OxCrimes

  He waited for a minute at the foot of the stairs, then padded softly into the living room. He had always thought it must be very tiring. All those houses to visit in one night. If Father Christmas chose this particular house to have a nap in, did that mean other children would not be getting their presents? Or was this the last house on his journey?

  Jack crept a little closer, then stopped. He let out a small gasp and clamped a hand across his mouth. He watched and waited for the chest to move, to hear a breath or a snuffle, but he could hear nothing but the low hum of the fridge in the kitchen and a strange hiss inside in his own head.

  One arm was lying funny.

  A boot was half off his foot.

  A different sort of red, where it shouldn’t have been.

  The boy turned and bolted up the stairs. He charged into his parents’ room, shouting for his mum. She sat up and blinked and he ran to her, breathless, fighting to get the words out.

  ‘Somebody killed Father Christmas …’

  Tom Thorne had not needed to think very long before signing himself up for the Christmas Day shift. It made no real difference to him. There was no family to spend it with and, as far as he was concerned, Christmas Day was as good or bad a day to die as any other.

  None of his regular team was at the house when he arrived, and clambering into the plastic bodysuit in the small front garden, he exchanged cursory nods of recognition or understanding with those officers already there.

  We’re the sad buggers. The ones with no lives.

  Through a gaggle of SOCOs and police photographers, he was relieved to see the familiar figure of Phil Hendricks crouched over the body. The pathologist had been dumped by his partner a few weeks previously and he and Thorne had already agreed to have Christmas lunch together at a local pub if no calls came in. Now, it looked like they would have to settle for turkey sandwiches and a few beers at Thorne’s flat.

  ‘This is a strange one,’ Hendricks said.

  Thorne thought, ‘They’re the ones I like best’, but just nodded.

  ‘Who the hell would want to do Santa in?’ The pathologist laid a gloved finger against the dead man’s face. ‘The tooth fairy? Jack Frost …?’

  ‘I’m keeping an open mind,’ Thorne said. ‘What are we looking at?’

  ‘Single stab wound, far as I can see.’

  ‘Knife?’

  A DC Thorne did not know appeared behind him. ‘No sign of it,’ he said. He nodded back towards the kitchen. ‘Broken window at the back and sod all under the tree except our friend here. Pretty obvious he disturbed a burglar …’

  Thorne had to concede that it looked that way. Easy pickings for thieves on Christmas Eve. People out celebrating and a healthy selection of must-have gadgets sitting under trees in nine out of ten living rooms. ‘Where’s the wife?’ he asked.

  ‘Upstairs,’ the DC said. ‘Family Liaison Officer’s with her.’

  ‘What about the boy?’

  ‘A car’s taking him to his mum’s parents.’

  Thorne nodded.

  ‘By all accounts the kid didn’t get a good look, so he doesn’t know … you know. Not yet, anyway.’

  Thorne watched as the funeral directors came into the room. They unzipped the body bag and knelt beside the dead man, which Thorne took as his cue to go upstairs and meet the widow.

  Wendy Fielding sat on the edge of the bed, a female Family Liaison Officer next to her. Each cradled a mug of tea. Always tea, Thorne thought, wondering why the Murder Squad was not looking towards Tetley for some sort of sponsorship. He told the FLO to step outside, asked Mrs Fielding if she felt up to talking. She nodded and Thorne sat down on a large wooden trunk against the wall.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said. The room was dimly lit by a bedside lamp, but the first milky slivers of morning light were creeping through a gap in the curtains.

  She said, ‘Thank you’ and tried to smile. She was in her late thirties, Thorne guessed, though for obvious reasons she looked a little older. She wore a powder-blue house-coat, but when she shifted on the bed, Thorne could see that the front of the pale nightdress beneath was soaked with blood.

  ‘Can you take me through what happened this morning?’ Thorne asked.

  She nodded without raising her head and took a deep breath. ‘It was just after one o’clock,’ she said. ‘I know because I looked at the clock when Jack came in.’ She spoke quietly and quickly, as though worried that, were she to hesitate even for a second, she might fall apart. ‘He told me that Father Christmas was dead … that someone had killed him in the living room. I told him to stay here … I tucked him up in bed and …’ Then there was hesitation, and Thorne watched her swallow hard. She looked up at him. ‘He doesn’t know it’s his dad. He still believes in …’ She puffed out her cheeks, swallowed again. ‘When do you think I should tell him?’

  ‘We’ll put you in touch with bereavement counsellors,’ Thorne told her. ‘They’ll be able to advise you.’

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  Thorne thought he could smell booze on her, but said nothing. He could hardly blame the woman for needing a stiff drink to go with her tea.

  ‘Tell me about the Santa outfit,’ he said.

  Another attempt at a smile. ‘Alan had been planning it for ages,’ she said. ‘It was his office party last night and they always have a Father Christmas, so he decided he was going to bring the costume home then dress up in it to take Jack’s presents up. He pretends to be asleep, you know? You have kids?’

  Thorne shook his head.

  ‘Alan thought it would be special, you know? If Jack saw Father Christmas putting the presents at the end of his bed.’

  ‘So you went downstairs?’

  ‘He was just lying there, like Jack said he was. I knelt down and picked him up, but I knew he’d gone. There was so much blood on his chest and coming out of his mouth … sorry.’

  ‘Take a minute,’ Thorne said.

  ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’

  ‘Did you hear anything before that?’ Thorne asked. ‘The glass in the back door breaking? Somebody moving about downstairs?’

  ‘I’m a heavy sleeper,’ she said. ‘I was dead to the world until Jack came in.’

  Thorne nodded, wondering if the alcohol he could smell had actually been drunk the night before.

  ‘So, you think they were in the house when Alan came home?’

  ‘We’re still working downstairs,’ Thorne said. ‘But if he disturbed a burglar that would mean he was already wearing the costume, which seems a bit odd.’

  ‘Maybe he changed into it at the party.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Thorne said.

  They both turned at the soft knock and turned to see the Detective Constable standing awkwardly in the doorway.

  ‘Something you need to see,’ he said.

  Thorne got down on his belly to peer beneath the tree and saw a mobile phone sitting hard against the skirting board. He gave the officer the nod and the man crawled under the tree, his plastic bodysuit snagging on the branches as he stretched to reach the phone. Having retrieved the handset, he handed it across to Thorne, who almost dropped it when it began to ring in his hand. Everyone in the room froze.

  ‘Write the number down,’ he barked.

  The DC scrabbled for pen and notebook and scribbled down the number on the phone’s display. They waited for the phone to stop ringing, then heard the alert that told them a message had been left.

  ‘Shall we?’ Thorne asked.

  The DC held his notebook out so that Thorne could read the number and Thorne dialled.

  A woman answered. She said, ‘Hello,’ and when Thorne began to introduce himself, she hung up.

  ‘Get on to the phone company,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Our burglar dropped his phone, you reckon?’ Hendricks asked. ‘Looks like you might have got yourself an early Christmas present.’

  ‘I was hoping for an iPad,’ Thorne said.

  Bright and early on a freezin
g Boxing Day and Thorne was standing in a Forensic Science Service lab next to a balding technician named Turnbull. Thorne knew the man was recently divorced. Another sad case who preferred working to sitting at home alone and wondering if his kids were having a good day.

  ‘What have we got?’

  ‘Two text messages,’ Turnbull said, pointing to the phone. ‘7.37 on Christmas Eve and again half an hour later. Plus the voice message that was left when you were at the murder scene.’

  Thorne had already established when Alan Fielding had left home to go to his firm’s Christmas party. One message had been sent just before he left and the second would have arrived when he was on his way there.

  ‘Let’s see,’ Thorne said.

  Turnbull handed him a transcript of the messages.

  19.37. 24/12/11. It’s me. Just wondered if you’d left yet. I’m guessing ur having trouble getting away. Can’t wait to see u. x

  Then…

  19.54. 24/12/11. Hope ur on your way. Hurry up and get here will u? Can’t wait to give u yr Xmas present. I know ur going to like it. x

  And last, a transcript of the voice message, left in the early hours of Christmas morning.

  ‘Just me. Couldn’t sleep. Tonight was amazing though. I know you can’t tell her today … I’m not expecting you to, but do it soon, OK? Oh, and you’re the sexiest Santa I’ve ever seen …’

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Turnbull asked.

  Thorne stared at the phone. He already knew who the messages were from. The same woman who had called the phone found underneath the Christmas tree; the phone they thought had been left by whoever had killed Alan Fielding. Thorne now knew that the phone was Fielding’s, that he had forgotten to take it with him, and that the caller was Angela Massey, a twenty-four-year-old secretary who worked at the same company as he did.

  Thorne had spoken to her on Christmas Day, just before the umpteenth repeat of The Great Escape. He was due to interview her formally later that day.

  He blinked slowly. His head was still thick after the night before, when he and Hendricks had drunk far too much and swapped distinctly unseasonal banter.

  ‘Knife went straight through his heart,’ Hendricks had said. ‘Probably dead before he hit the deck.’

  ‘Something, I suppose.’

  ‘Not the best way to round off Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think he’d had quite a good night up to that point.’

  ‘So, that help you?’ Turnbull asked. ‘The stuff on the phone?’

  ‘Yeah that helps,’ Thorne said. ‘Helps me screw up Christmas for at least a couple more people.’

  ‘I need to get Jack from my mum’s, so can we just get this over with?’ Wendy Fielding shifted in her seat, bit down on her bottom lip. ‘I haven’t told him yet, but he’s been asking questions about his dad.’ She looked down at the scarred metal tabletop. ‘My mum told him that Alan had to go on a business trip …’

  ‘This shouldn’t take long,’ Thorne said.

  Though concessions had been made to the season elsewhere in the station – a few strings of tinsel in the canteen, an ironic sprig of mistletoe in the custody suite – the interview room was as bland and bare as it was for the rest of the year. Thorne turned on the twin CD recorders, pointed to the camera high on the wall to let Wendy Fielding know that their interview was being recorded.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I thought you just wanted a chat.’

  ‘Where are the presents, Wendy?’

  She looked at him. ‘How the hell should I know? Thieving bastard sold them for drugs, most likely. That’s what they do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Some of them,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I don’t know how they live with themselves.’ She shook her head, disgusted, but she would not meet Thorne’s eyes.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Thorne said. ‘Our burglar would probably have sold your son’s Christmas presents for a few wraps of heroin. If he’d existed.’

  Now she looked, eyes wide.

  ‘I’m guessing you stashed them up in the loft or somewhere. Along with the knife. That might have been before or after you’d broken the window in the back door. Doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I think you’re the one on drugs …’

  ‘You really should have thought about the phone though. The one you chucked at your husband. It was the phone that made us think we might catch our burglar, but what was on it told me there wasn’t a burglar to catch.’ Thorne glanced across, watched the display on the recorder count away the seconds. ‘I spoke to Angela Massey yesterday,’ he said. ‘She’s every bit as upset as you were pretending to be.’

  ‘Bitch!’ Wendy snapped.

  ‘Not really,’ Thorne said. ‘Just a girl who was in love with your husband. She claims he was in love with her too.’

  ‘He wouldn’t know love if it bit him.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘It must have killed you,’ he said. ‘Listening to those messages, knowing he was going to leave. Sitting there getting drunker. Angrier …’

  ‘At Christmas,’ she shouted, ‘of all the times. What do you imagine that would have done to Jack?’

  ‘What do you think you’ve done to Jack?’

  ‘I didn’t plan it,’ she said. She was breathing heavily, desperate suddenly. ‘He came back and I confronted him. We argued and all of a sudden I had the kitchen knife. I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘You stabbed him through the heart and then went back to bed,’ Thorne said. ‘You left your husband’s body for your six-year-old son to find.’

  ‘I’m a good mother,’ she said. ‘I don’t care what you think. I was clearly no great shakes as a wife, but I’m a damn good mother …’

  When Thorne came back into the Incident Room, DS Dave Holland was walking towards him, a broad grin on his face. Singing.

  ‘I saw Mommy killing Santa Claus …’

  He saw the look on Thorne’s face and stopped.

  ‘Not funny, Dave.’

  ‘Sorry, Guv.’ Holland held out a large brown envelope. ‘We’ve had a bit of a whip round,’ he said. ‘For the boy.’

  Thorne took it. Said, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Not the best day to find your dad like that.’

  Thorne nodded, having revised his opinion somewhat. Yes, one day was pretty much as good as another to die. But December 25th was a shitty day to lose someone.

  Jack Fielding was now staying with Alan Fielding’s mother and father. Their claim on the child had been thought that little bit stronger than his maternal grandparents, being as it was the child’s mother that had killed their son. Thorne sat awkwardly on their sofa. Drinking tea and eating mince pies, while they did their best to act as if their world hadn’t fallen apart.

  ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ Jack’s grandmother asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ The old man slurped his tea, pulling a face as though he were drinking hemlock. Perhaps he wished he was.

  ‘She’s in Holloway,’ Thorne said. ‘Likely to be there a while, I should have thought. A big murder trial takes a while to put together and, you know … Christmas and everything.’

  ‘Wasn’t easy finding a funeral director either,’ the old man said. ‘Busy with all the suicides or some such.’

  Thorne nodded, thinking, well at least business is booming for somebody.

  They said nothing for a while. Thorne stared at the cards on the mantelpiece. The snowmen and reindeer had been replaced by simple white cards with black borders. In deepest sympathy. He glanced at the large, brown envelope on top of the TV.

  When Thorne saw the grandmother beam suddenly, he realised that the boy had come into the room. He turned and saw Jack Fielding hovering in the doorway. He smiled, but the boy looked away.

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ the grandmother said. ‘Come and say hello.’

  The boy took a few steps into the room. A large plastic dinosaur hung fr
om his fingers.

  ‘How are you?’ Thorne had probably asked stupider questions, but he could not remember when.

  ‘Where’s my mum?’ the boy asked.

  ‘She’s not very well.’

  The boy nodded, as though that made perfect sense. ‘Is that because of the dead man?’ he asked.

  Thorne said that it was.

  Jack took another step towards him and leaned against the arm of the sofa. He gently put the toy dinosaur into Thorne’s lap. ‘It wasn’t Father Christmas, was it?’

  ‘No,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Was it my daddy?’

  Thorne heard the old woman sniff, felt his throat constrict a little. But he kept his eyes fixed on the boy.

  ‘It wasn’t Father Christmas,’ he said.

  Thorne glanced across at the boy’s grandmother. Saw something around her eyes and in the small nod of her head. He thought it might mean ‘thank you’, but he could not be sure.

  JOHN CONNOLLY was born in Dublin in 1968 and is best known for his Charlie Parker series of mystery novels set in Maine, the most recent of which is The Wolf in Winter. He is also the author of The Book of Lost Things, and the Samuel Johnson series of novels for young adults, as well as Conquest, the first in a projected trilogy of sci-fi novels for older teens written with his other half, Jennifer Ridyard. Books To Die For, an anthology of essays on mystery fiction co-edited with Declan Burke, won the Macavity, Agatha and Anthony awards in 2013..

  The Children of Dr Lyall

  John Connolly

  Even amid rubble and dust, there was money to be made.

  The German bombers had reduced whole streets to scattered bricks and memories, and Felder couldn’t see anyone coming back to live in them any time soon, not unless they fancied their chances with the rats. Some areas were still so dangerous that their previous occupants hadn’t even been permitted to scour the ruins for any possessions that might be salvaged. Instead they could only stand behind the cordons and weep at what had been lost, and at what might yet be recovered when the buildings were finally declared safe, or when the walls and floors were either pulled down or collapsed of their own volition.

  ‘Buried treasure’, that’s what Felder called it: money, jewellery, clothing – anything that could be bartered or sold, but you had to be careful. The coppers didn’t look kindly on looters, and in case Felder and his gang needed any reminders on that score they had only to visit the Ville, or Pentonville Prison, where Young Tam was doing five years, and they’d be five hard years too because one of the coppers had broken Tam’s right leg so badly that he’d be dragging it behind him like a piece of twisted firewood for the rest of his life.