Christmas Crackers

by David W Robinson

  “And this detective didn’t tell Lee what had happened?” Brenda asked.

  Joe shook his head. “All he was interested in was Lee and the money the lad has coming to him.”

  “Probably working for that TV program,” Sheila suggested. “What is it called? Hidden Fortunes. You know the one I mean. They dig out long lost heirs to wills. Norman Parrish fronts it.”

  Brenda laughed. “Norman Parrish. Who’d have thought? Didn’t you and your gang used to batter him at school, Joe?”

  “Yes. Yes we did.” Joe, too, smiled at the memory. “And look what happened to us. He’s a TV star and I’m still running a café on Doncaster Road.”

  Brenda tittered. “TV star? That’s a bit of an exaggeration. He’s a hack reporter… or he was. He just got lucky when they were looking for local newsmen, and even luckier when they wanted a muppet to front the show.”

  “And he’s been married four times,” Sheila confirmed. “Whisper is he got physical with his wives. Probably getting rid of his anger at the way you and your friends used to beat him up.”

  “That’s right,” Joe grumbled. “Blame me for that, too. As if I haven’t had a bad enough day already.”

  “Sorry, Joe,” Sheila apologised. “Anyway, like I was saying, this Helmsley chap probably got onto your brother’s death through Norman Parrish’s programme. A lot of them do, you know. They pay the researchers for inside information.”

  Joe frowned. “I thought the heirs they chased up were from wills that were years old.”

  “Yes, so did I,” Brenda said.

  “They do,” Sheila agreed. “Usually wills that are coming near to being claimed by the crown or the Australian government in this case. That means, Joe, your brother must have died some time ago. His Australian lawyers would have advertised in the local papers, probably the Yorkshire Post, and when they got no replies…”

  Joe waved her into silence. “That’s not possible. Lee heard from his dad at Christmas. I remember him asking me to change twenty Australian dollars. Arthur sent it over for young Danny.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “There’s something not right, here.”

  “Well,” Sheila said, “this Helmsley doesn’t have to have contacted Norman Parrish’s TV show. I mean it could be that…”

  Once again Joe cut her off. “No, no. You’re not with me. None of it makes any sense and I should have realised it earlier. Arthur knew Lee’s address here in Sanford. He must have done to send the money over. And even if Lee and Cheryl had moved, Arthur knew he worked for me at the Lazy Luncheonette. If he left Lee a dip in his will, the lawyers wouldn’t need any private investigator to find him because Arthur would have put contact addresses in the will, see? Why would Arthur or his family, or his lawyers need to contact a private eye?”

  The two women exchanged haunted glances. They had seen Joe’s agile mind work at these problems before, and it usually spelled not only a mystery, but trouble, too.

  “So what are you saying, Joe?” Brenda asked.

  “I think you were right. I think Helmsley is an heir hunter and he got the bare bones from someone like Norman Parrish. Helmsley’s office is in Leeds, not far from where Norman makes that programme of his. It means that Arthur has been dead for some time, only I know he hasn’t, because Lee had a card and money from him at Christmas.”

  Brenda threw her hands up and let them fall into her lap. “All of which means what?” she demanded.

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. I just hope it means Helmsley got the wrong Lee Murray and not that Lee is in any trouble.”

  Sheila chewed her lip and checked the time. Half past three. “Do you think we should have heard from Lee by now?”

  Joe shrugged. “It may be a bit too soon. He didn’t leave here until two.” He withered under their accusing glances. “I’m not just his uncle. I’m his employer, too. It’s not up to me to chase him up when he’s been given the afternoon off. I don’t chase you up, do I?”

  Brenda’s eyes twinkled naughtily and she wiggled her large bosom at him. “I wouldn’t be that hard to catch.”

  “Pah.”

  Joe took out his tobacco tin and began to roll a cigarette. As he stood up, ready to step outside and smoke it, his mobile phone tweeted for attention. Joe checked the menu window. It was an unrecognised number. Jabbing the button to answer it, he put it to his ear. “Joe Murray.”

  “Uncle Joe? It’s Lee. The police have put me in jail for killing that private eye.”

  ***

  “He’s been arrested on suspicion of murder, Uncle Joe, and no, you can’t speak to him.” Detective Sergeant Gemma Craddock’s steel blue eyes stared defiantly at Joe over the rim of designer frames.

  “We’re related, remember, Gemma. Even if it is only by my ex-wife being your aunt. But I knew your dad for years. He was a good cop, an old-fashioned beat bobby and he didn’t hide behind the rule book. And how many times did I serve you with a lollipop and a can of coke? Huh? So don’t come the high and mighty now that you have a police rank to hide behind.”

  Gemma sighed. “Uncle Joe… please… the rules have changed since my dad’s day. Yes, I remember all those lollipops and cans, but I’m not a little girl anymore, and Lee’s offence is as serious as it gets.”

  “Stop talking out of your backside,” Joe argued. “Everyone knows Lee, including you. He’s built like an ox with the brain of a canary, but he doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. He needs someone to help him right now, someone who can get at the truth, and I’m not forking out for high priced briefs until I know what went on. Just let me speak to him for five minutes. You can sit in if you want, make sure we’re not cooking up some tale.”

  “It’s against the rules,” she urged. “My guvnor’s already preparing the charge sheets for the Crown Prosecution Service. If he finds out—”

  “He’s not gonna find out, is he? And even if he does, you can always tell him I went in with you to persuade Lee to tell the truth. Come on, Gemma. All the years I knew him your dad always gave folk the benefit of the doubt. I’m asking you to do the same for Lee. You are half cousins… or something.”

  “We have him banged to rights,” Gemma said and Joe cringed at the cliché.

  “You’ve been watching too many cops and robbers films.” He sighed. “All right. You tell me what happened.”

  “We were called to the Sanford Park Hotel at two forty-five this afternoon. A woman rang us reporting an incident in one of the first floor rooms. She’d seen a huge man stab another one. When we got there, the receptionist remembered Lee coming in a few minutes previously. We went up to the room and found Lee standing over the dead man. We took Lee out of the room and began investigating. We’ve identified the victim as a private investigator from Leeds, named Victor Helmsley. He had a wooden-handled steak knife in the back of his neck. Lee claims he found Helmsley like that, but when we dusted the knife, it was covered in Lee’s fingerprints. We brought Lee in for questioning and between bouts of crying, he told us his dad was dead and he’d been asked to meet Helmsley at the Sanford Park and that he found him dead. We’ve taken a statement but we’re waiting for the duty solicitor to show up before we go into the interrogation. We offered to let him ring Cheryl, but he said no. He’d rather ring you. That’s it. You now know as much as we do.”

  Joe chewed over the information. “At least he’s told you it like it was,” he said.

  Gemma’s eyebrows rose. “Huh?”

  “Helmsley came in the café this morning and told Lee that my brother Arthur – you won’t remember him. He went to Australia when you were still a kid. Anyway, Helmsley told me that Arthur had died and left Lee a lot of money. Lee started crying. Helmsley insisted that he was only in Sanford for the day and that Lee should meet him at the Sanford Park. When he finished at two, I told Lee to smarten himself up and get to the hotel. The next I heard, you’d arrested him.” Joe’s eyes burned into her. “What do you know about Helmsley?”

  Gemma shrugged. “Alm
ost nothing. He’s a kosher private investigator, known to the team in Leeds as a bit wayward. Sails near to the wind now and then, especially when he’s collecting bad debts. Know what I mean? And that’s it.”

  Joe strummed his lips. “Anything missing that he should have had with him?”

  “How would we know?” Gemma asked. She fished into the file and drew out photographs. Passing them to Joe, she said, “He wasn’t robbed. His wallet’s still there and so are his car keys. Few pounds and plastic in the wallet.”

  Joe studied the pictures. Helmsley’s briefcase closed, his black leather wallet alongside it and his car key ring with the key/alarm reset hooked onto it. He smiled to himself and muttered, “That’s wrong for a start.”

  “What?” Gemma asked.

  “Nothing,” he said aloud, and handed the pictures back. “You found nothing else belonging to him?”

  “Such as what?”

  “His door key?” Joe suggested.

  Gemma frowned. “Well… no. But they could be in his briefcase.”

  Joe pleaded with his niece. “There’s too much here that doesn’t add up. Now, for God’s sake, Gemma, let me speak to Lee.”

  She drummed angry fingers on the desk. “I’m gonna regret this.” She stood up. “Come on.”

  Leading Joe from the cramped confines of her Chief Inspector’s office, she turned right along a narrow corridor. “Constable,” she called to reception. “Get the custody officer to bring Lee Murray to interview room two.”

  “Right, Sarge,” replied the young constable on duty.

  Joe found the interview room even more cramped than the office, and the lack of space was made worse by Lee’s huge frame when the custody sergeant showed him in.

  He had been crying again, Joe guessed. There were dirty streaks beneath his eyes, probably where he had wiped away tears on his sleeve.

  “All right, Lee,” Joe began, “Your cousin, Gemma, is putting her backside on the grill by letting me speak to you, so I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and tell me exactly what happened.”

  “It wasn’t me, Uncle Joe. I found him like that. I swear.”

  “Stop bleating, boy,” Joe warned, deliberately putting acid into his voice. “I want to know what happened.”

  “I went to the Sanford Park like you told me to. The woman on the desk gave me Helmsley’s room number. I went up there and the door was open. I walked in and I found him slumped over the dresser thing, with a knife in his neck.”

  “So how did your fingerprints get on the knife?” Joe demanded.

  “I thought he might still be alive, so I was going to pull it out and check his pulse. I remembered those stories you told me about murders and stuff, so I let it go. But his shirt was covered in blood where the knife went in and it made me feel sick, so I went to the bathroom first. I was just coming out to ring you when the cops turned up.” Lee shuddered.

  Joe fumed. “You didn’t realise he was dead?”

  “Not at first. I didn’t think about it,” Lee replied. “I was thinking about all the things you’d taught me about cuts and stuff. You always said if I cut myself in the kitchen, I had to take the knife and boil it in hot water.”

  “As opposed to boiling it in cold water,” Gemma grumbled.

  “Just shut up,” Joe told her. “So that’s what you thought you were supposed to do when you found the knife in his neck?”

  “No,” Lee protested. “I just thought he might be alive and if I took the knife out, I could cover the wound and get a doctor for him. Or an ambulance or summat. But then I realised and remembered what you said about evidence, so I didn’t. I nudged him instead and he still didn’t move and I didn’t know what to do. I was going to ring you, but the police turned up instead and they put me in jail.” His accusing eyes fell on Gemma. “They reckon I’ve killed him. I never, Uncle Joe. He was like that when I got there. I swear.” Now his eyes began to fill with tears again.

  “All right, kid, take it easy.” Joe looked at Gemma. “Any danger of getting him out on bail?”

  She shook her head. “Not a hope in hell, Uncle Joe. It’s the guvnor’s decision, but Lee will likely be charged with murder.”

  “What about visits from Cheryl?”

  “We can arrange them,” Gemma admitted.

  Joe concentrated on his nephew again. “Okay, Lee, here’s the situation. I know you’re innocent and I think Gemma knows it, too, but they can’t let you go home yet. They’ll probably keep you here for a few days. I’ll arrange a solicitor for you and they’ll let you see Cheryl and Danny. You’re gonna have to be tough, kid, until your Uncle Joe can get this mess sorted out. You understand me?”

  Lee nodded with childlike enthusiasm.

  “I’ll arrange with Gemma to get Cheryl in to see you tomorrow.”

  There was a pause while the custody officer took Lee away. Joe busied himself rolling a cigarette. “Well?” he asked.

  “You believe him, don’t you?”

  Joe nodded and tucked the hand rolled smoke into his shirt pocket. “He wouldn’t hurt a wasp that had just stung him,” he said. “And no way would he kill someone. Who called it in?”

  Gemma shrugged. “Anonymous. Told us what she’d seen and rang off. It was a call box outside the hotel.”

  “In that case, maybe I should look into Vic Helmsley.”

  “Uncle Joe, please don’t go poking your nose in.”

  “And leave your cousin to rot in jail for something he didn’t do? Not likely.”

  ***

  “Our big problem is Lee’s fingerprints on the knife,” Sheila said.

  With Christmas approaching, the top room of the Miner’s Arms was thriving. A crowd of middle and third agers thronging the dance floor wriggling roughly in time to Manfred Mann’s Ha, Ha Said The Clown. From Joe’s point of view, the music was almost apposite. Although he may not be laughing, he felt like the clown had caught him out doing something he should not have.

  “He’s a bloody simpleton,” Joe said. “So simple, he can’t tell them anything but the truth. And they’re just as simple. They can’t see further than their nose ends.”

  “Gemma is watching her back, Joe,” Brenda argued. “It’s an apparently open and shut case, if she didn’t arrest Lee, she could be in serious trouble.”

  “Brenda is right,” Sheila agreed, “and we shouldn’t blame Gemma. The question now is, what do we do?”

  “I’m going over to Leeds, tomorrow. I could do with one of you with me. Witness in case anything goes wrong. I’ve already spoken to Cheryl and she’ll cover from nine o’clock, and she’ll get that mate of hers, that Pauline, to help.”

  The music came to an end, and while the two women debated between them, Joe stood and took the microphone. “All right, folks, that was Manfred Mann, and now let’s have something a bit less hectic. Here’s Scott Walker telling us all about Joanna.”

  While the ballad opened and the dancers slowed down their rhythm to match the tempo, Joe swallowed off his half of lager.

  “Sheila will go with you tomorrow, Joe,” Brenda declared. “I’ll keep an eye on Cheryl and Pauline.”

  “Good. I thought if we could leave about…” He trailed off as his mobile rang. He flipped open the phone and put it to his ear. “Joe Murray.”

  “You took your time answering, mate,” barked an Anglo-Australian twang. “Cheryl rang me this arvo and told me Lee’s been locked up and I’m dead.”

  ***

  Joe had spent almost forty-five minutes on the phone talking to his brother and the conversation still rang round his head at half past nine the following morning when he and Sheila left the Lazy Luncheonette for the half hour drive to Leeds.

  The last thing Arthur had sounded was upset. He was more amused.

  “Your son’s in jail for murder and you’re laughing,” Joe had admonished him.

  “I can’t help thinking that if I’m dead I don’t need to worry about paying my taxes this year,” Arthur had replied. “But
you’re right, Joe. The kid needs help and I’m relying on you. Whatever you do, don’t go to Rachel. She’s about as much use as a koala in a banana eating competition.”

  “Why did Cheryl ring?” Joe asked. “If they believed you were dead there wouldn’t be much point calling you, would there?”

  “True enough, but she didn’t call me. She called Selly. Selena; my wife. She wanted to know what I’d died of and when.” Arthur laughed uproariously. “I don’t know which of us was more surprised this arvo. Me finding out I’m supposed to be dead or Cheryl, when I answered.”

  If they were agreed on the action needed to help Lee, they were puzzled by the rapid chain of events

  “Do me a favour, Arthur, and check your end. See if there’s another Arthur Murray in your area who died recently. Helmsley may have got the wrong Lee Murray.”

  Joe was still churning it over as he drove along the M62 towards Leeds with Sheila in the passenger seat.

  “You didn’t have much to say about it all last night,” Sheila comment, as Joe turned off the motorway and made for Leeds city centre.

  “I had to try and sort it in my head.”

  “And have you sorted it?”

  Joe eased off as he left the motorway and joined the busy traffic making for the city. “Arthur is as puzzled as me. How did this Helmsley get the idea that he was dead and had left all his money to Lee? For a start off, Arthur told me that his estate goes to Selena, his present wife. There may be a few thousand dollars for Lee, but that’s hardly a fortune, is it?”

  “Helmsley obviously got the wrong Lee Murray, didn’t he?” Sheila observed. “Do we know of any other Lee Murrays in Sanford?”

  “Nope, and I wouldn’t have a clue how you’d find out, unless you went through the electoral register, but those are stored by addresses, not names.” Accelerating to pass a stationary bus, Joe asked, “How do they normally find heirs to wills?”