“It all sounds fascinating,” Anfred nodded, recognising this question as rhetorical.
“You’re a good listener.” She was trying to point at him and managed to indicate the space above his shoulder.
“It’s not like I’ve had any choice,” he murmured, his eyes twinkling.
“What?”
“I’m joking!” He held up his hands in the gesture of surrender again. “It’s been interesting. Really.”
Cassidy nodded. She didn’t seem able to stop. She gestured at the table and the tent. “This was a good idea.”
“Yes, it was,” he got to his feet. “But you must work -“
She pouted. She didn’t want the good idea to end. “Oh no, oh no. We have time for another one. Just the one, though.”
Anfred laughed. He went to fetch just one more beer, leaving her to resume looking around at the other festival goers. She even raised a hand in salutation to some of the nearby drinkers. She belched. She giggled. Yes, it was a good idea.
Anfred came back with two foaming pints of golden beer. She accepted one and clinked the other with it. He sat down.
“So, come on then, Song of Norway,” Cassidy wiped froth from her top lip with the back of her hand. “What’s your story? What are you doing here?”
He looked at her. He shrugged. “Oh, I’m here with the beer,” he said.
“Huh,” she was dissatisfied. “Pretty sure everybody in this tent is here for the beer.”
Anfred shook his head. “Not for. With. I’m here to promote...” He pointed to a garish banner suspended over the temporary bar: Ragnarök -The Ale To End Them All.
“Oh...” said Cassidy, when her eyes could focus on the lettering, “so you’re-”
“Yes. I’m crass, over-commercialised, ugly, gaudy and tasteless. Like the beer.”
Cassidy’s lower lip curled inwards behind her upper teeth. “Oops,” she said. Her elbow jolted the table. “Sorry about that. When you’ve been so kind -“
“Ah, these are all freebies,” Anfred waved dismissively at the empty glasses. “They know me here.”
“So, can I try it?”
“Being crass?”
“Your beer! Rango - ranko...”
“Ragnarök. Not now. Not yet.”
Cassidy was crestfallen. Like many people crossed when drunk, she became a petulant child. She folded her arms and sulked. “Why not?”
“Because, Miss American Pie,” he got to his feet, “it is time...for...music!”
He sprang away from the table and dashed to a platform where a small group of musicians were in the process of setting up to play. He snatched up a violin, murmured something to the band members who seemed to approve. While they picked up their instruments, Anfred whistled like a shepherd, signalling the bar staff to kill the oompah track. Taking centre stage, he counted them in.
“Fem, seks, syv, åtte!”
The musicians struck up their accompaniment but it was clear that Anfred was the star performer. They provided a backing rhythm to his fiddle-playing. The melody was simple at first but became more intricate with each variation. Everyone in the tent rose to their feet. Some, where they had space, danced. The rest stamped their feet and clapped their hands or, if their hands weren’t free, waved their pint glasses in the air. The tempo increased. The music became more intense.
Cassidy, too, got to her feet, mainly because her view was blocked by other revellers. She clapped along, delighted, surprised and amazed by this impromptu display of talent. Anfred was really whipping the crowd into a frenzy of waving things about and jumping up and down. Someone jostled her, sloshing beer up her arm and putting her out of synch with the beat. She began to feel crowded and confined as the crowd surged around her. The music became more intense still. The rest of the band abandoned their playing and joined in with the dancing. Anfred played on. His features were fixed in a broad grin. He built the tune to a dazzling crescendo and then, with a final flourish of his bow, brought the music to a sudden halt. There was a second or two of silence and perfect stillness before the whole tent erupted in a roar of approval.
He nodded his thanks to the crowd, to the band, handed back the violin and made his way back to the table. Appreciative drinkers patted his shoulder in congratulation as he passed.
“Wow,” said Cassidy, greeting him with a small round of applause. “That was something!”
Anfred shrugged, suddenly bashful. “Oh, I was just -“
The rest of his sentence was lost in the sound of a woman screaming.
The crowd of drinkers parted to reveal a man, lying across the next table. He was dead, that much was clear. Two beer bottles protruded from his eye sockets.
“Well, fuck me,” breathed Cassidy, rising slowly from her stool.
“Nobody touch nothing,” barked a barman who had dashed to the spot with his arms spread wide as a makeshift cordon. “Jason! Get the police.”
Questions
By the time Cassidy and Anfred were questioned by the police, it was late in the day. The sky was on the brink of going dark.
The coppers at the scene had done well to keep everyone on site when the discovery of the body was made. Even those who had been strictly speaking off-duty and knocking back bottle after bottle of Orcwater Gold had sobered up and rallied to assist.
Detectives and investigation teams and forensics and all the rest of it had flocked to town from the larger, regional station a few miles away, but D.I. Brough made it clear he was heading up the proceedings. It was his manor, damn it. (D.S. Miller had wrinkled her nose at this phrase, so he decided he wouldn’t say ‘manor’ anymore.) The crime scene had been secured. A smaller tent had been erected inside the marquee, shielding the body and protecting the evidence. An image of Russian dolls flashed across Brough’s mind.
How thrilled he had been when the call had come in! The whisk-killer of Wolverhampton could wait - the bloke was dead already; he wouldn’t mind. Ramming his arms into the sleeves of his overcoat, Brough had barked Miller’s name until she appeared at his side and they made their way on foot around the block to the beer festival.
Now, a few hours later, he had that sinking feeling of getting nowhere slowly. No one he spoke to had seen anything. He began to suspect there was a conspiracy afoot: they were all covering up for someone. He knew how tight knit these communities could be. And now, of all people, he was faced with an American girl and her Scandinavian boyfriend. He may as well have been conducting interviews at the zoo.
“And you’re certain you saw nothing?” he asked again. It was fast becoming a catchphrase.
The American girl shook her head. Standing beside her, the boyfriend was becoming impatient.
“We’ve been through this -” he began.
“Hoi! Bjorn Again!” D.S. Miller cut him short, raising her finger as warning.
“I’m speaking to the young lady,” said Brough, unfazed. He raised his eyebrows as a cue.
“I was just in the crowd,” Cassidy spoke quietly. Seeing the dead man had shaken her. This was not part of the research she had planned. “We were all enjoying the music. So many people. I’m sorry; I couldn’t see anything.”
“May we leave now, Inspector?” Anfred set his jaw, looking the detective in the eye.
“Watch it, Henry Fjord,” D.S. Miller snapped but Brough waved her down.
“Steady, Miller.” Brough returned the Norwegian’s stare. “If you weren’t the only one in the whole bloody tent with a cast-iron alibi...” It was true. He’d been the one providing the musical accompaniment to the murder. Everyone else had been lost, intoxicated, in the melee.
“You’d what?” Anfred would not look away. “Take me downtown and beat out of me a confession?”
“I don’t like your attitude” Brough observed. Damned if he was going t
o look away either!
“I don’t like your coat,” Anfred countered.
Brough’s mouth fell open at this. The American girl shook her boyfriend’s arm. “Anfred!” she gasped. Then she turned to the detectives to apologise. “We’re sorry. We’ve been drinking. He’s a little wired after the performance. You should have seen him. No wonder everyone got pretty stoked.”
Brough’s eyebrows rose again. “Stoked, as you put it, enough to kill someone with two bottles of beer?”
“So you’re ruling out tragic accident?” The American appeared to have perked up. Brough backed off, uncomfortable at this change.
“I ask the questions,” he pointed out. “Right, we’ve got your names and addresses? You live together.” Miller consulted her notes and nodded frantically.
“We’re at the same guest house if that’s what you mean,” Cassidy said carefully.
There was a beat, a brief silence, as if none of them knew what to say or do, then D.I. Brough cleared his throat and the moment was gone.
“Well,” he said, drawing out the word, “we’ll be in touch if we have more questions.”
“So we can leave?” the Norwegian was eyeballing him again. Brough didn’t like this one bit. Rather than enter into another staring competition, he rolled his eyes and addressed his response to the Yank.
“You may leave,” he said magnanimously. “Before I change my mind.”
The Norwegian led the girl away but he shot over his shoulder before he went, “It’s your coat you should change, Inspector. And you might rethink those shoes.”
Brough was gobsmacked. Miller chose her words before speaking.
“He’s one to talk. Christmas jumper.”
Brough glowered at her. She was sorry she spoke but had the good sense not to say so.
***
Cassidy was astonished to discover, upon her return to the Ash Tree, that the beer festival appeared to have found a new home. The bar was chock-a-block with drinkers and not all of them could have been residents.
Mrs Box was speedily but efficiently dispensing drinks from behind the counter, despite having to climb onto upturned crates and a small stepladder in order to reach some of the bottles and optics.
Cassidy was reluctant to enter. She said she wanted to go up to her room - Alone! She was keen to make clear - but Anfred steered her into the crowded room, prescribing something strong and stiff to help her with the shock. Before she could retort to what she suspected was innuendo, he had disappeared, weaving his way through the boozing multitude towards the bar.
She found her way to a corner. Perhaps the killer was in the room! Perhaps he would strike again! She pressed her back against the wallpaper, feeling protected on two sides. She went up on tiptoe to try to see Anfred over the mob.
Suddenly, he was in front of her, carrying two glasses of brandy. She hadn’t seen him approach and was quite startled when he thrust the drink under her nose. She inhaled the fumes and found them warming.
“I can’t believe people are still drinking,” she nodded towards the rest of the room.
“People will always drink,” Anfred replied, dismissively. “Especially in England.”
She shook her head. “I mean after what happened.”
“Death is good for business.”
Cassidy was scandalised at his callousness. “Cynical much?”
“I’m a pragmatist,” he grinned. “So the mood has changed a little. The consumption of alcohol has not.”
“But the festival - it can’t go on.” This seemed to Cassidy the height of bad taste.
“It will,” said Anfred, matter-of-factly. “This town needs it too much.”
“But what about that poor man? Where’s the respect?”
Anfred raised his glass in a toast. “I drink to his memory!”
“You’re not funny,” Cassidy shook her head. “I think you should know that.”
If she was hoping to knock the look from his face, it didn’t work. “And you’re too serious,” he laughed. He was too close for comfort, because of the crowded room, and she had nowhere to back away. “You must enjoy life while you can,” he blew brandy breath into her face. “That poor man as you call him - what was he doing? Having the time of his life. What a way to go!”
Cassidy bent her knees, shrinking from this invasion of her personal space. It wasn’t that she found him unattractive. The whole situation was too cramped, too restricting.
“You’re weird,” she said to the patterned wool on his chest.
“Why, thank you!” he gasped, delighted.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“No offence taken,” he laughed. “Oh hold on!” He reached under her chin and made her stand up straight. “You have something...” He touched her cheek ever so lightly with a fingertip. “Øyenvippe. Eyelash,” he explained. He showed her his finger as proof. “May I get you another? Drink, I mean.”
“Um...” Cassidy was thrown. It was as though the touch to her face had pressed a restart button. She was still rebooting, trying to deal with the changing situation. Did she actually like this guy? Did she like like him?
“Actually, would you mind?” Suddenly he was holding a banknote in her face. “I have to make pee.”
Cassidy sighed. The romance of the moment was burst like a bubble. She snatched the cash and elbowed her way past him and towards the bar. Anfred watched her go. When he was satisfied she was engaged in the transaction with the diminutive landlady, he took a good look around at the other drinkers.
You never know who you might encounter.
***
At that moment, things were winding up at the marquee. The forensics team was packing up and Brough and Miller had spoken to the last of the revellers and let them go home.
It had been right, Brough reminded himself, to keep everyone at the scene rather than trying to ferry them to the station for questioning. He knew the boys from Serious Crimes were already looking down on them. They wanted to take the case off his hands completely. It was a Serious Crime and that was their thing but Brough was determined to hang onto it as much as he could. He would liaise. He would consult. But he would not, damn it, relinquish control of the investigation.
If - no, when - he brought about a satisfactory resolution, he would use it as leverage to get himself transferred - promoted even - away from this awful place.
The Serious Crime boys - he called them that even though their boss was a woman, a barrel of a woman with hair like a bog brush - had tolerated this foot-stamping with a smirk. They knew he’d come a cropper, drop a clanger and make a balls-up sooner rather than later. He was given leeway because his reputation preceded him. Some said he had been lucky but, however reluctantly they allowed it, he had a chance.
But just the one.
“Quite a to-do, eh, sir?” Miller offered him her packet of crisps. Which he ignored rather rudely; he had his running to think about.
“You can say that again, Miller,” he nodded. “You can say that again.”
Miller didn’t bother. Instead she said, “Most we get around here is a bit of shoplifting. Or there’s a heron going around nicking fish out of garden ponds. But this... I can’t believe nobody saw nothing.”
“It’s not unusual,” Brough’s tone took on an even more patronising tone, “Crowded room. Perfect cover.”
“But - so elaborate,” Miller made a meal of the word, pausing in her crisp-eating to enunciate more clearly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Brough condescended, “Opportunist. Killer saw his moment, grabbed his victim, pulled him under a table, took what was to hand - to wit, beer bottles, while everyone else was dancing around and whooping like Americans.”
It was this last detail that seemed to disturb him the most.
The brief sil
ence that followed was broken by the crunching of a large ready salted between Miller’s molars.
“And the motive, sir?”
“Fucked if I know.” He was deflated but only momentarily. There was always procedure. “We need to find out all we can about the victim.”
With a flick of her wrist, Miller pulled her notepad from her pocket and opened it. “Dennis Morgan. Forty-five. Divorced.”
She was looking to him for something - approval? Congratulation? A reward?
What she got was a smile riddled with impatience and sarcasm.
“In the morning, eh, Miller? In the morning.”
He strode away. Miller realised, but not right away, she had better put her notepad away before attempting to reach in the packet for another crisp.
***
Cassidy had reached the bar. It had taken a gargantuan effort and she felt like planting a flag in the counter. She waved Anfred’s ten pound note in Mrs Box’s general direction, hoping the catch the landlady’s eye.
“Yes, love?” Mrs Box turned to her at long last, although she was still busy serving someone else.
“Two beers, please.”
This request was met with a look of derision. “That’s a bit vague, dear,” Mrs Box laughed but not unkindly. “Which beers do you want?”
Cassidy scanned the chiller cabinets behind Mrs Box. Nothing was familiar. Evidently, world famous beers from home had made no inroads in this stupid town.
Mrs Box raised her eyebrows and broadened her grin as though to prompt the girl. Other customers were waiting; patient for now but they could turn any second!
“Um...” Cassidy panicked and then inspiration struck her. “Say, do you have any Norwegian beer? Rango-something.”
Mrs Box wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Not ringing any bells.”
“Forget it,” Cassidy exhaled. “Two of anything’s fine.”
Mrs Box produced two brown bottles from somewhere and divested them of their caps. “Thirsty, are you, love?”
“What?” As if the accent wasn’t difficult enough! “Oh! Oh, no. I’m not alone. That guy -“
Blood & Breakfast, West Midlands Noir Page 5