It was turned four o’clock when one of the copy editors, a young, dark haired woman in her early thirties, came in and tossed several photocopied sheets on Lofthouse’s desk.
“There you go, boss. That’s the tale.”
Thanking her, Lofthouse picked up the sheets, skimmed through them and passed them to Joe.
CHIVERSLEIGH GETS THREE YEARS
Barry Chiversleigh, 57, was sentenced to three years in prison, for a drink driving offence which killed his wife and an innocent pedestrian.
The incident happened a year ago, close to Chiversleigh’s home on Leeds Road Estate. He had been drinking heavily at a Christmas party, and lost control of his Vauxhall Astra. Attempting to swerve to avoid Virginia Serck, he instead struck her a glancing blow, and knocked her down. Mrs Serck died of head injuries. With the car still out of control, Chiversleigh spun across the road and hit a street lamp head on. His wife, Jean, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown forward, her forehead stuck the windscreen, breaking her neck.
After entering a guilty plea on behalf of Chiversleigh, his defence counsel pleaded mitigation, saying that since the incident, Chiversleigh had sought help with his alcoholism and still suffered nightmares at what had happened.
“The nightmares weren’t enough to keep him off the sauce, though,” Joe muttered. “Can I keep this, Ian?”
Lofthouse nodded. “Sure. But I want the full SP when you learn anything.”
Joe laughed and took out his mobile. “Oh, I’ve learned a lot already.” He dialled his niece. “Gemma, it’s Joe. Where are you?”
“At the station. Where else would I be?”
“Get yourself over to the Gallery. I know who murdered Chiversleigh.”
***
By the time Joe crossed from the Gazette offices to the Gallery, he found the afternoon trade on the wane. Santa’s Grotto was closed, but the staff, the four elves and Rick Barnes had been gathered together by Devers in a rear office.
He had a brief word with Gemma, assuring her that his approach was better than simply shouting out the name of the killer and making an arrest.
“Your interrogation will amount to nothing,” he said, “but I can prove it if you leave me to it.”
“You’d better have it right, Joe. If you get this wrong and I make an arrest, it’s my neck on the block.”
Joe beamed at her. “When have I ever let you down?”
“You want me to list the number of times?”
Joe ignored her and concentrated on his small audience. “Okay, sorry to keep you hanging on, ladies and gentlemen, but as you’re all aware, yesterday, Barry Chiversleigh collapsed in the grotto and later died in Sanford General. What you may not know is that his death wasn’t a result of his alcoholism… well, it was, but he’d been fed glycol by one of his attendants.” He glared an accusation at the four elves. “He was murdered.”
There came an immediate babble of protest. Joe held up his hand for silence.
“Ruth, Laura, while I was in the queue, I saw both of you taking cups of tea or coffee to him. Did he ask you to put the drops of whisky or brandy in them?”
Both women looked uncomfortable.
“Come on,” Joe insisted. “We know he was getting booze while he was working, and the only way he could have got it was for you two to put it in his drinks. Even Rick said he was fed up telling you to keep out of the shot.”
Laura spoke up first. “Yes, all right, so we put it in. He asked us to.”
“And you used the flask he kept here in the rest room?”
“Well, yes, but—” Ruth began before Joe cut her off.
“The glycol was in that flask. He’d been taking nips of it for days, and you two fed it to him.”
His announcement was greeted with another broadside of complaint and denial.
“I don’t know about Laura, but I put nothing in his flask. If it was in there, she did it.”
Laura bit back at Ruth. “No way. She hated him. Said he was always leering at her. She put it there, not me.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Joe ordered as Gemma interposed herself between the two women. “I said you fed it to him. I didn’t say you put the stuff in his hip flask.”
Rick Barnes laughed. “Well if they didn’t, who did?”
“Simple.” Joe turned to face him. “You did.”
Barnes’ face ran the gamut from amazement to disbelief, alarm to anger. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Ruth told me yesterday that you took half an hour off every two hours, and came in here to print out and prepare the photographs for delivery, and that’s when you added the glycol to his flask.” Joe smiled cruelly. “Killers always make mistakes, and you’re no different. Your planning was good. Slip the stuff into Chiversleigh’s hip flask while you were preparing the photographs for delivery, and that way, if anyone got suspicious, they’d look at the girls. But you didn’t figure on a nosy parker like me, did you? When the police told me how he’d died, I knew straight away that someone had spiked his booze, but I thought it might have been one of the elves… exactly as I was supposed to think. But then I happened to call at the Gazette offices before I came here and I read the report of what happened all those years ago when Chiversleigh killed his wife and a woman named Virginia Serck. Trouble is, Rick, I happened to be doing the crossword in the Express just before I read the report, and do you know what I noticed?”
Undisguised fury suffused Barnes’ features.
“Go on, Joe,” Gemma invited.
“Rick Barnes is an anagram of Brian Serck. I haven’t had time to check, Gemma, but if you dig into Mrs Serck, I’ll bet you’ll find she had a teenage son called Brian.” He pointed at Barnes. “And if you can find a picture of him, you’ll have him right here.”
There was a long silence. Vinny Gillespie moved to make the arrest and Barnes turned on Joe.
“You think I’m sorry?” His voice was barely above a hiss. “That drunken old fool killed my mother and left me a teenager without a home that was complete. I swore then I’d get him, and when I realised he was playing Santa, I knew it was the perfect opportunity. I’m glad I killed him.”
Joe shook his head sadly. “You know something, Barnes, Serck, whatever you want to call yourself. The majority of people in this town would be on your side, me included. You were a young boy whose mother had been cruelly taken from him by a man who couldn’t control his drinking. Chiversleigh had no business being behind the wheel of that car. Because of him, his wife and your mother paid the ultimate price, but it didn’t end there. You paid the price, too… and so did Chiversleigh. His life became a living hell because of what he’d down. By killing him, not only have you forfeited your freedom for years to come, but you’ve released him from that hell.” Joe turned away. “He’s all yours, Gemma.”
***
“It’s unusual though, innit, Uncle Joe?” said Lee. “I mean normally, you come to ours on Christmas Day.”
“I just thought it would make a change,” said Joe, sipping on a glass of brown ale. “Sheila’s sons are both in America, Brenda would have been on her own, and you’d already been to see your mother the other day, so why not make use of the café while we have it to ourselves.”
Brenda casts a twinkly glance at him. “Knowing you, I’m surprised you didn’t open the doors for any passing trucker.”
“Nothing wrong with the profit motive,” Joe assured her. “But it is Christmas Day and there are no passing truckers.”
On the other side of the Lazy Luncheonette, Danny played a game of pass the parcel with his mother, ably assisted by Sheila and Brenda. The boy had already complained vociferously that Santa had not delivered the promised computer.
“There’s time, yet,” Joe had assured him.
“Yeah, but if his deputy was taking over, he could’ve forgot,” Danny grumbled, and to sidetrack him, Joe had suggested the game of pass the parcel.
Cheryl took another layer of wrapping from the parcel as the music stopped
. “Nearly there, Danny,” she said as Sheila started the cassette again. “Just one more wrapper.”
The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tinkled through the empty café and the parcel did the rounds again. With a careful eye on its progress, Sheila stopped the music when it passed to four-year-old Danny.
The boy tore eagerly at the final sheet of wrapping paper, then held up the trophy for his mother’s approval.
“It’s a meat pie,” he declared.
“No, Danny,” Joe corrected him. “It’s a steak and kidney pie.”
Brenda took the pie from the boy and read the label. “Rock hard and three months out of date, too,” she said, with a sour glare at Joe.
“I found it at the back of the freezer,” Joe explained.
“Can I have it now, Mum?” Danny begged.
“It’ll make you poorly, Danny,” his mother replied.
Danny pouted and Sheila stood up. “Tell you what, Danny, how about some jelly and ice cream? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The boy nodded enthusiastically.
“You are such a tightwad, Joe,” Brenda grumbled.
“What would you expect to find in a parcel from a café?” Joe defended himself. “The complete works of William Shakespeare?”
“You could have nipped next door and bought a toy car or something, Uncle Joe,” Cheryl suggested. “I know that means spending money, but…”
“I did spend money,” Joe argued. “Where do you think I got the wrapping paper and fancy tape? And the pie didn’t come free, you know.”
“No, but the price has gone up since September,” Lee reminded him. “Never mind, Uncle Joe. You had the right idea.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to a merry Christmas.”
Everyone raised their glasses; even Joe.
“So what happened with Brian Serck?” Sheila asked while Brenda sorted out Danny.
“According to Gemma, he confessed everything,” Joe replied. “He’ll get life. Murder. It’s a mandatory sentence. But get this. The Gazette are starting a campaign for clemency and a light sentence. How’s that for double standards?”
Brenda dropped the dish of jelly and ice cream in front of Danny, and sat with him. “Lofthouse and his rag have always been like that.” Abruptly changing the subject, she barked, “Now come on, Joe. You have to do something better than a stale meat pie for this boy.”
Joe reached under the table to bring out another parcel.
“This is the real one.” He handed it to Cheryl, and as Danny pushed his dish away, Sheila started the music. Joe held up four fingers for her, indicating there were four wrappers on the parcel.
Outside, the early Christmas night had fallen, and a thin moon shone through fast moving cloud. Joe watched while The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy played again. Cheryl removed a wrapper, then Danny, then Brenda, and finally Danny again.
He tore off the last wrapper to reveal a small, simple tablet computer in its coloured box.
Danny’s eyes lit up. “The deputy did remember.”
“He left it here instead of at your house, Danny,” Joe said.
The boy tutted at his parents. “It’s cos we live in such a boring street.”
The Headland Hotel
It was just after seven when Joe, Sheila and Brenda met Donna in the Abbey Room, a large, conference suite, decked with tables and a small stage at the front. Each table glittered with gilt cutlery, and ornamental lamps shaped like candelabra. And not just the tables, the guests glittered, too: long, sweeping evening gowns, the glint of jewellery, perfectly coiffeured hairdos decked with small tiaras and brooches.
Near the front tables, Rowena Armitage scurried here and there pausing to talk to people whom Joe assumed were authors or their representatives, her conversation animated by non-stop movement of her hands. Nearby, on a table for two, sat Arabella Tremayne and her agent, she looking imperious and aloof, he appearing bored and/or depressed.
“It’s like the Oscars,” Joe said.
“These are the Oscars,” Donna told him as an usher showed them to their table. “Oscars for these authors, anyway.”
Like his two friends, Donna had elected for simplistic style, wearing a full evening gown in a sombre burgundy, augmented with a little jewellery at her wrists and in her hair.
Joe felt uncomfortable in his dinner suit, but the three women would not hear his complaints.
“You look positively resplendent,” Sheila told him.
“And I hope you’re in a tale-telling mood,” Donna urged. “I need another two or three from you yet.”
“There’s not just me, you know,” Joe complained as a waiter delivered fresh champagne to the table. “Sheila, you haven’t told her about the police thrash you went on, have you?”
Sheila blushed. “Oh, that was so long ago, Joe, I’ve forgotten most of it.”
“Don’t be so coy,” he insisted.
Donna fished into her bag, brought out her recorder and pressed the button. “Yes, come on, Sheila. Tell me what happened.”
“It was the year after Peter died, and they sent him an invitation by mistake. When I complained, they extended the invitation to me. It wasn’t complicated, really, but what made it awkward were the suspects.”
“Really?” Donna was all ears.
“They were all police officers.”
The Senior Police Offer’s Dinner
“I can only apologise, Sheila,” said Chief Superintendent Dennis Waverley, pushing his soup bowl away and repositioning his knife and fork. “Peter has been dead, how long now?”
“A year and half, Dennis,” she replied. “And I have to say, I was more than a little surprised to receive the invitation.”
“Une erreur d’éctriture, dear lady,” said Superintendent Frank Knighton, sat on the other side of her. A jolly, rotund man, two years older than Waverley, Sheila recalled her late husband saying Knighton was the biggest joker in the West Yorkshire force.
Sheila chuckled. “Your French is as bad as Del Boy Trotter’s, Frank. I don’t know what the French is for ‘clerical error’ but I’m certain that écriture means handwriting.”
“Mea culpa, madam. It’s only since I got older that I wished I’d paid more attention in language classes.”
Around the first floor private room in the King’s Arms, one of Sanford’s classier pubs and hotels, were seated two dozen senior officers from Sanford, Leeds and Wakefield, not one of them below the rank of inspector, most of them male. Most senior was Chief Superintendent Waverley, two years from official retirement, and enjoying the rarefied atmosphere of administration which would let him cruise to his pension.
“The annual Christmas dinner is held all over West Yorkshire,” Waverley explained, “and this year it was Sanford’s turn. I think that might be why Peter’s name was added to the list. I can only apologise again.”
“It’s not a problem, Dennis, and it was kind of you to extend the invitation to me in his place.”
“Nonsense,” Knighton laughed. “Always a pleasure to have una chica guapa at a do like this.”
Sheila, too, laughed. “You’re doing it again, Frank. I am not a good looking chick, thank you. It’s a long time since I was a ‘chick’, anyway.”
“Sorry, lass. I pick these things up off the internet, you know. So what are you doing with yourself?”
“I gave up my job at the school, and I’m working for Joe Murray.”
“Joe?” Frank roared with laughter. “Fancies himself as a bit of a sleuth, doesn’t he?”
“Don’t knock the man. Joe has helped the Yorkshire police out many a time.” Waverley picked up his knife, studied it and polished it vigorously with his napkin. “Clever man. Nothing gets past him.”
Keen to stop any argument, Sheila asked, “What about you, Frank? Are you still based in Wakefield?”
“Moved on, m’dear. Heading up a small team in Professional Standards these days. Les normes professionelle.” He chuckled again. “Working on something right now that co
uld blow the whole of West Yorkshire wide open.” He put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Super-secret.”
“Quite right, too,” Waverley declared. “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s a bent copper. Sooner they’re exposed, sooner they’re booted out, the better for all of us.” He picked up his glass of wine. “Here’s to you, Frank.”
Frank echoed the toast. “And you, Dennis.”
Sheila wondered if some unspoken message had passed between the two men, but her thoughts were distracted by the arrival of her main course, an unimaginative roast turkey with the usual Christmas vegetables.
The hotel had gone to considerable trouble to ‘Christmas-up’ the room, but the decorations tended to the dark green and red of holly, rather than the brighter, more colourful displays on offer in the market and shopping mall. Even the lights of an ornamental tree appeared dim and uninteresting, and the floor manager, Edward Osborne, was as stuffy and correct as the room.
This would be her second Christmas without Peter, and she could only hope it would not be as bad as the previous year. During his twenty-plus-year career as a police officer, he had attended many such soirees as this. He had found them tiresome but necessary from a political point of view.
“It never does any harm to keep in with the upper echelons,” he would often say, but he had always been happy to get it over and done with and be home to enjoy Christmas with his family.
As always with this kind of party, there was a considerable amount of shop talk, but ranged either side of her, Waverley and Knighton drew Sheila into their more general conversations, particular when Frank talked about his upcoming retirement.
“Another year and then it’s sunny Spain for me. Only this time, I won’t be coming back.”
“Anywhere in particular, Frank?” Sheila had asked.
“Fancy the south coast, to be honest. Costa del Sol, and don’t tell me I’m pronouncing it wrong this time. Got my eye on a little apartment in the San Pedro area. Just outside Marbella.” He smiled broadly. “Have to see how far the pension will stretch, eh, Dennis?”
Christmas Crackers Page 10