by Adam Maxwell
“So, erm, do you or not? Sorry to be a pest, it’s just my job you see.”
“Hang on,” said Travers, twisting in his seat, screwing his cigar firmly into his mouth then pushing Mitch off the back of the cart with his not inconsiderable strength.
Mitch rolled onto the fairway and into my pursuers, knocking them to the floor.
“You need to be more resourceful, son,” said Travers
The cart picked up speed.
Slightly.
*
“So how do you fit into this murder?” said Travers, the cigar waggling up and down in his mouth as he spoke.
“Oh I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose, it’s like you said, I’m just the comedy turn. And besides Mitch says he’s got it all sewn up.”
“Does he now?”
I nodded, “Yeah, that lawyer confessed to him and that’s enough as far as he’s concerned.”
“Avelina killed Damien? Bwaaaaaaaaaaaah!” the last syllable bursting out of his mouth like the cry of an enormous karate-chicken. “And what do you think?”
I shouldn’t think anything but Mitch was such a dick. No pun intended. He had always been like this and he always bloody got away with it.
I shook my head.
“Nah. She’s a lawyer. She’s just pissing with him because she knows she can.”
Travers exploded with laughter again.
“So, sonny,” he continued. “If it’s not her then who?”
I shrugged, “Dunno, you probably.”
Then that laugh again.
“Very good!” he said and slapped me on the back. The golf cart swerved.
“Which way are we supposed to be going?”
“For years and years.”
“What? No, I mean which way is it to the clubhouse?”
“Oh right,” Travers pointed behind us. “Back there I think. Sorry, hearing not what it was.”
“What’s for years and years?”
“Well that’s how long I’ve know Zelnick. Damien. Poor man.”
“Oh, right, sorry I asked.”
“Poor, poor man.”
It seemed rude to interrupt him any further, he stared straight ahead in silence as the golf cart moved across the fairway.
“I’m sorry,” I said eventually. “Were you two close?”
“Not particularly. It just reminds one of one’s own mortality.”
He took another drag on his cigar, exhaled and then began to pick up pace, telling me about the dead man and how they were both going into business together, gradually gathering momentum until he seemed to have regained his earlier and sunnier disposition.
“You see he had a lot of money at one time but then he lost a great deal. There was a terrible business with his accountant.”
“Smith?”
“No,” said Travers. “Never seen him before in my life. We were supposed to be golfing with another friend of ours but he couldn’t make it. Smith was just there to make up the numbers. Pity really, he wasn’t the friendliest type.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Damien’s accountant was using his business to launder money for Big Terry.”
“Smith?”
“No, not that fool. He seemed to take against us the moment Damien joined us. I’m talking about Damien’s original accountant. He was using Damien’s business to launder money for Big Terry.”
“The gangster?”
“That’s the one. Bloody nasty piece of work. You always expect dwarfs to be friendly don’t you, like on telly, but Big Terry…” he trailed off. “Anyway Damien didn’t know anything about it. When he did find out his accountant was carted off but had a heart attack and died before it went to trial. Damage was already done.”
“But you two were rivals?” I said.
“Quite right, yes. Until then. Thing is he needed some capital after what had happened so we started to set up a deal negotiating to work together to get this sculpture.”
“Sculpture?”
“Oh yes. Wildly expensive, wonderfully beautiful. It would have been the start of a fantastic partnership. And of course a boatload of money. But it was not to be.”
“Not for him at least, but presumably you still stand to make a killing from the deal? That is – er – I mean…”
“Absolutely. That goes without saying. An absolute schooner of it. No more or less than if he were still alive. And think of the long term…”
“So did anyone else know about his involvement apart from you?”
“No. No-one. He insisted upon complete secrecy. Pride I suppose.”
Travers turned away slightly and drew the cigar out of his mouth, looking at the end he continued, “Gone out. Blast it. Here…”
He reached into his pocket and took out a lighter.
“You couldn’t light it for me could you? Damned arthritis, I can hold a golf club but can’t light a bloody cigar. My wife says it’s for the best.”
“Yeah, of course,” I took the lighter with my left hand, doing my best to keep the cart steady with my right.
“Hey! Watch
*
The voices came back first. People shouting, the sound of running and then Travers voice trampling up into my consciousness. My eyes snapped open.
“…the bloody golf cart NOW!” he screamed.
The side wall of the clubhouse was metres in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and came to a stop in the same way a cloud would if it had slowly hit a pillow.
“Don’t panic,” I said.
“Are you allowed to drive?” he retorted.
“Not exactly, no.”
He nodded then smiled and let out another Bwaaaaaaaaaaaah!
“You know,” he added. “It was worth risking life and limb to watch you run over that fool Smith.”
“What?” I said. “What do you mean run over?”
“Just that, you caught him good and proper, knocked him into the rough.”
“Is he alright?”
“Hey!” said a voice.
I didn’t like the tone of that ‘hey’ and I liked it even less when its owner came into view bearing all the hallmarks of being a policeman.
“Clint, is it?” he panted as he came to a stop.
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder…”
“Hang on a minute there’s no way I could have killed Smith – not with a golf cart.”
“Smith? Golf cart?” he looked genuinely confused. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “I am arresting you for the murder of Damien Zelnick. Anything you
*
“I’ll tell you who is guilty of this murder, officers,” Mitch was standing in a room in the clubhouse and I was lying on the floor with my cheek on the carpet and my arm cuffed to a table leg.
I pushed myself up quickly and surveyed the scene. Travers was present. There were two policemen. An older bloke I hadn’t seen before. The lawyer and a paramedic tending to Smith, who looked pretty shook up. I had the horrible feeling that Mitch was just going to let them cart me away. This was even easier than a confession, he didn’t need to convince the police.
I thought for a second about making a run for it and then noticed that one of the attendant lawmen had handcuffed me to the table leg.
“Not too late am I?” I asked.
“You finished your post-hit-and-run nap then have you?” Smith shouted. “You could have bloody killed me!”
I winced a smile at him and he stared blankly back.
“This murder was committed by…” Mitch began.
“Can I just stop you for a minute there, Mitch?” I interjected.
“Er.”
“Just before you get into the cut and thrust of it all I would like to say,” I lifted the table slightly and slid the attached cuff off the leg. “It’s just that there’s no way I could have committed this murder.”
“Erm, of course there isn’t,” said Mitch.
“Because at the time of the murder I was… What did you say?�
��
Mitch stared at me, frowning.
“Well of course you didn’t do it, you were… well, you know…”
“Sleeping?”
“Sleeping. Exactly.”
“Oh, right, well then, can someone have a look at this please?” I stood up and lifted my arm in the air, jangling the attached cuff in the direction of the police in attendance.
“Hang on,” said one of the policemen. “I’m not convinced about this. I mean…”
“As I was saying officer,” said Mitch. “The murder was committed by Avelina Mergen.”
The policeman started to walk towards me.
“The lawyer?” I asked.
Mitch nodded.
“He’s right,” she said. “It was me.”
I looked over to her sitting at a table by the bar, relaxed, sipping a white wine.
“It wasn’t her,” I said.
The policeman stopped walking towards me.
“It wasn’t?” said Mitch. He let out a small sigh. “Come on Clint, I’m trying to help you here.”
“It was,” she said again. “I killed him.”
“See?” said Mitch. “What more do you need?”
He nodded towards the officer who started to walk towards her.
“I though we already talked about this, Mitch. What about evidence?” I said.
The policeman stopped and stared at Mitch again.
“Ah, yes, I know but she’s admitted to it. Now, erm, shut up will you?”
The policeman hovered in the middle of the room for a second then began to speak. “Alright,” he said deliberately. “If she didn’t do it then it was definitely you.”
He pointed at me.
“Hang on, officer,” said Mitch. “This murder was committed by Mr Bartholomew Travers. Take him away.”
“What?” barked Travers.
“Listen,” said Smith, rubbing his damaged limb. “I just need to go to the toilet, can I pop out for a second?”
“Oh I wouldn’t mate,” said the policeman. “There’s been some sort of, I don’t know, outbreak or something. It looks like a septic tank has exploded in there and there’s people lying around…”
The corners of his mouth turned down and he swallowed.
“There’s… well, there’s excrement up the walls and… well, to be honest with all that’s going one here,” he said. “I just locked them in there.”
“Erm, Officer?” Mitch tried to re-establish control of the room.
“Hang on a minute Mitch,” I said. “I don’t think it was him. There’s no way those fingers could have wired up the device that electrocuted him. He hasn’t got the dexterity.”
“Electrocuted?”
“Yeah. Wide eyes, hair standing on end, smell of burning. It’s a dead giveaway isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. That and the massive bloody battery and wires in the golf cart thingy.”
“And he was soaking. Conducts the electricity a treat. Sprinklers mysteriously came on before it happened did they?” I looked over to the lawyer who nodded dutifully.
“Device?”
“Yeah. Arthritis. Didn’t do it.”
Not one to take this lying down. Mitch rounded on the lawyer.
“Well one of you two must have done it. I don’t care what the evidence says!” he said, his eyes darting from the lawyer to Travers and back again. “You. You did do it didn’t you?”
“I told you I did,” said the lawyer. “Now prove it or piss off.”
“Right,” said Mitch. “Well then.”
He wagged his finger at the lawyer.
“Ah,” he said, turning back to Travers. “But I did find a cigar butt on the corpse. There!”
He beamed at Travers. He turned around and beamed at me.
I shook my head. He stopped beaming.
“No?”
“Nope,” I said. “Different brand isn’t it?”
Mitch stamped across the room and snatched the cigar Travers was holding.
“Shit,” he said and gave it back. Mitch turned around to look at me, “Where are you getting this from Clint?”
I shrugged.
“Oh bollocks to it,” said Mitch. “If you’re so clever you work it out then smart arse.”
The policeman who had been hovering in the centre of the room finally snapped into action.
“Right,” he said. “So we’re happy it’s not the lady lawyer. Which I’m quite glad about. Mr Travers here appears to have been unable to set up such an elaborate trap.”
“Steady on,” said Travers.
“Sorry,” he continued. “So that means we’re back to you then, doesn’t it. You were there before anyone else. Apparently asleep although frankly I have my doubts so let’s stop messing about, come on, I’m taking you down the station.”
The other policeman put his hand up to speak. I nodded eagerly at him.
“He said he’d never met any of these gentlemen before today. Said they asked him to make up the numbers.”
I laughed, “That’s good – make up the numbers? Get it?”
Everyone stared. That happened a lot.
“Never mind. You,” I said pointing to the accountant. “You did it. I know you did it.”
“Eh?” he replied.
“Officers, take this man into custody. He’s the murderer and I have the evidence here.”
I snatched a bunch of papers from a nearby desk and waved them comically at the bewildered accountant. I looked around at everyone and waited for someone to move, to say something but everyone was staring at me as if I was Miss bloody Marple. This was going to be difficult because I was just making it up as I went along. I needed time to think but the officers started to move forward and all I could think was shit, shit, SHIT I need to think. Please just
*
“Bah!” I said, my body making a strange involuntary noise just to make the room go quiet and stare at me. “How long was I out for?”
Mitch bent down to help me up. I reached up and touched my left elbow. I must have fallen on it as I went down.
“Erm, just a couple of minutes. Not long. Clint,” Mitch said quietly in my ear as I began to stand. “You’re on to something. He just tried to make a break for it so don’t screw this up, tell them how he did it.”
I cleared my throat. Everyone stared.
I breathed deeply and tried not to think about sleep.
“Craig Smith,” I began slowly. “Why don’t you tell everyone here what you had against Mr Zelnick?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I’d never met him before today.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“No we don’t.”
Dammit, for a moment there I thought it was actually going to be that easy.
“Why then, if you two had never met, did you have such a dislike for him?”
“What?”
“The other members of your party commented on it.”
“I’m not putting up with this a moment longer,” Smith stood up, picked up his coat and began striding towards the door but Mitch was ready for him and stepped forward knocking into Smith’s damaged arm.
Smith screamed and dropped his coat on the wooden floor. Out of one of the pockets slid a small homemade electronic device with two distinct buttons. I lunged forward and grabbed it and held it out for the assembled masses. If this was the switch that opened his garage door I was screwed.
“Let me spell it out for you,” I said, trying hard to fight back the tiredness.
And that’s exactly what I did. Told everyone how it all fitted together, how Smith had found out Facebook that the dead man would be playing today. I told them about how he had arrived early and got rid of the fourth player, how he had rigged up not just the sprinkler system but also the electrical charge in the golf bag. I told everyone how he had activated both with his remote and how he had watched as Zelnick had died.
“That’s just the remote that opens my garage,” said S
mith.
I was furious and pressed the buttons hard. There was a loud bang in the corner of the room and smoke started rising out of the golf bag which sat next to the other police officer.
And that was it, the room exploded with voices and movement and Smith hurled himself at me, knocking me down and
*
“…for the last ten years,” said Mr Smith. “But no-one knew. There’s no way anyone could have known.”
“Well?” said one of the officers. “Can we arrest him now?”
Mitch nodded then turned around to look at me. “Yes. Take him away.”
“Hang on a second,” I said, jangling my loose handcuff once more at the officers.
“Oh yes,” one replied and removed the offending bracelet.
“Well done, lad,” said Travers, coming up behind me and slapping me hard on the back. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Thanks, I think,” I said. “So what did I miss?”
Travers let out a bwaaaaaaaaah!
“Remember the accountant, the one who Zelnick sent down? The one I told you about, had a heart attack?”
“Yeah.”
“Smith was his son. Blamed Zelnick for his death.”
And then the other occupant of the room, an older man with swept back white hair, stood up and approached us.
“Clint is it?” he said in a way that was a statement rather than a question.
I nodded dutifully and he looked to Mitch and raised an eyebrow.
“Erm, Clint, this is Mr Forsyth,” said Mitch deferetially. “My boss.”
“Well done, lad,” said Forsyth. “That was pure cabaret. Brilliant lunacy. I loved it.”
“Blind luck if you ask me,” said the other officer as he dragged the still smoking golf bag out of the bar. “There’s no way he could have known the accountant was related to any of this.”
“Blind luck?” said Forsyth. “What do you have to say about that Clint?”
“I don’t know about that, there were, well… clues I suppose you’d call them and, well people told me stuff and…”
Mitch opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it.
“So, Clint,” Forsyth continued. “Blind luck was it?”