‘Quite right too, Miss Jarvis; couldn’t agree more,’ replied Falconer. ‘We’re calling about a death that occurred in the town earlier today – that of a man who was in the process of making a television programme, and the constable who stumbled across his body said that he found you in a wool shop nearby.’
‘That nice young man in uniform?’ she asked, with the merest twinkle in her eye. ‘What a presentable lad he was. I didn’t see anything, you know, and I heard nothing either. My ears are like my eyes – getting to the end of their useful life, now. And I’d walked round all morning hoping to catch a glimpse of my favourite antiques experts. Rub shoulders with celebrities before I fall off my perch, you know.’
Neither of the detectives knew what to say to this indication of mortality, so Falconer just put on his most polite smile and asked if they might come in for a few minutes. ‘I’ll just put my coat and bag in the under-stairs cupboard, if you don’t mind,’ she said, acting as she spoke, then directed them into her sitting room where she switched on a gas fire. ‘That’ll warm us up in a minute or two. Can I get you a cup of tea?’
‘That’s very kind of you, Miss Jarvis. We would be grateful, as it’s so cold outside,’ Falconer accepted on behalf of them both.
‘Fancy me being so close to him and not even catching a glimpse,’ twittered Miss Jarvis as she went out to the kitchen to boil the kettle.
Although Miss Jarvis offered them no information whatsoever on the death, they did chase the cold out of their bones, and hadn’t chilled down too much when they got back to the station. The four ‘celebrities’ would be coming in to make formal statements the next day, and other officers would be seconded to visit the technical staff of the crews. Doc Christmas would, no doubt, carry out the post mortem as soon as possible, and they should be able to get this wrapped up very quickly – unless, of course, it was a disgruntled dealer who had previously been portrayed in a bad light, or a viewer who thought they had an axe to grind.
The death, now officially classed as suspicious, made the front page of the local paper, it was on the television news, and Doc Christmas confirmed that the man had been stabbed with an implement that was long and round, at about chest height, and puncturing the heart. To Falconer, this suggested quite a tall assailant, and he thought back to those he had met on the filming today, to see if he could recall anyone who was above average height.
Over the next few days, minute questioning of all those who could be involved produced no solid evidence. No one had seen anything or heard anything; in fact, each and every crew member who had done the filming had left with his own iPod plugged into his ears. It was finally agreed that none of the show’s experts would have had time or opportunity to carry out the deed, and none of the other technical crews had been nearby.
After about ten days, it seemed that they would never solve the crime, the intense investigation was scaled down but the file was left open for any unexpected developments. These were unlikely now, though, in the proximity of the festive season, with everything closing down for the better part of a fortnight. The trail was well and truly cold, if not frozen, and there was nobody left to question.
Market Darley was, indeed, sorely in need of some CCTV cameras in its quiet back streets which, at the moment, it lacked.
NINE
On December 23rd, Emily Jarvis had her three bridge-playing friends round to lunch, so that they could all sit and watch the Get One Over Christmas edition that had featured Market Darley. She had got a better bottle of sherry in than she usually drank, and had bought some little cocktail biscuits for them to nibble as they watched. She was looking forward to it enormously.
The three visitors, Theodore Matthew, Camilla Smethurst, and Veronica Carlyle, were all crowded on the sofa next to each other while Emily Jarvis, their gracious hostess, sat in solitary state in the only armchair. The opening piece to camera came on, and Veronica squeaked like an hysterical mouse. ‘Look! Look!’ she said. ‘They haven’t used the piece to camera from that despicable man who got murdered. They must have recruited a new team member and got him to do it again.’
Emily sipped her sherry contentedly and thought, written out at last!
All eyes in the room were on the new figure, all ears concentrating, even though the volume was turned up, on his mellifluous and well-bred voice. ‘Oh, how lovely!’ sighed Emily. ‘What a very good choice for a replacement.’
The new team member was neither sneering nor condescending about the programme’s amateur experts, and spoke about the market town as a jewel of a place, the discovered objects as real finds, and the outcome of the auction as a terrific success. This was Johnathan Mull’s fifth win of the season, and he donated the money raised by the auctions from the shows he had won to Help for Heroes, the charity for which the singers in Market Darley had been collecting.
Emily Jarvis poured them another glass of sherry as the closing credits ran, and a small smile of satisfaction settled over her face as she lifted her glass to her lips after turning off the television.
‘Anyone for any more nibbles?’ she asked after draining the measure, filling her glass for the third time, and raising it to a Merry Christmas and a very peaceful New Year, what with that terrible young man disposed of, or ‘put down’ as she preferred to look at it.
After all, it could be her last Christmas, and it was her own happiness that she needed to attend to. This was the perfect present. The knitting needle which she had wielded in sheer fury at Peter Potter-Porter was currently residing down the back of her armchair, suitably washed and rubbed over with a bleach solution to remove all trace of the event. She was fairly confident that she would pay no price for arranging things so much to her satisfaction and for her viewing pleasure and that, if the needle were ever found, it would be after her death, when it would just be another lost knitting needle …
Harry Falconer watched the episode on its evening re-run, and it left him with the feeling that someone had, somehow, put something over on him, although he couldn’t think what it could be, but it continued to nag at him for a while. The impending pantomime visit with the Carmichael family, however, soon took top priority in his uncomfortable thoughts.
Carmichael watched it with Kerry, and when the new narrator did his piece to camera, the gum bubble he was blowing burst, and had been so big, it stuck to the front of his hair. Kerry sighed, and leaned over her enormous bump to help him remove it and get him out of his predicament.
‘I like this new narrator,’ she commented, pulling sticky strands off his forehead.
‘I don’t,’ replied Carmichael mournfully. ‘He’s not half as funny as the last one.
THE END
Short Stories
by
Andrea Frazer
For more information about Andrea Frazer
and other Accent Press titles
please visit
www.accentpress.co.uk
Written Out
ISBN: 9781783752218
Copyright © 2014 by Andrea Frazer
The right of Andrea Frazer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Aberycnon,, CF45 4SN
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Written Out - A Falconer File Christmas Short Story Page 3