnished front room.
At the age of thirty-seven, the same as a husband, she was a good-looking woman in her own way. Slim, but not emaciated, with muscular thighs, clearly outlined by the way her skin-tight jeans clung to her legs. But the attraction ended with the mere physical. Her red hair, augmented by a freckled skin, a mouth set in an almost permanent grimace, and eyes of green fire defied anyone, man, woman or mob, to challenge her.
The Dixons were childless by choice, and sitting opposite her, Joe could understand why. Vanessa had a reputation for selfishness, and Denny was interested only in his various appetites for food, drink, and other, less salubrious pastimes. In direct contrast to, say, Lee and Cheryl, neither of them would have made particularly good parents.
“So what do you want, Joe? Is it about our Tel?”
“Nope. It is about old Trelfus, but it’s you I want to talk to.�
��
“I didn’t know him.”
“Perhaps not, but you had an argument with him on the day you bought seventeen Kimbolton.”
Her eyes narrowed and Joe expected a barrage of verbal abuse. Just as quickly, the irritation subsided. “Oh, was that him? I remember it. What about it?”
“I’m just making sure that you didn’t go back in the early hours of the following morning to beat his brains in.”
This time, the temper did flash. She let loose a tirade of opinion, and did not stint on her choice of language. Joe was not certain that he understood all words she used to describe him, but he allowed the barrage of vernacular to settle before expanding on his initial challenge.
“You’re wasting your breath, Vanessa. I know you. I remember you when you were a kid and you used to call in at the café for soft drinks. You were always mouthy then. Right now, I’m trying to keep your brother out of prison, and I had a tipoff that you’d been in an argument with Trelfus. You’ve just confirmed it. I’m speaking to everyone who was seen arguing with him around that time.”
Vanessa’s temper was still simmering, bubbling away, ready to overflow at the slightest prompt. “Yes, I did have a row with him. He accused me of murdering his daughter. I’ve never murdered anyone, I didn’t know him and I didn’t know his bloody daughter. So I told him where to go. Like I’ve just told you where you can get off.”
Joe frowned. “Murdering his daughter? He didn’t go into any more detail than that?”
Vanessa shook her head, her hair flouncing from side to side as she did so. “Nope. I wasn’t interested. I’ve more to do than listen to some wittering old scroat. And if you wanna know where I was on the night he was killed, I was right here, in bed, and Denny can vouch for that.”
Joe looked to her husband, who nodded. It meant little. Denny’s fear of his wife was legendary, and if she had said she was busy putting on a striptease for the Sanford Regiment, he would have agreed.
Merry Murders Everyone Page 12