The Best British Mysteries 3 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘At home.’

  ‘All night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ She adopted a more aggressive stance. ‘You can ask my neighbours. They’ll tell you my light was on all night, go and ask them.’

  ‘You’ll know Mrs Winner?’

  ‘The cow. Of course I know her. She tried to stop me and Max...but she couldn’t. True love will find a way.’

  ‘You and Mr Winner are in a relationship?’

  ‘Yes...for years now.’

  ‘Do you hike?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Walking...long walks in the country, do you do it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have any hiking socks, then?’

  Julia Patton blushed a deep red but recovered quickly and said, ‘No.’

  ‘Do you mind if we come in?’

  ‘Why? There’s nothing to see.’

  ‘Nothing to hide then, have you?’ The cops stepped outside.

  Julia Patton’s house was threadbare and basic. Very basic. Worn-out chairs, no floor covering, and even at that time of the year, it had a chill about it. In the hallway Markov noted a pair of boots. Not hiking boots, but working boots, the sort that would have to be worn with thick socks over ordinary socks. He said, ‘I’ve got a pair of boots like that. Use them for gardening.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Have to wear hiking socks with them.’

  ‘I do, too. They wore out. I threw them out.’

  ‘They’ll be in the refuse by the door.’

  ‘No. Threw them out a long time ago.’

  Markov picked up one of the boots and examined the sole. The soil trapped on the side was slightly damp. ‘They’ve been worn recently?’

  ‘Just in the garden. Don’t need thick socks to go into the garden. Will that be all?’

  Markov replaced the boot. ‘Yes. For now.’

  ‘Good. I’ve got plans to make.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘My marriage. Max and I are getting married. Nothing to stop us now she’s dead. Heard it on the lunchtime news. Haven’t felt better for years.’

  * * * *

  That evening went as planned for Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov; one recently arrived in York, the other settled but recently divorced, and now having found each other. They met outside the Minster and went on a Ghost Walk to satisfy Carmen Pharoah’s curiosity, she having often seen such walks advertised. They joined a crowd of about fifty who were led around the city by an actor in Victorian dress who took them down the narrow, one-person-at-a-time snickleways, a street pattern within a street pattern, and who showed them the tall house where a hundred years previously a little girl had fallen to her death within, down the stairwell from the upper floor to the cellar, and who can sometimes be seen as she ascends the stairs for the last time. And they were shown the window where the most recently seen ghost in all England - about twenty sightings a year - is to be viewed; a little girl sobbing at the window. The story being that during the Black Death her parents noticed she had the symptoms of the plague and so locked her in her room and fled, not just the house, which they locked and left with the sign of the plague on the door, but York itself. Leaving their daughter to succumb to thirst, or starvation, or the plague. And they viewed the house where once a man had seen a column of Roman soldiers who were marching, as if on their knees, along the hallway of the house. Excavation revealed the house had been built on the site of a Roman road, the surface of which was two feet beneath the floor of the house.

  ‘Lost something by doing the walk in summer,’ Markov said as he glanced at the menu in the Green Jade restaurant.

  ‘We could do it again,’ replied Carmen, whose eye was caught by the chicken chow mein. ‘A blustery winter’s night, or Halloween. That would be fun.’

  They spent the night at her house, where she was still living largely out of bin liners and cardboard boxes. She had bought ‘within the walls’, having been told that she would never have a problem selling her house if she bought ‘within the walls’ and that night they lay together listening to the Minster bells chime midnight.

  * * * *

  Max Winner woke early the next morning, as he did during the summer months, but he remained long in bed, still feeling a sense of whirring confusion in his head. The sense of weight having been lifted from his life was tangible...but yet, strangely, there was a loss, too. He was now finally alone in his house. She was no longer in her room. He didn’t miss her, not at all, but there was a space, a hole where previously there was no hole. He didn’t think her loss would have had such an effect on him, and it surprised him that it did.

  He heard the doorbell ring. He levered himself out of bed, wound into his dressing gown, and went down the ancient creaking staircase and answered the door. He gasped in surprise and astonishment.

  ‘Morning, Max,’ beamed Julia Patton. ‘Did you miss me?’ She stood with two suitcases at her feet. ‘Nothing to stop us now, is there, Max?’

  ‘No - no —’ He said ‘no’ because he didn’t know what else to say. ‘Won’t you come in?’

  They sat in the sitting room where the day previously he had received Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said.

  ‘I knew you’d be pleased. I used to watch the house almost every evening...got to know her movements... Waited for her on the bridge. I knew she’d stop and give me a mouthful...and she did. Then when she turned away to go back to her car, I hit her over the head. I had a rock inside a sock. She went down slowly. I tried to lift her over the parapet, but I couldn’t, so I dragged her down some steps and put her in the water, face down, dropped her handbag in after her and chucked the rock and sock in the water as well. So we can be together now, Max, I can be lady of this house.’

  ‘Yes...’ He smiled. ‘Yes...have you breakfasted yet?’

  ‘No. I came straight here. The police called yesterday but I got rid of them, they won’t be back. Just you and me now, Max.’

  Max Winner stood. ‘Well, look, why don’t you make yourself at home.’

  ‘At home,’ she echoed.

  ‘I’ll go and get my clothes on and I’ll make us both something to eat.’ He left the room and walked back up the stairs to his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and picked up the telephone by his bed. ‘DC Pharoah or Markov,’ he said when his call was answered. ‘Either will do.’

  <>

  * * * *

  Alanna Knight

  Faro and the Bogus Inspector

  One of the most baffling crimes Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro ever faced had nothing to do with murder, but quite a lot to do with buying presents for his mother and two small daughters. Birthdays were difficult enough for a widower, but Christmas presents were worse, especially when Rose, aged eight, took one look at the familiar oblong cardboard box and cried out reproachfully: “Oh, Papa, not another doll.”

  Had his normal powers of deduction been functioning, Inspector Faro might have found the vital clue in her younger sister Emily’s letter, that she “liked the dolly’s frocks, but not very much.”

  Birthdays were inevitable but by the 1870s the fashion set by Her Majesty and the late Prince Consort had been eagerly followed and the Christmas craze had spread to Edinburgh. Now a middle class, once content with the annual Hogmanay debauch, demanded turkey, plum pudding, a tree in the window, and the unsteady march of Christmas cards across the mantelpiece. In mainly candlelit rooms this also had the city’s fire engines on constant alert.

  Nor were fires the only hazard in the homes of the well-to-do. A rash of yuletide parties and conviviality, with a regrettable slackening of the tough moral fibre of Calvinism, was regarded as a positive enticement to sneak thieves. As a consequence, this quite unnecessary season of peace and goodwill was greeted with less than enthusiasm by the Edinburgh City Police.

  Advertisements like that of Jenners in Princes Street, offering customers a
chance to inspect valuable seasonal items, had been viewed by the criminal element as an open invitation to more splendid opportunities of breaking and entering in a spate of daring robberies.

  As Faro’s young stepson Dr. Vincent Laurie studied his sister’s letter, he said:

  “Now what do you think of that? I imagined that all little girls liked dolls.”

  “They do indeed, Stepfather, but not every Christmas and birthday. Ever since our mama died—” he added sadly. “Don’t you see—”

  Faro tried but failed. “You wouldn’t—I suppose—” he said wistfully.

  “No, I certainly wouldn’t,” was the stern reply. “The very idea! I find it hard enough getting suitable presents for my own list.”

  Vince could be notoriously unsympathetic sometimes, but seeing his stepfather’s anguished expression, he said: “What about a piece of jewellery, then? Small girls like lockets and bangles.” And warming to the idea, “And a brooch for Stepgrandma—”

  “You really think so ... ?”

  “I do indeed. And what’s more, there’s a splendid new jeweller’s shop opened in South Clerk Street, just a step away. Foreign chap. Did an excellent repair on my pocket watch—a wizard with clocks, I understand—highly recommended—”

  “In the circumstances—would you—?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” said Vince crossly. “The experience will do you good.”

  Rose and Emily had lived with their grandmama in Orkney for the past two years, and as the last date for posting parcels grew nearer, so too did Inspector Faro’s frowns grow deeper and darker with the preoccupation of choosing suitable presents. Finally, with all the anticipatory joy of a man presenting himself for the extraction of a particularly sensitive tooth, he stared glumly into the jeweller’s window, feeling utterly helpless faced with such a bewildering and dazzling selection.

  If only he enjoyed shopping. He had relied on his dear Lizzie to keep his wardrobe up to the mark. His indifference to sartorial elegance was well known at the Central Office of the Edinburgh City Police. As long as garments were comfortable and covered him in modest decency, he did not care a fig for fashion. The reflection of his greatcoat in the window glass jolted him a little, but closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and entered the shop, where a loud bell noisily proclaimed his presence.

  Taking stock of his surroundings as he waited for the jeweller to appear, he saw that the shop was small, dark, and depressing, a complete contrast to the brilliant sunshine of a winter afternoon settling into a rosy sunset sharp with frost.

  A closer look at the owner, who entered through the curtain and bowed gravely, told a delighted Faro that he might have modelled Mr. Dickens’s Fagin but for those gentle eyes and dignified bearing.

  Indicating a tray of brooches, he found Mr. Jacob most helpful. Was the recipient a young lady?

  Faro shook his head. “No, it is for my mother.” He was both delighted and relieved when Mr. Jacob after careful deliberation pointed to the very one he had in mind. “Yes, indeed. That is perfect,” said Faro. “I will take it.”

  “Is there anything else I might interest you in, sir?”

  When Faro asked to see lockets, the jeweller beamed.

  “For your lady wife, sir?”

  “Actually for my two small daughters. I am a widower.”

  Mr. Jacob sighed. “I also. I have a daughter to look after me.”

  Choosing two identical gold lockets, Faro asked, “Forgive my curiosity. I realise you are a newcomer to Edinburgh. May I ask what brought you here?”

  “I have been here since May. As to what brought me here, sir, I will be frank with you. Persecution—yes, persecution. We have been dogged by utmost misfortunes and we are still wanderers. But Edinburgh gave us hope for a home and a future. Here it seemed that our race was tolerated and even encouraged to settle, to live and die in peace.”

  Faro suspected that Mr. Jacob had been lured by the fact that sixty years ago, in the early years of the century, Edinburgh had seen the establishment of the first Jewish cemetery in Scotland, a stone’s throw from his shop.

  A sign of tolerance, generous but sadly misleading. Faro was well aware that to the ordinary Edinburgh citizen, a minority racial group was something to be jeered at, despised, and that any success in business by honest dealings and honest sweat was treated with the darkest suspicion.

  * * * *

  Mr. Jacob was fitting the gifts into velvet boxes. When Faro said they were to be posted, a sturdy brown envelope was produced.

  “Perhaps you would write on the address, sir. I have a card to enclose with your message.”

  “That is most thoughtful of you, Mr. Jacob.”

  The jeweller studied the name and address. “Faro—you are the inspector—Inspector Faro?”

  “I am,” said Faro, surprised and flattered to find himself famous.

  “You must forgive me, sir, I did not recognise you again.”

  “Again?” queried Faro.

  “Yes, sir. I have the ring ready for you—”

  “The ring—what ring?”

  It was the jeweller’s turn to look astonished. “Why, sir, the valuable brooch you left.” And unlocking a drawer behind the counter, Mr. Jacob produced an emerald and diamond ring.

  Faro was taken aback. Although no connoisseur of gems, he would have hazarded a rough guess that it was worth at least ten times his annual salary with Edinburgh City Police.

  He also knew that he had never set eyes on it before.

  Mr. Jacob, watching him intently, mistook his expression as one of disapproval and said anxiously: “I hope it is correct, sir. I tried to follow your instructions exactly.”

  “My instructions?”

  The jeweller nodded vigorously. “Indeed, sir. I was to change the order of the diamonds and make the original brooch into a ring setting suitable for a lady,” he said slowly, then, frowning: “There is some mistake?”

  With a shake of his head, Faro replied: “There is indeed. This piece of jewellery is not mine.”

  “But you are Inspector Faro? Is that not so?” and Mr. Jacob consulted his ledger. “Here is the entry. This brooch was handed in two days ago by Inspector Faro. See for yourself.”

  Now examining the ring thoughtfully, Faro said slowly: “I didn’t by any chance tell you how I had come by it, did I?”

  Mr. Jacob’s bafflement equalled Faro’s own. “Come by it? What is that? I do not understand.”

  “Did your customer tell you that he had inherited the brooch, by any chance?”

  “It was my daughter you—Inspector Faro—spoke to.”

  Ah, and that explains the case of mistaken identity, thought Faro, as Mr. Jacob darted behind the screen to reappear with a gazelle-eyed beauty.

  Nadia was very young, so nervous as to be almost inarticulate in her forest-creature manner, but in a few years, Faro guessed, there would be few in Edinburgh to rival her exotic looks.

  And Faro smiled to himself remembering a Bible picture from his childhood. If her father could have modelled a benign Fagin, then Nadia might well have been the lass setting the baby Moses adrift among the reeds.

  Her father’s admonishing tones in their own language made her wild-eyed and tearful. Trembling, she would have disappeared behind the curtain screen but for his restraining hand.

  Urging her towards the inspector, Mr. Jacob’s voice was stern indeed. At last, with downcast head, she began an unintelligible explanation.

  “In English, daughter,” thundered her father.

  Slowly she raised her eyes to Faro. “He came in and asked for my father. I told him my father was not here. He did not want to leave the brooch but he was in a great hurry.”

  “How did you know that?” asked Faro gently.

  “He went often to the door and looked up and down the street as if expecting my father to come.”

  Your father—or the people who were chasing him, thought Faro grimly, having now deduced the reason for the bogus inspector’
s anxiety and the urgent necessity of having the brooch transformed into a ring.

  “He saw someone in the street,” said Nadia. “He seemed anxious and thrust the brooch into my hand. My father was to have it ready for him today without fail.”

  “Today—you are sure of that?” said Faro.

  Nadia looked at her father. “That is what he said.”

  “He? He! Be polite, daughter, that is no way to address the inspector.” And bowing, “Her English—I apologise.”