Mystery Tour

by Martin Edwards

  Hammond started to laugh, but it wasn’t as nervous a laugh as McCusker had expected.

  ‘Anyway,’ McCusker resumed, ‘next we get to your method of murder. You had your agent book you back in here for tonight’s show. Everyone, including the fans with their poor support in terms of ticket sales, agreed it was much too soon for the Humming Bees to play a return concert here. That’s what made me suspicious in the first place. Why would a cautious man such as yourself risk ruining such a buoyant market as Belfast for your band? There had to be something about this venue that was vital to the solution to our riddle. But what could it possibly be?’

  ‘I’m not hanging around wasting any more time here,’ Hammond snarled to no one in particular.

  ‘Please don’t forget, Mr Hammond,’ McCusker announced, ‘that you’re no longer at liberty to leave; you’re under arrest. But as you’re obviously rather impatient, let’s cut to the quick. Here’s what happened. Once Litz was positioned at the door you set up everything for your shower. While you were pretending to spend thirty minutes on your laptop doing emails and, ‘a dozen minutes’ eating half the contents of your deli tray, you rang Joey. You probably tempted him with drugs and asked him to meet you in the roof space above your dressing room. Then you nipped out of the dressing-room window, dropped down to the fire-escape gantry and made your way into the roof space via the fire exit, which you’d obviously conveniently left open. Joey came up via the proper staircase. When he got there, in order to protect your livelihood you strangled him with a guitar string, leaving him face down in the water tank.’

  ‘But you’re forgetting that Litz was by my door all of this time,’ Hammond said in an ‘OK, I’ll humour you’ tone. ‘I take your point about being able to drop out of the dressing-room window, but it would have been impossible to climb back up and in again. The window ledge is much too high above the gantry. So the only way I could have regained access to my dressing room was past Litz at the door.’

  ‘Well at the very least that shows us you considered the possibility,’ McCusker replied, realising for perhaps the first time in his life that he was conscious of trying to avoid laying on the Ulsterspeak. ‘But let’s discuss that point. You rang Litz from your mobile, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I needed him to bring in my wardrobe,’ Hammond claimed.

  ‘Could you please do me a favour, Mr Hammond, and ring Litz again for me now?’

  Hammond gave a ‘no bother’ shrug and speed-dialled his chief roadie, burying the programmed phone inside the golden curls by his left ear.

  A few seconds later they could all hear the muffled sound of a ringing tone.

  McCusker walked over to the flight case Urry and Mac had wheeled into the dressing room. They could all now clearly hear the sound of a mobile ringing from within. He knocked on the top of the case three times, and slowly the ringing tone, which was the guitar introduction to Them’s ‘Here Comes the Night’, grew louder and louder as the flight case gradually opened and Litz hopped out, stretching this way and that to relieve the cramp he’d incurred in the twenty or so minutes he’d been hiding inside the confines of the case.

  DS W.J. Barr seemed most impressed by McCusker’s revelation.

  ‘Where were we, Mr Hammond?’ McCusker asked, gaining everyone’s attention once again. ‘Oh yes. So, after you strangled Joey, you slipped down from the roof space and over to the backstage street access, where you knew your flight case was parked. You hid inside your own flight case, rang Litz on your mobile, pretending you were still inside your dressing room, and ordered him to deliver your flight case to your dressing room, so you could finalise preparations for your shower.

  ‘When Litz delivered the flight case containing yourself into your dressing room, you waited a few moments to make sure he had left your dressing room. You hopped out of the flight case and locked the dressing-room door again from the inside. You then jumped into your shower to complete your farce of bumping your head, passing out, and being “discovered” by Litz and Mulholland with the perfect alibi.’

  ‘Sounds more like a case for Inspector Colombo,’ Hammond sneered. ‘All a little too far-fetched, if you ask me. But tell me this, Inspector, where’s your proof?’

  ‘Ah well, that’s where Google comes to the rescue. My problem, Mr, Hammond, is that I’m not really that up-to-date on the scientific side of police work. I confess that I find it impossible to keep up with all the developments in the DNA field, so while I had access to your computer, I ran another check.’ McCusker paused as he walked over to the table on which he’d left the evidence bag with Hammond’s perspirationsoaked tissues. The Portrush detective gingerly lifted the bag using his thumb and forefinger and held it aloft.

  Barr involuntarily said, ‘His DNA!’

  ‘Exactly,’ McCusker confirmed. ‘I found two very interesting things when I Googled “Sweat DNA”. In the million or so documents posted under the subject, I discovered that a human’s perspiration does in fact contain their DNA. Now, having witnessed your performance on stage tonight, I’ve seen that you leak a lot. What I’m trying to say is that your sweat glands are habitually overactive. I would bet my entire fortune that at least a few of your beads of sweat found their way onto Joey’s clothes when you were strangling him with a guitar string. Our team of experts are currently examining Joey’s clothing and now we have your DNA sample for them to compare any findings against.’

  ‘Surely if I strangled him with a guitar string my hands would have cuts on them,’ Hammond said, offering them for inspection.

  ‘May I?’ McCusker asked, as he walked over to Hammond’s wardrobe flight case.

  Hammond looked confused but nodded his consent.

  McCusker searched the inside of the stale-smelling flight case for a few minutes. He eventually found what he was looking for.

  ‘Mac,’ McCusker said, ‘I believe you lost a pair of gloves earlier today.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Would these be them?’ McCusker asked, trying not to sound like David Copperfield making a big reveal, as he passed the fingerless gloves over for inspection.

  ‘Yes, these are definitely mine!’

  Harry Hammond looked like he was a beaten man, then finally he admitted as much, muttering something about the anticipation of Joey’s demise being much more enjoyable than his actual participation in it. At least that’s what McCusker thought Hammond was saying as the musician was handcuffed and led away.

  For his part, McCusker would have to admit that, in this particular case, his participation in the solving of the crime had been much more enjoyable than the anticipation of the investigation.

  Writer’s Block

  Paul Gitsham

  The woman I was destined to spend the rest of my life with refused to even acknowledge me when we first met. Seeing as I was pressing a gun against her forehead, screaming at her to fill the bag with money and not do anything stupid, this is hardly surprising.

  I realise that I’m not painting myself in the most flattering light, so let me explain my side of the story. To do that, we need to rewind precisely twelve hours and twelve minutes to a time before my hitherto humdrum existence imploded and Jeannie entered my life.

  It started at eleven p.m. in the dingy nightclub where my two best friends had conspired to dump me and my blind date. With a cheery wave they had departed, leaving me and the desperately single Kelli alone in the night. They meant well of course. Claire worried about me and I had to confess that being stuck in a dead-end job, single and becoming more so wasn’t where I’d planned to be at twenty-nine and three-quarters.

  My original plan had involved travelling the world with nothing more than some clean underwear and a stack of blank notebooks, in the hope that the freedom of the road and the inspiration to be found upon it would conspire to unlock the novel that I knew lay within me.

  Unfortunately a crippling case of papyrophobia and my parents’ concerns about how I’d keep contributing to my meagre pension po
t finally convinced me to give up that fantasy and stick to a more prudent plan. A safer plan. A mind-numbing, excitement-free plan, which, while devoid of risk, also left my dreams unfulfilled and my hopes crushed.

  Knowing my luck, I would probably drop dead the day before I was due to start drawing my pension anyway.

  So, back to the date. After an hour and two drinks’ worth of stilted small talk, shouted over music neither of us liked, I retired to the bathroom to think. Decision time. It was clear that, if I wanted to, I could take Kelli home right now. But as always my conscience had its own opinion. Even without Claire’s admonishment to ‘be kind, she’s had a hard time’ it was obvious that Kelli needed more than a commitmentfree roll between the sheets. She needed someone special. Not me.

  I decided to call it a night; it wasn’t fair to keep stringing her along. We’d exchange numbers, make empty promises about ringing each other later in the week and go our separate ways. She’d probably be as relieved as me. God I hated blind dates.

  Mind made up, I re-entered the pounding energy of the club.

  The first thing I saw as I crossed the dance floor, looking pathetic and lost, was Kelli. Immediately, my courage deserted me. I couldn’t do it. I had to hide. The gents was out – she’d probably come in – so in desperation I opened the door marked ‘Staff Only’ and ducked inside.

  The three men wearing hoodies, seated around a battered table, looked up in surprise. The handguns on the table made me wish I’d taken my chances with Kelli.

  Stepping back outside would be suicide: I’d seen them and they’d seen me.

  ‘You must be Skinner. I didn’t think you was coming.’ The biggest of the three inclined his shaven head towards me.

  ‘That’s right,’ I lied, instinctively.

  He slid a gun across the table. ‘Don’t touch it without gloves.’ He gestured to the other two, younger men. ‘I was about to start explaining the job.’

  And so there I found myself, in the back room of a nightclub, planning a jewellery heist and wondering exactly how this state of affairs fitted my life plan.

  Eleven o’clock the following morning found me dressed in black in the back seat of a stolen Mondeo, the gun on my lap heavy, the balaclava hiding the perspiration pouring down my face.

  Despite their initial misunderstanding regarding my identity, the gang was actually very professional and well organised. After a few hours terrified at being found out, I’d finally accepted that the real Skinner was unlikely to suddenly materialise and demand to know who the hell I was, and so found myself increasingly drawn into the situation.

  Our leader, known only as Rex, ran a tight ship. We spent all night in the tiny backroom, undisturbed by revellers or bar staff. We’d kept our phones but surrendered the batteries. Trips to the bathroom were in pairs, and our only visitor was a pizza delivery at two a.m., paid for by a twenty shoved under the door, keep the change.

  As Thursday night became Friday morning my hopes of escaping or calling the police slowly evaporated, and, despite my misgivings, I found myself more and more involved in the preparation of their crazy scheme.

  Screeching to a halt we piled out of the car in a tight, practised formation. Our intelligence was spot on; 11:09 Friday morning and the shop was empty, the safe open and the two unarmed Securicor guards collecting the week’s takings quickly overwhelmed. Even the dustbin lorries had finished clearing the street. The driver of the Securicor van would already be calling the police, but we had at least four minutes until they arrived.

  Our duties were clear: Rex covered the manager as he shakily emptied display cabinets into a bin bag; Crow-bar trained his gun on the two guards cowering, hands tied, on the floor; T-bag stood guard, and I grabbed the sales assistant, Jeannie, and frogmarched her to the open safe, demanding she fill a bag and not do anything stupid.

  Three minutes and we were done. As I reached to take the bulging bag a shot rang out. The manager slumped to the floor. Without pausing, Rex turned to one of the guards, placed his gun under the chin strap of the man’s helmet and pulled the trigger again, before dispatching the man’s colleague in the same manner.

  Crow-bar opened his mouth in protest. This hadn’t been part of the plan. Rex shot him between the eyes.

  Planned or not, I knew what came next. Grabbing Jeannie’s arm I shoved her in the direction of the back office. ‘Run!’ I hissed.

  We’d barely made it through the doorway before another bullet punched a hole in the plasterboard. Racing through the staff area we crashed through the fire door into the yard outside. It took both of us to block the exit with an overflowing wheelie bin from the restaurant next door.

  ‘Do you have a car?’

  She nodded and we sprinted to her Mini, parked in an adjacent street. Under my direction, she steered us towards the river, finally parking out of sight, under the road bridge at the mouth of the estuary. Beside us, swollen brown waters raced out to sea.

  ‘You saved my life. Why?’ Her voice was surprisingly steady.

  Weariness swept over me, and, before I knew it, I found myself telling her all about the terrible situation I’d found myself in and how it was all one big mistake.

  ‘What will you do?’

  I shrugged; I was an accessory to murder now, not just some fool who’d stumbled into a robbery.

  ‘I guess I’ll wrap the gun in these clothes and chuck it in the river. It’ll be halfway out to sea in ten minutes. Then I’ll just walk away and hope for the best. Nobody alive has seen my face, except for Rex, and I doubt he’ll say anything.”

  She shook her head. ‘They’ll never stop looking for you.’ She paused. ‘I have a better idea. Hand yourself in. Come clean. You saved my life, I’ll vouch for you. Give me the gun to show everyone you’re sincere. You’ll be a hero.’

  I weighed up the options. What choice did I really have? A life on the run, always looking over my shoulder, scared that either the police or Rex would one day find me? Or the chance to get my old life, such as it was, back.

  And maybe she was right. Maybe I would be a hero. If not to the world, then at least to her. Up close I couldn’t help noticing that she was rather pretty. I glanced down at her left hand: no rings.

  I handed over the gun.

  Turning it around, she pressed it against my temple. ‘You stupid bastard. Rex and I have had this planned for months. Two million quid, dead easy. Then you come bumbling in.’

  I felt numb as she ordered me out of the car, pausing only to stuff the black bag in a litterbin, before making me climb up onto the railings. Below me the waters surged. There was a huge boom, an almighty kick in the back and I was falling…

  So why am I here, three weeks later, pen in hand, notebook on knee, watching the sun go down over the Indian Ocean? And what about spending the rest of my life with Jeannie? Well as far as she’s concerned I did. My life ended on that pier, my body washed out to sea.

  And I very nearly was dead too. The multicoloured bruise in the centre of my back reminds me that not even Kevlar is perfect at close range. Fortunately, the cold water revived me and I hauled myself out of the river about half a mile downstream.

  According to the news, Jeannie was abandoned unharmed by her kidnapper – whose description bore no resemblance to me – who then made off with the money.

  I can only imagine her fury when she returned to the bin and found it had been emptied. The following day I texted my friends that I was quitting my job to become a writer and flew out of Heathrow with a one-way ticket and enough spending money to keep me in clean underwear and notebooks for as long as it took.

  As for that novel … well what do you think so far?

  Lady Luck

  Peter Lovesey

  You would never have guessed the adviser in the job centre was Lady Luck. True, there was something otherworldly about her, like one of the strange stone heads on Easter Island, which stare fixedly at the horizon, except her gaze was on the clock. In front of her was the form Danny had b
een told to complete. She must have read it because she told him he’d been unemployed for far too long.

  After several untroubled weeks of signing on, Danny had been ordered to attend a work search review. He didn’t need one. Unemployed by choice, he was living a contented life in a council flat in Twickenham on state handouts and burglary.

  He tried his winning smile, but there was no meeting of minds. At this stage in their relationship Lady Luck’s charm eluded him.

  She said a new supermarket had just opened on the edge of town and was looking for night stockers.

  At first Danny thought she’d said ‘night stalkers’. He was tempted to give that a try. It would fit in nicely with the housebreaking.

  When she explained that it involved stacking shelves for eight hours starting at ten p.m., Danny turned white. He didn’t fancy that at all. He needed to keep his nights clear.

  She told him there was no physical reason why he couldn’t do the work and he’d better go for the interview at three p.m. sharp or face a cut in his jobseeker’s allowance and questions about his flat.

  Lady Luck meant what she said.

  Later the same day Danny went to meet the recruitment manager. The supermarket was only ten minutes from the flat. With every step he racked his brain for a get-out, some allergy or phobia that would allow him to fail the interview. A deep-rooted fear of shelving? A habit of dropping things? Too obvious.

  He could say he was affected by the moon. That might worry them. ‘I can’t help myself. I have an uncontrollable urge to howl and run about on all fours. It’s harmless – I think.’

  But he didn’t need any of these excuses. The moment he stepped through the supermarket door a remarkable thing happened. A young woman dressed like a cheerleader in the shortest of bright-red skirts, silver tights and a glittery top, and carrying a string of balloons, came from nowhere and linked her bare arm with his.

  If there was such a person as Lady Luck, Danny thought, this ought to be how she looked. But deep down he knew he was here thanks to the stone-faced woman in the job centre.