Strict and Peculiar (The Falconer Files Book 7)

by Andrea Frazer

  Darren was scrubbed up, his hair slicked down, and smartly dressed when they arrived at the pub, and he told his story fluently and coherently. He had evidently been reassured by his aunt and uncle that the police had everything under control. If only! Falconer asked him if he’d used his torch to see the figures better, but got the expected negative response. Darren hadn’t dared, in case they’d traced the source of the beam of light to him.

  ‘If they was zombies,’ he said, with complete seriousness, ‘they’d have eaten me, and my mum would’ve been awful cross. But I did take a picture with my phone,’ he suddenly confessed. ‘Then I got right into that hedge around the corner where that lady what drinks lives. It was right spiky, what with it being November, but I got myself tucked away, in case they’d noticed the flash. But everything was all right, so that’s when I legged it back here, before they ‘got’ me and did unspeakable things.’

  ‘You never said anything about no photo,’ commented his aunt, scowling at him, with no worries whatsoever about what the boy considered to be ‘unspeakable things’.

  ‘Clever boy!’ exclaimed his uncle, beaming his pride at the boy’s ingenuity.

  ‘Let me see?’ asked Falconer, excited now.

  ‘It’s not very good,’ said Darren, sadly, as he got his phone out of his trouser pocket. ‘Here!’

  Falconer looked at the small offering, but it was much better than he had expected it to be. ‘Would you mind sending that photo to my phone, Darren? I’m sure the lab boys could work wonders with it.’

  ‘Oh, boy! Am I going to be part of a murder investigation?’ asked the lad, who evidently did a lot of eavesdropping.

  Mrs Welland had obviously got tired of the proceedings, and left the room. She had a pub to open this evening, and she had a lot she wanted to get done before then. Having the little one to stay was all right, but he did cause quite a bit of extra work.

  ‘This photo might possibly be used as evidence. It’s timed and dated, and could prove very useful to us, Darren. Thank you very much,’ Falconer added, as his phone indicated that it had received the photograph.

  But the inspector was not to escape so lightly from this visit. There sounded a cry of, ‘No, Jake!’ from upstairs, and the unmistakable thunder of bounding paws down the staircase. Jake entered the room with a deep ‘wuff’ of welcome, and shot straight over to Falconer, who had been sitting rather uncomfortably in a wooden chair.

  He was even more uncomfortable, when he found himself with his legs in the air, his body on the chair-back, which was now on the floor, while Jake licked his face as if it were the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

  ‘Get orf ’im, Jakey boy!’ yelled Welland, grabbing the dog by its collar and heaving. Jake reluctantly left his new best friend, and whimpered pitifully as he was dragged out of the door, looking back over his shoulder appealingly.

  Carmichael helped Falconer to his feet and handed him a cotton handkerchief, a clean one of which was issued to him every day by Kerry, with which to mop his sopping face.

  ‘Are you OK, Inspector?’ asked Welland, concerned about whether the man had hit his head on the floor on toppling backwards with the weight of the dog. He didn’t fancy being sued over having an over-friendly dog.

  ‘May I use your Gents, please?’ Falconer asked, in a rather tight voice, and whispered to Carmichael as he went past him, determined to scrub his face as clean as he could, before leaving the pub, ‘I feel sick. I hope I’m not going to chuck.’ With a moue of distaste, he exited, scrubbing his face vigorously with the handkerchief, and discreetly spitting into it, leaving Carmichael wondering what the fatal attraction to the inspector was, for dogs. Whatever Falconer had got, he just wished he had it, too.

  Amy Littlemore was more sober than usual, and told them that she had had to go out for a couple of little walks the night before. A bruise on both her upper arms suggested that this might have been due to some rather physical disagreements with Malcolm. It was lucky they kept the central heating so high, or he’d never have seen her without a cardigan at this time of year.

  She said she’d gone out about eleven o’clock, and heard some weird sort of chanting in what she referred to as ‘foreign’, and had come in again, because she didn’t like the sound of it, but it was definitely coming from either the chapel or its grounds.

  At about 2 a.m., she’d gone out for longer – this must have been the culmination of the disagreement – and, on walking down Tuppenny Lane opposite the chapel, had seen a hooded figure disappearing inside its doors. That had been enough to scare her back home, but she’d remembered to report it this morning, because she knew it might be important.

  As they sat in the car outside Forge Cottage, Carmichael commented, ‘That’s three confirmed sightings we’ve had for that period. Mrs Squiffy heard chanting round about ten, but didn’t see anything. That lad, Darren, saw two figures about midnight, and Mrs Squiffy saw one at about two o’clock.’

  ‘And we’ve got a photograph of sorts, although I don’t know how much enhancement it’ll take. We’ll just have to wait and see what the lab boys can do with it. I know they can work wonders these days, so we might be lucky. At least it’s not got its back turned towards the camera.’

  ‘I say, sir?’ asked Carmichael. ‘What do you think we’d get, if we crossed Mr Spliffy with Mrs Squiffy?’

  ‘A right royal hangover, Carmichael. Come on, let’s get on with the rest of these interviews, before I lose my mind. And I can feel a headache coming on. That damned dog!’

  Later that afternoon, Monica Raynor had begun sorting out Quentin’s clothes for the charity shop, going through his pockets religiously. He was a terror for shoving money in them, because he couldn’t be bothered to get his wallet out and put it away properly.

  She’d already found about a hundred and fifty pounds in change and small notes, when she delved a hand into the right-hand pocket of a jacket he’d worn a lot recently and, grasping what she thought might be another fiver, pulled out a piece of paper about the same size as the expected banknote.

  Its message was short and simple: ‘Friday – midnight – chapel. J. x’. It wasn’t signed, as such, but as Quentin’s body had been found on Saturday morning, actually in the chapel, it was evidently of some importance, and she put it away safely, to take into Market Darley the next day for Inspector Falconer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tuesday 9th November

  Falconer didn’t realise it when he left home that morning, but it was going to be an eventful day; just the first, however, of more of the same. When he arrived at the station, he found Monica Raynor waiting for him, and he conducted her up to his office, mulling over what she could have come to see him about.

  After they had exchanged greeting, and she had made herself comfortable in a chair opposite his, she scrabbled around in her handbag, eventually handing him a rather crumpled piece of paper.

  ‘I found that in the pocket of one of Quentin’s jackets,’ she informed him, a woman coping admirably with a dreadful situation. ‘It appears to be for an assignation on the night of his murder, so I thought I’d better bring it in to you. Maybe one of his little lovelies has struck back at him for using her, and this time he simply didn’t survive the onslaught.

  ‘I’m sure he was very good at telling women what an awful marriage he had, and how unhappy he was at home. For all I know, he promised goodness knows how many of them that he’d leave me, but he’d never have done that. He’d have lost half the business, for a start, not to mention half the marital home. Tell me, who’d want him when I’d finished with him, financially?’

  Falconer was too embarrassed even to attempt to answer that question, and stared at the scrap of paper, working out whose name began with ‘J’ who was involved in the case, and the only answer he came up with was ‘Jocasta Gray’. The note was handwritten, not printed, so he could get a specimen of her handwriting, and pass it over to the experts, but should he do this surreptitiously, or ove
rtly? He’d have to give that one some thought.

  He was still mulling this over in his mind when the phone rang with the information that DC Roberts had regained consciousness during the night, and it would be permissible for him to receive a visit, so long as the inspector didn’t stay for too long, or distress him in any way. He was still very weak, and trying to cope with the information about what had happened to him, as he remembered nothing of the beating, but he had expressed an urgent desire to speak to Falconer, so that’s why they were calling him.

  Grabbing Carmichael by the arm as soon as he entered the office door, and not even giving him time to take off his coat, he sped him back out through the building, and straight into his own car.

  ‘What the heck’s going on, sir?’ asked Carmichael, puzzled by the inspector’s urgency.

  ‘Roberts is conscious, and wants to talk to us,’ explained Falconer, skidding heart-stoppingly on a patch of black ice on his way out of the car park.

  Chris was in a normal ward now, and they found him propped up on pillows, trying to turn the pages of a daily rag. ‘You had us worried there, Roberts. It’s seems that you might have penetrated deeper undercover than you realised,’ Falconer greeted him.

  ‘We thought you were a goner,’ added Carmichael, lugubriously.

  ‘So did I!’ replied Chris, trying to sit further up in the bed, and wincing with pain. ‘But I haven’t lost a lot of memory, and I’ve been dying to talk to you guys.’

  Falconer winced, not just at the casual use of the word ‘dying’, but at him and Carmichael being referred to you as ‘you guys’. ‘That’s great news!’ he retorted, trying not to show his disapproval of this mode of address, considering what Roberts had been through. ‘Tell us everything you remember after you stopped making notes, and Carmichael here will get it all down.’

  Carmichael took the one visitor’s chair that sat by the bed and removed his notebook, ready for action. ‘Cor! This is just like being interrogated!’ came from the bed. Chris may not be mended physically, but he certainly seemed very like his old facetious self. ‘I di’n’t do nuffink, occifer! I’m bein’ fitted up ’ere!’ he said, and looked to see if Carmichael had taken this down, only to receive an old-fashioned look from the sergeant.

  ‘I’m not that easily fooled,’ said the latter, and, a distressing habit, licked the end of his pen, as if it were a pencil, ready to begin.

  ‘Before we start,’ said Falconer, ‘I wonder if you recognise this handwriting?’ he asked, and handed the note that Monica had given him, to Chris.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he replied, trying to raise an eyebrow, and failing, due to the presence of stitches on his forehead. ‘That’s the tutor’s handwriting – Jocasta Gray. I’ve got notes in it written all over the only piece of work I handed in for marking. I’ll let you have it, or you can go round to collect it from my rucksack from my mother’s.’

  ‘Excellent! Now I only want her fingerprints,’ Falconer replied, smiling.

  ‘You’ll probably get those from it as well, as she had her hands all over it, annotating it and putting in cutting comments about my lack of understanding of the course.’ This was said ruefully by the patient, but he did not try to express this feeling through his face, having just learnt that he was going to have to act as if he had had too much Botox, for a while, at least.

  ‘And did I make a note that one of the students in the discussion group was the owner of a van? That’s Daniel Burrows, doing philosophy. And his mate, Aaron Trussler – physical education, and built like a brick shit – sorry! – outhouse – had a bruised hand, and that was on my first day, when we were looking for whoever did for that workman.’

  ‘Even better!’ Falconer was very pleased about this, as it meant he didn’t have to pursue the woman for either identification of the writing on the note, or Jocasta Gray’s fingerprints, and he now had two male suspects. He had no desire to see the tutor’s pale features, or her emaciated figure again, so soon after their first encounter, but he’d bulked out his list of people to watch. ‘And now, I’ll let you get on with your story, Roberts.’

  ‘I had a coffee with that Elspeth girl,’ Chris began, ‘on that last day I remember. I even had the audacity to touch her hand, or maybe she touched mine – it’s all a bit hazy – and then I schmoozed her like crazy – all the corny lines I could think of on the spur of the moment.’

  ‘Crikey! You’re dedicated, aren’t you?’ interrupted Carmichael. ‘I’ve seen her and I wouldn’t have the stomach for it. She’s got a face like a pizza!’

  ‘Carmichael!’ Falconer chided him, but secretly agreed, and remembered his own thoughts about extra garlic bread when they had met the unfortunate-looking girl. It had taken a very brave officer to flirt with such a countenance as that of Elspeth Martin.

  ‘It worked, though. She said I could come along to the meeting of the ‘advanced’ discussion group that evening, but that I’d have to go to her place first. That was because this ‘advanced’ group is the one that goes a-chanting and a-desecrating, in the old S&P Chapel in Steynham St Michael.

  ‘She got me sorted out with this habit-thingy with a hood, and I followed her car. I must admit to feeling a little bit windy as I drove behind her as to what I was getting myself into, and so quickly. I thought it would take more than a few lascivious leers and a touch of her hand to gain access to this inner circle. I think she’d taken rather a shine to me.’

  ‘So what happened when you got there?’ Falconer nudged him, to keep the story flowing. He didn’t want some busybody nurse coming along and expelling them from the ward because they were tiring the patient too much.

  ‘We all parked up a disused farm track to the back of the chapel, so that our arrival wouldn’t be noticed by anyone in the village, then we put on our robes – and very grateful I was, at the time, for its warmth. It was absolutely freezing – and we trekked across this fallow field, me hoping that we wouldn’t run into any poachers who might take a pot-shot at us in surprise.

  ‘Anyway, we reached the chapel, and Jocasta Gray had the key, but only the one to the front door – I think it’s the north door – so we had to go round one-by-one, about a minute between each of us, to get in. I was second-to-last, so I was really grateful for the warmth of the habit by then.’

  ‘What happened, when you got inside?’ Falconer asked the question, because he could see that Carmichael needed a fractional break to catch up with his notes.

  ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes! That Jocasta Gray calmly produced what looked like, and turned out to be, joints, for everyone. It was really eerie, in just the moonlight that penetrated those little windows, seeing all these cloaked and hooded figures, calmly smoking grass.’

  ‘Did you take one yourself?’

  ‘I had to! I lit it when everyone else did, from a burning candle, but I managed to waste most of it, and when I did have to take a toke, I didn’t inhale it: just kept the smoke in my mouth for a few seconds, then blew it out again, making appropriate noises of appreciation.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought of doing that,’ commented Carmichael.

  ‘No, I don’t expect you would have,’ replied Falconer, trying to envisage an occasion where he had to help his partner from the scene, Carmichael leaning heavily on his shoulder, with his build and weight …

  And then he remembered what Darren had said – the little nephew of the Ox and Plough’s landlord. He had seen someone being helped from the scene. At the time, he’d thought it may have been the near-comatose body of Chris, being steered towards a vehicle, but now he doubted that.

  Chris had seen that the inspector was lost in introspection, and had waited for him to re-join them, mentally.

  ‘Anyway, after all the joints were lit, they started some weird chanting: I think it must have been in Greek, because I couldn’t understand a word of it, or identify the language. We only had the one candle to light us, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Then Jocasta announced th
at, as the Lord had seen fit to smite a sinner in pursuit of his sin, they would leave another message for the village.

  ‘She got out this pot of paint – said she was sorry that it was black again, and then they all took it in turns to write – oh, what was it – something like, ‘be sure your sins will find you out’, because that was what had happened to the workman. He had sinned, and the Lord had smitten him – some daft religious babble or other, about sins and punishment, with the emphasis on punishment. It was all a bit scary, and it really put the wind up me. I didn’t realise they were that zealous.

  ‘I just wanted to get out of there: they were a bunch of crazies. At certain points in the chanting, they all agitated their left legs. I haven’t the faintest idea why. I can tell you, I was on the point of doing a ‘number two’, and desecrating – more like defecating, I suppose – my nice new cloak, when suddenly it was all over.

  ‘We all made our way out, leaving as we had come, back across the field, leaving behind us only the scent of skunk and wet paint. Then things get a bit hazy. Nobody put their car lights on to leave, to avoid calling attention to themselves.

  ‘I was just hauling this hairy habit over my head, when I felt a tremendous blow to my right shoulder. I remember yelling, ‘Ow! That’s is going to leave a bruise, you know,’ and then I got an enormous whack round the head, and I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in here. I don’t know who did it, because I don’t remember who had gone and who was still there. I just know it was bloody painful and, apparently, I’m lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Thanks, Roberts. You did a good job under enormous pressure, and in the face of real personal danger. You’ll make a good undercover cop.’

  ‘I don’t think I like undercover, sir, with all respect. I don’t think I want to do that again. Even a cat has only nine lives.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Wednesday 10th November