Twelve Deaths of Christmas

by Jackson Sharp

‘G’night. G’night.’

  Cox switched off her phone and turned on the TV. Some old black-and-white film was on. It was late, and she had an early start in the morning – but that didn’t matter, not now. She was on her own now, she knew that, today had told her that loud and clear – but maybe the TV, somehow, would make her feel less alone.

  Did it work for you, Dad? she wondered. She watched the TV. Some wisecracking dame in dark lipstick was smoking a cigarette and flirting with a lugubrious detective in a trenchcoat. No doubt by the end he’d solve the case perfectly, tying up every loose end.

  Real life wasn’t like that, though. Cox had worked enough cases to know that the dots never joined up perfectly – sometimes the picture was never clear. It didn’t need to be. So what if Radley had some debts? So did loads of other people, up and down the country. Hell, the country was broke, but people weren’t jumping out of windows left, right and centre. Naysmith was grabbing at straws if he thought that constituted case closed. He knew better than that.

  Cox tucked her feet up on the sofa. Turned up the volume.

  The Second Day of Christmas, 1986

  A crust of snow on the grass, nothing really, no chance of doing a snowman or anything like that – but enough, at least, to smush a fistful into a slush-ball and catch Stan a proper stinger on the ear.

  ‘Yes! Bang on target.’

  It hurts, I can see, but Stan knows he had it coming – little sod put a handful of snow down the back of my neck earlier. His face and bare hands are bright red, glowing red. He sticks two fingers up at me, chucks a snowball. Falls apart in mid-air, and it was going miles wide anyway.

  I’m already packing together a new one, hard, icy, size of an orange. Doing it with no gloves makes your hands hurt, but you can make better snowballs.

  ‘Stan!’

  He looks up just as I let fly. Goes like a rocket – belts him smack in the face.

  ‘Argh!’

  It’s satisfying, for a second – until I see the blood.

  Then I’m running over. He’s crumpling to his knees, hands over his nose.

  ‘Oh, Robert – I did tell you to be more careful.’ This is Miss Halcombe, the biddy what supervises us. She gets to Stan before I do and starts making little ‘coo’ noises like a pigeon. She looks up at me. ‘He’s your brother, for goodness’ sake. You’re supposed to look after him.’

  ‘Was only playing.’

  ‘Funny idea of playing, if you ask me.’

  But she’s not really angry. Can see I only did it by accident. She’s all right is Halcombe, I think.

  Stan’s properly crying, now he’s seen the blood coming from his bust nose. Big heaving sobs.

  ‘Come on, Stan,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Who’s a brave boy,’ Halcombe says, rubbing his back. ‘Now, now.’ She straightens up, brushes snow from her knees. ‘Let me go get a hankie,’ she says.

  She goes off. I kneel by Stan and say I didn’t mean it and stop being a sissy.

  ‘You’re a sissy,’ he says, between sobs, and punches me in the arm.

  We look up when a man comes out of the double doors further down the garden. He’s got a tray of plastic mugs, all steaming.

  ‘Hot cocoa!’ he shouts. He’s got a thin little voice.

  It’s Dr Merton. One of the blokes who comes round here sometimes, not like a warden or anything, just every now and then – some sort of specialist, probably.

  Mark Duffy comes running past us, towards this Merton.

  ‘Ho ho ho,’ he sniggers.

  We take no notice.

  Most of the lads are gathering round Merton. A proper treat, cocoa. But Stan’s still in a bit of a state, so we stay where we are.

  Some of the older lads are hanging back too. Dunno why.

  After a few minutes, though, he comes over anyway, this doctor. Grinning at us. He’s got big grey teeth and sort of gingery hair. Going bald. I think he’s pretty old, probably forty or something.

  ‘Hello, lads,’ he says.

  We look up at him. There are a few mugs left on his tray.

  ‘This cocoa won’t drink itself,’ he says. ‘Help yourselves – it’ll warm you right up.’ He looks at Stan, makes a face. ‘Oh dear – someone’s been in the wars. Well, this’ll help.’

  Stan, his face still all blood and tears and snot, laughs and reaches for a mug. I take one too. I don’t know why this doctor’s bringing us cocoa, but in a place like this you take what you can get.

  Merton squats down beside us. Tells us his name, that he’s a doctor, a special doctor for children. He asks us our names, and we tell him.

  ‘Why don’t you work in a hospital?’ I ask him. ‘We’re not ill.’

  ‘Like I said, Robbie, I’m a special doctor. I work for the company that owns Hampton Hall, and a lot of other children’s homes like it. It’s my job to visit all the homes and make sure that everyone’s okay.’

  I shrug, nod. Not sure I like this doctor. Don’t like being called Robbie by grown-ups.

  Anyway, after a while Halcombe comes out with a hankie. While her and Merton are seeing to Stan – there’s nothing wrong with him really, just a little nosebleed – I go off to where Mark Duffy’s sitting on his own, drinking his cocoa.

  He looks up.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘Nothing. Just telling you to lay off our kid.’

  ‘Lay off him? I never done nothing to him.’

  Couple of Duffy’s mates are wandering over. Duffy puts down his mug, stands up. Can’t run away now. How would that look? Specially since I started it.

  ‘Look, just don’t keep getting at him, all right? He’s only a little lad.’

  ‘Aw, diddums.’ He laughs, then scowls. A fighting face. ‘I’ll do what I bloody want.’

  His mates are right behind him now. There’s three of them. One of me.

  Won’t be the first good hiding I’ve had. I shove him in the chest, hard. ‘Fuck off, Duffy.’

  He stumbles backwards, into his mates. Comes back at me swinging. I move aside, he misses, but comes again, and I’m off-balance, can’t get my hands up in time – here we go, I think, black eye, fat lip …

  But one of his mates, the biggest one, Stevie I think he’s called, grabs his shoulder, pulls him away.

  ‘Careful, Marko,’ he says in a hiss. ‘You’re gonna get copped. If you don’t watch it they’ll have you back in the cell.’

  Duffy flinches. Steps back. Glares at me.

  The cell? Bloody hell, what’s that?

  The other lad, dunno his name, black kid with a missing front tooth, nudges Duffy and nods over my shoulder. I look round: Halcombe’s gone back inside, I see, and Merton’s talking to our Stan.

  I look back at Duffy and his mates.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  It feels like they should be laughing at me – the nudging and nodding, the fact they know something I don’t. But they aren’t laughing.

  ‘What?’

  They don’t say anything. They turn their backs on me and walk away. Stevie looks back once, over his shoulder – not at me, but at Stan.

  I go back to where they’re sitting in the snow, Merton on his haunches, Stan on his knees, hands cupped around his cocoa mug.

  I don’t look at the doctor. I take the mug from Stan, upend it. There’s only a dribble left really. It spatters the snow like a shitstain.

  ‘Hey!’

  Then I grab him by his elbow, hard enough that he can’t pull away, and get him to his feet and lead him away, in spite of his ‘ow’ and ‘oi’. I hear Merton say ‘Bye, lads’. Ignore him.

  ‘What did you do that for,’ Stan says, once we’re down the other end of the garden. He’s rubbing his elbow and sticking out his bottom lip at me.

  ‘I don’t like that Merton.’

  ‘Why? He’s all right. That cocoa was dead nice.’

  ‘Don’t be a berk. That doesn’t mean nothing. He’s a bad man, Stan.’
r />   ‘He’s not. He’s a doctor.’

  I look over at Merton. He’s standing hands on hips in the snow. Shiny blue bodywarmer, skinny little legs. Glasses glinting.

  ‘He’s a bad man and a doctor.’

  ‘You don’t even know.’

  ‘Know more’n you.’

  Stan’s looking back at Merton too. Merton notices, gives us a wave. We both look away.

  ‘Bad like Dad’s a bad man?’ Stan asks.

  ‘No.’ Shake my head. ‘Different. A different sort of bad man.’

  There’s a cry, sharp, like a bird’s cry. We look over. It’s Merton – he’s brushing snow angrily from his face, and looking our way. His left cheek’s bright pink. Someone’s copped him proper. Good.

  ‘Ooh!’ Miss Halcombe, from the doorway. ‘Now who threw that? What a thing to do! Are you all right, Dr Merton?’

  She hurries after him as he comes towards us. It was Duffy what threw it, I’m sure of that – him and his mates are sitting near us, and I heard their sniggering and whispering.

  ‘Who was it?’ Merton rasps, looming over us. Looks at me, looks at Duffy, looks at some of the other older lads. ‘Come on. Which of you dirty little swines threw that snowball?’

  I look at Duffy. Duffy looks at me.

  ‘It was Robbie, Dr Merton,’ he says. All innocent like. ‘I saw.’

  Stevie and the other lad nod along.

  Merton looks at me, livid.

  ‘You little shit,’ he says.

  Halcombe says: ‘Oh, Robert. That just won’t do, do you hear? There’ll be no supper for you – and I thought you were such a nice lad.’

  Her and Merton turn away. Merton mutters something to her as they walk back towards the building. I can’t hear what.

  You’d think in a place like this they’d know better than to believe whatever some stupid kid tells them, but they don’t.

  4

  A still, silvery morning, glassy and cold. From the Tube station Cox walked quickly north, grateful for her coat and knitted scarf. The Broadway was choked with buses, black cabs, zippy cyclists and Chelsea tractors. The air was acid with exhaust fumes. Cox tugged her scarf up over her nose.

  The Olympus Grill was a small place, crammed between a hipster burger joint and a phone repair shop, with a tanning salon upstairs. It’d been there years, as long as Cox could remember; one of those indestructible small businesses that somehow just hangs in there, knackered and grubby, getting by on hard work, long hours, low wages and know-how.

  A heavy-set guy in fingerless gloves was hefting a crate of vegetables from a van when she arrived. She held the door for him – ‘Thanks, darling’ – and followed him inside.

  The owner, a middle-aged guy whose hollow-cheeked face was half-familiar, was sitting at a table by the window with a coffee and a file of paperwork.

  He looked up – made an apologetic face.

  ‘Sorry, love. Not open for breakfast today. Lunch from twelve.’

  Cox flashed her badge.

  ‘Detective Inspector Cox, Hanger Lane CID. Can I have a word, Mr … ?’

  ‘Andreou.’ He rose, offered his hand. ‘Of course – please, sit down.’ Unruffled and polite. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘An espresso would be great, thanks.’ She set down her bag, unwound her scarf, breathed in the restaurant’s fuggy atmosphere: charcoal, olive oil, garlic, just-baked bread.

  She took a seat and looked out of the misted front window as Andreou clattered and banged at the vintage espresso machine. Watched the passers-by: a young dad with a bulging supermarket carrier-bag and two misbehaving kids in Santa hats; a teenager in outsized headphones, laughing on his hands-free; an old couple arguing over where best to cross the road. And then –

  It was funny, how you could recognize a person, not by their face, not really by their walk or their height or their body-shape, but just by their look. Take this guy, across the street, maybe fifty yards away; he was in a long coat and a close-fitting woolly hat, and she couldn’t see anything of him except his ears and his lower legs, there was nothing especially unusual about his height or the way he held himself – but Cox knew him. She was sure of it.

  He was drifting along, moving slowly, looking in shop windows. Yes, something about him definitely rang a bell …

  ‘One espresso.’ Andreou smilingly set the little cup on the formica tabletop, and settled down in the seat opposite her. ‘Now, inspector – how can I help?’

  Cox broke out her notebook.

  ‘Were you working here at lunchtime on Christmas Day, Mr Andreou?’

  He grinned. ‘I’ve been here every lunchtime for the last six years,’ he said.

  Kerry returned the smile. When you spent every day dealing with difficult people, a straightforward one seemed like a miracle. ‘Do you remember serving an older man, in his sixties, white, balding? He had a booking, I think, at one o’clock.’

  Andreou pursed his lips.

  ‘I think so. Wait one moment – let me check the book.’ He stood, went to the counter, flipped quickly back through a dog-eared reservations book. Jabbed a finger in satisfaction at the page. ‘Yes. A Mr – Rodley?’ He frowned. ‘Can’t read my own handwriting. A reservation for two on Christmas Day.’ He came back round the counter, returned to his seat. ‘I remember, quite well actually, partly because it was just him and one other guy – and you know, with Christmas, it’s usually families, couples. But mostly because they had this big row.’

  ‘A row?’

  ‘Uh-huh. On Christmas! Everyone else happy, laughing, singing songs – and here’s these guys, at each other’s throats. The older guy – Mr Rodley – stormed off without finishing his dinner, even. Left the other one to pay the bill.’

  That could be helpful.

  ‘How’d he pay?’

  ‘Cash.’

  Kerry scanned the walls – some pictures of Ancient Greek ruins, a statue of the Colossus of Rhodes. ‘Any CCTV?’

  Andreou grimaced and spread his hands. ‘Sorry. But I could describe him for you.’

  Cox jotted down the description – could’ve been practically anybody, could’ve been Radley’s twin to be honest (white, balding, middle-aged) – and gathered up her bag and scarf. Thanked Andreou for his coffee and his help; left him with a business card, in case he remembered anything else.

  On her way out she saw the man again – still dawdling, still window-shopping, on the other side of the street. Still oddly familiar. And who the hell window-shops in weather like this? The numbing cold in her fingers and nose seemed to spread to her gut: a feeling, now, not just of cold but of dread.

  She stepped off the kerb, making to cross the Broadway – but as she waited for a break in the traffic she saw the man hail a cab and duck swiftly into the back seat.

  The chilling sense of dread subsided to a dull unease, low down in her chest.

  Something was going on here. It felt big – bigger than an old man’s suicide in suburban west London. Cox checked her watch, turned back towards the Tube station. Time to talk to Naysmith.

  The DCI wasn’t in yet – still sleeping off his hangover, Cox guessed. While she waited, she put a call through to Sergeant Adeola.

  Good news, at last.

  ‘You were right, ma’am,’ the sergeant reported. ‘There was a cleaner, and she was at Mr Radley’s house yesterday morning. She wasn’t keen on talking to us, but we, uh, leaned on her a bit – and she admitted she’d cleared off after seeing a body in the back garden.’

  ‘Why didn’t she call it in?’

  ‘She’s got a record. Nothing serious, and from twenty-odd years back – but you know how it is.’

  ‘Sure. What else did she say? Did she notice anything odd? Apart from the corpse on the lawn, I mean.’

  ‘There was a bit of a mess in the downstairs study, she said. Papers strewn all over the floor.’

  ‘Was that unusual? We know how paperwork can be. Gets out of hand pretty quickly.’

  ‘Sound
s like it was a proper mess, ma’am. Radley was usually pretty tidy, she said – otherwise she’d have thought nothing of it.’

  ‘Did she touch the papers?’

  ‘She said she tidied them away, yes.’

  ‘Okay. See if we can get prints from any papers that were out of place.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, and I asked your young constable to get hold of Don DiMacedo for me. I haven’t heard anything.’

  ‘I believe he tried, ma’am. His secretary said he was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.’

  Typical.

  ‘Should I try him again, ma’am?’

  ‘No – I’ll call him myself. Good job, Sergeant Adeola. Thanks.’

  Rang off. Brought up DiMacedo’s mobile number, hit call. Voicemail. Double-typical.

  ‘In an important meeting’, ‘Working off-site today’, ‘Speaking with a top-level client on the other line’, ‘Bang in the middle of a time-critical task’ – she’d heard them all from Don DiMacedo down the years, and they all meant pretty much the same thing: Don DiMacedo is at a crucial stage in his video-game, probably halfway through a four-pack of beer and just wants to be left alone.

  She’d first come across DiMacedo at the Met, when she was a DS and he was the FALCON unit’s up-and-coming star in computer forensics. A former white-hat hacker with a Masters from Cambridge in Computer Science, he’d been tipped for great things. From what she’d heard, even back then Don was working on another level to the rest of his team; he was unpicking encryption systems the other guys hadn’t even heard of and doing it without breaking sweat.

  He got bored, in the end. Quit the Met to go and join the fraud squad at one of the big City finance firms. Now, Cox gathered, he pulled down a six-figure salary for three days’ work a week.

  The guys in the Met tech teams still talked about him like Arsenal fans talk about Dennis Bergkamp. The Master. They’d never see his like again …

  Not bad for a fat guy from Walthamstow with hygiene issues and a sick sense of humour. Cox had always liked him. Now, she felt like she needed him, and not only because the guy was an IT genius. DiMacedo was an outsider now, a civilian; someone out of the reach of DCI Naysmith and Sam bloody Harrington.