‘What’s all the noise?’ he asked.
‘There’s been a murder!’ said Detective Sergeant Clifford Jaine, smiling.
Blount paled. ‘What? Where? In Bowcester?’
‘Nope.’
‘Thank goodness for that. You had me worr—’
‘In Nasely!’ said Jaine, excitedly. ‘Smack bang in the middle of the murder-mystery festival!’
‘Are you sure it’s not just some old spinster who’s got a bit overexcited and popped her clogs?’
‘No. It’s a proper homicide. A nasty one too, judging by the info coming in.’
‘The control room has sent a car over there with a couple of uniformed officers to preserve the scene,’ added Detective Sergeant Nicola Banton.
‘Isn’t it great?’ said a beaming Jaine. ‘They had one in Uttercombe five years ago and it was a licence to print money for the investigation team!’
‘Only if the overtime is authorised,’ said Blount.
‘Yeah, but DCI Chatterjee is on holiday in India, isn’t he?’ said Jaine. ‘That means that you’ll be the senior investigating officer for the case.’
‘Yes. I suppose I will be,’ said Blount, uncertainly. His brain frantically tried to recall operational procedures for homicides. He knew that he had a binder in his office that explained it all, but he wasn’t about to refer to it while anyone was watching. He stroked his angular chin and looked at the excited chubby face of Clifford Jaine. The man was a competent detective, if a little childish and cheeky at times. Scruffy, untidy and overly fond of practical jokes and risqué humour, he was the polar opposite of the altogether more smart and sensible Nicola Banton. She was neat, methodical, and she enjoyed a good joke too but, unlike her colleague, was much better at gauging when it was appropriate. She was also an expert researcher and analyst and was tipped for promotion in the not-too-distant future. Annoyingly for Blount, both of his detective sergeants were better educated than he was and, he feared, were considerably more intelligent.
‘A murder mystery at a murder-mystery festival, eh?’ said Banton. ‘It sounds like the plot of a bad TV detective series.’
‘So what do we do first?’ asked Jaine.
‘Surely our priority is to identify witnesses and preserve any forensics,’ said Banton.
‘Yes. Exactly that,’ said Blount, thankful for the reminder. ‘You said that there’s a patrol car en route. Are there no officers on scene?’
‘No,’ said Banton. ‘There were two officers covering the festival, but they’re downstairs in the custody suite.’
‘They got duffed up by some old dears,’ said Jaine. ‘Apparently there was a fire and then a set-to between rival Agnes Crabbe fan clubs and—’
‘What? No, never mind. Get over there now,’ snapped Blount. ‘Quickly, before the fans trample all over the crime scene.’
Jaine and Banton rushed out of the door and Blount stalked back into his office, pleased with how decisive he’d appeared to be. He reached down the operations manual for serious crime from a high shelf. The realisation had suddenly struck him that here was a golden opportunity to make his name. There hadn’t been a homicide on Bowcester Division for well over ten years and, now that there had been, fate had decreed that he was to be the senior investigating officer. Finally, he had a case of sufficient gravitas to prove his worth, maybe even to get him a promotion into senior management and a cosy desk job managing budgets and resources, rather than having to deal with the visceral complexities of investigating crimes. And surely any homicide that happened in the middle of a bustling murder-mystery festival was bound to be a trouble-free investigation? After all, there were probably dozens of witnesses and, with them all being crime fiction fans, they’d probably have an unusually sharp eye for detail and would supply excellent descriptions of any suspects. As long as he followed procedure and didn’t make any poor decisions, it was a dead cert that he’d be credited with solving the case and promotion would surely follow. He took a deep breath and smiled. This, he realised, was his moment to shine. He blew the dust off the operations manual and began to read.
In Nasely, Blount’s worst fears about the crime scene were already becoming reality. The body of a woman lay on her back on the wooden floor of the village hall. Her face, or what was left of it, was a thing of bloody ruin that had been pulped and smashed as if by some kind of heavy object. She was, unsurprisingly, dressed as Millicent Cutter and had lost so much blood that the casual observer might have assumed her dress to be bright red even though the clean parts showed that it was green. A long, sinuous scarlet river ran away from the body and under the rows of empty chairs, pooling around a knot hole in a floorboard where, presumably, it was now dripping down into the foundations. Several Millies had already trodden in it and there were bloody size-five footprints all over the floor. A macabre element had been added to the grisly scene in the form of a large kitchen knife that protruded from between the victim’s ribs. To add an extra level of mystery to the situation, there was no sign of Andrew Tremens – unless he was the victim. It was quite conceivable that the solicitor might have, as part of his event, got into drag. But, whichever theory you subscribed to – disappearance or death – it was certain that whatever Tremens had planned to reveal to the world had gone with him. Nothing had been left behind.
Having got over the initial shock, a number of Millies had taken it upon themselves to start examining the crime scene to look for clues. Some sported magnifying glasses and notebooks; a decade of reading Agnes Crabbe books, and several decades more of reading crime fiction in general, had instilled in them the notion that they could investigate any murder just as thoroughly as Campion, Barnaby or Wimsey could. They’d simply never had this kind of an opportunity before. Others were taking photographs and members of the various fan clubs had formed into small huddles to discuss possible scenarios.
‘What if the killer hid inside a cupboard, slipped out, killed the victim and then sneaked back inside and only came out again when the crowds had filled the place? They could have hidden among all the confusion. Of course, they’d have to have been dressed as Miss Cutter to blend in . . .’
‘Ooh, then they could be among us right now! How exciting!’
‘Maybe Andrew Tremens was really a woman but had been living as a man. Or maybe he’d had a sex change? Either way, maybe it’s his body . . .’
‘The victim had a terminal illness and wanted to give us all a really good mystery to solve as her dying wish . . .’
‘You do realise that the village hall occupies the same position on the High Street as the Little Hogley spiritualist church in The Dead Do Not Rise? Could that be significant?’
‘So exciting!’
In the absence of police officers, Pamela Dallimore had tried her level best to keep people away from the body but with limited success; no one took her very seriously and every time she shooed one lady away, two more would pop up to peer at the gruesome scene like some embrocation-scented hydra.
‘Ladies! Please keep back. You’re contaminating the crime scene!’ she shouted, having heard police officers say that on the TV.
‘Do we know who it is?’ asked a thickly bespectacled Milly.
‘No formal identification has been made yet,’ said Mrs Dallimore, falling back on TV police jargon once more.
‘It looks like Esme Handibode to me,’ said the Milly.
‘It must have been a frenzied attack,’ said another, sporting a brooch shaped like a skull. ‘I take it that you counted the number of stab wounds?’
‘Would you please stand back?’ said Mrs Dallimore. ‘The police are on their way.’
‘Of course, seven is a very significant number, you know,’ said brooch lady. ‘In Hinduism there are seven chakras and there are seven sacraments in Catholicism.’
‘Yes, I—’
‘Muslim devotees walk seven times around the Ka’ba in Mecca,’ said the informative Milly. ‘And Buddha is often seen sitting within the seven petals of the
lotus flower. Oh, and the Jewish Menorah has seven branches. It seems to me that there is a ritualistic flavour to this murder.’
‘Look, you need to—’
‘Did you know that the number seven appears throughout the Bible and is mentioned fifty-five times in the Book of Revelation alone?’
‘But she’s been stabbed eight times,’ said Mrs Dallimore.
‘Oh,’ said the number-obsessed Milly, standing over the body and counting the stab wounds again. ‘Ah yes. Silly me. I didn’t include the one that the knife is poking out from. However, eight is considered a lucky number in China and the equivalent of our Lucky Seven, of course, and there’s—’
‘Wasn’t very lucky for her, was it?’ snapped Mrs Dallimore. ‘Now would you mind moving along?’
‘You did spot the pearls clutched in her fist, I assume?’ said a Milly with shocking green eyeshadow.
‘I did.’
‘And there’s a trail of pearls to the back door of the hall, look,’ said Eyeshadow. ‘Perhaps she threw them on the floor to try to make her attacker slip and fall over, like Miss Cutter does in the books?’
‘No, that can’t be right,’ said another Milly with her broken arm in a cast. ‘The victim is still wearing hers so they must belong to her attacker.’
‘Oh yes! So she is. Then she must have grabbed at them during the attack,’ said Eyeshadow. ‘So her attacker may have been dressed as Miss Cutter too.’
‘That’s a significant clue.’
‘I think the victim looks more like Brenda Tradescant.’
‘The murderer could be someone in this room!’
‘I thought that too.’
‘Oh yes!’
‘Isn’t it exciting!’
‘I’ve been waiting for the call all my life!’
‘Me too! I can’t wait to get started.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Molly Wilderspin. She sidled up to Pamela Dallimore, trying to avoid looking at the victim’s mutilated face. ‘But is that—’
‘I think so, yes,’ said Mrs Dallimore.
‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Wilderspin.
*
The arrival of the first police car, announcing its presence with flashing blue lights and sirens, caused further ripples of excitement throughout the Millicent hordes. The two uniformed officers on board immediately began ushering everyone out of the hall while setting up a crime-scene-tape perimeter around the building. Ten minutes later, CID officers Jaine and Banton arrived, closely followed by the police photographer and a forensics officer in a blue plastic boiler suit who began poring over the body and its immediate environs. A quite unnecessary but nevertheless legally required confirmation of death was issued by a local GP, although it was done at a distance as the unfortunate Dr Meissen hadn’t seen anything quite so gory since his days as a hospital intern in the seventies and the crime scene made him feel quite bilious. Once all of the inquisitive Millies had been marshalled outside and the hall declared out of bounds, Jaine and Banton emerged from the building to look for witnesses.
‘Who found the body?’ asked Banton.
She was treated to a loud chorus of Miss Cutters all claiming that they’d been the first through the door.
‘Look, you can’t all have found the body,’ she shouted. ‘I just need to speak to whoever saw it first.’ She was treated to another vocal barrage.
‘They all went in at once when the doors were opened,’ explained Shunter.
‘And you are?’
‘Frank Shunter. Retired DS. I live here in the village.’
‘Nicola Banton, also a DS. Come inside for a minute. I might get more sense out of you than from this lot.’
Shunter ducked under the police tape and accompanied the detective back inside the hall. The warm, iron-rich scent of fresh arterial blood still hung in the air. It was something that he had hoped never to smell again. The irritating buzz of opportunistic flies, quick to catch the scent of death, broke the silence.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to preserve the scene,’ said Shunter. ‘I was some way back in the queue and the crowds meant that I couldn’t get near it.’
‘What’s done is done. Mrs Dallimore did her best,’ explained Banton, nodding her head towards the journalist who was sitting on a nearby chair looking shell-shocked and sipping at a cup of tea. ‘Listen, as you’re a local, I don’t suppose you can confirm who the victim is, could you? We have a handbag and some personal effects that suggest that she’s a Miss Brenda Tradescant, a local lady from over near Sherrinford. Mrs Dallimore also thinks that it’s her. But someone else has suggested that it might be a Mrs Esme Handibode.’
‘I can have a look,’ said Shunter. ‘But I hardly know either of them. I only met them today and then only briefly.’
‘Perhaps the clothes then? To be honest, the face isn’t going to help you.’
‘You do realise that there are several hundred ladies in the village right now that are all dressed alike, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but we have to ask in case either of them were wearing something distinctive,’ said Banton. ‘We’ve also heard from Mrs Dallimore that Mrs Handibode and Miss Tradescant were involved in some kind of a fight earlier.’
‘I heard it was a blazing row,’ chipped in Mrs Dallimore. ‘I understand that things got very heated. Apparently that old fraud Handibode has been moonlighting by writing—’
‘Actually, I was there,’ interrupted Shunter. ‘And it was more of a spat. It certainly wasn’t serious enough to lead to something like this.’
‘You don’t know Esme Handibode,’ said Mrs Dallimore. ‘She’s a spiteful woman. Hard as nails. She’s made herself a lot of enemies over the years, Brenda Tradescant among them.’
‘Sergeant Banton, could you come over here?’ said the forensics officer. He held up a folded and bloodstained piece of paper with a pair of forceps.
‘Want me to wait outside?’ asked Shunter.
‘Not unless you want to,’ said Banton, walking across to the crime scene and snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. ‘I guess you’ve seen this kind of thing before.’
‘Too often,’ said Shunter, following her. ‘I worked eighteen years in homicide.’
‘This is my first,’ said Banton. ‘It’s all I can do not to throw up.’
‘No one could blame you,’ said Shunter, grimacing at the body. ‘That’s a nasty one. And, for what it’s worth, I have no idea who it is. It could be either of the ladies you mentioned. Or any other woman of that build who’s wearing a green dress.’
‘Now then, what have we here?’ said Banton. She took the forceps carefully from the forensics officer. The bloodstained paper bore a single bleak sentence written in thick black marker pen:
Pay up or else.
‘My my,’ she said, showing it to Shunter. ‘This adds a whole new twist to things.’
The front door opened and the hall was momentarily filled with the noise of several hundred Millies discussing the murder. DS Clifford Jaine emerged from the crowd and slammed the door shut behind him. ‘That was a complete waste of time,’ he said. ‘No one saw or heard anything prior to the doors opening. But they’ve all got a bloody theory about whodunnit of course. Who’s this then?’
‘Frank Shunter,’ said Shunter, extending a hand. ‘Retired DS. Ex-Met.’
‘London, eh? Probably seen more homicides than we’ve had hot dinners,’ said Jaine.
‘A few,’ said Shunter, modestly.
‘First one we’ve had in donkey’s years. It’s my first anyway.’
‘We have two names,’ said Banton. ‘We have a Miss Brenda Tradescant and a Mrs Esme Handibode. Both ladies fit the description of the victim.’
‘That’s something to go on then,’ said Jaine. ‘I can put out a public appeal for both of them to contact us.’
‘There’s more. Mrs Dallimore says that there was a quarrel between them earlier.’
‘So whoever this is, the other might be the suspect? Excellent. But which is whi
ch?’
‘It seems most likely that the victim is Miss Tradescant,’ said Banton. ‘Her handbag was found next to the body. We have her driving licence, credit cards, her phone . . .’
‘Must be her then,’ said Jaine.
‘Unless the victim stole the bag from Miss Tradescant,’ said Shunter. ‘Or the perpetrator left it behind in a panic.’
‘Good point,’ said Jaine.
‘About this quarrel earlier,’ said Banton. ‘As a matter of interest, what was it about?’
‘Miss Tradescant accused Mrs Handibode of having written some trashy novels,’ explained Shunter. ‘The exchange got a bit heated, but that’s all.’
‘But they were from rival fan clubs,’ said Banton. ‘And they take their fan-clubbing very seriously around here.’
‘Well, that particular fan got seriously clubbed, didn’t she?’ said Jaine, looking closely at what remained of the victim’s head.
Banton frowned at her colleague. ‘Have a bit of respect, Cliff.’
‘You’re not suggesting that she’s the victim of some kind of turf war, are you?’ said Shunter.
‘Stranger things have happened,’ said Jaine.
‘Maybe in London or LA, but not in Nasely,’ said Shunter. ‘The most heated this lot ever gets is over the correct pronunciation of “scone”.’
‘I dunno. There was a fight between fans on the green earlier and two uniformed officers got hurt,’ said Jaine. ‘Of course, there could be a much simpler explanation than fan-club rivalry.’ He nodded towards the note in Banton’s hand.
‘You mean blackmail?’ said Banton.
‘Or a gambling debt that got out of hand,’ said Jaine. ‘She didn’t pay up, so they sent some heavies around.’
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