Joe’s tired eyes brightened. “Maybe a bit of excitement, eh? Could be that they’ll need some … hang on a minute. What were you doing coming down the stairs? You’re not that much into exercise, either of you.”
“The razor mind is beginning to sharpen,” Sheila said.
“We waited ages for the lift and it never came,” Brenda explained, “and in the end we decided to hike down the stairs. That’s when we saw them.”
“Hmm.” Joe chewed on a piece of cold bacon and grimaced, but behind the scowl, the eyes burned as bright as ever. “Major crime, obviously. They’re gonna need some help.”
“Forget it, Joe,” Sheila warned. “You’re not in Sanford now, and the big city police will not take kindly to your interference.”
“Interference, my eye. Assistance is what you mean. And old Talbot in Hull was glad of me, wasn’t he?” He swallowed the bacon and washed it down with a mouthful of lukewarm tea. “What these places know about genuine catering, I forgot before I left school,” he grumbled, and began work on the eggs with a notable lack of gusto. “Second floor, you say? The LHS mob are staying there.” Joe looked around the room for signs of Tom Patterson, and could not see him. Still smarting from Sheila’s last words, he went on, “My reputation as a detective spreads further than Sanford, you know.”
“So does your reputation as a cook,” Brenda chuckled. “The last report I read described the Lazy Luncheonette as a place to avoid if you don’t want…”
She trailed off. Andy Glenn, a man she recognised as the night duty manager, entered the dining hall accompanied by a tall, stout individual clad in a heavy overcoat.
“What’s going on now?” Sheila asked.
Joe shushed her as the newcomer put himself in a position where everyone could see him, and raised his voice above the hubbub. “Ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention please.”
Silence fell over the cavernous room and all eyes turned to him.
“Thank you. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Dockerty, of West Yorkshire CID. I’m sorry to interrupt your meal, but I have some disturbing news to impart. During the early hours of this morning, there was an incident in room 207. A woman was attacked and died of her injuries. We have already arrested a man concerning the incident, but we now have to take statements from you all.”
Someone near the front asked Dockerty a question, which neither Joe nor his two friends caught. Dockerty listened politely, nodding his head as if confirming he understood.
At length, he raised his voice across the room again. “We do appreciate that it is Christmas Day and that you’ve all paid a lot of money for your stay here. We will inconvenience you as little as possible and hopefully, we’ll be through by mid afternoon. In the meantime, if any of you are churchgoers and you wish to attend Christmas service, please let one of my officers know so they can arrange to see you later in the day. But we must insist that even if you know nothing about the night’s events, you do not leave the area until we have taken a statement from you.”
The dining room became an instant den of concerned chatter. Dockerty consulted briefly with Glenn and then raised his voice again. “Is Mr Joseph Murray here, please?”
He had been Joe Murray for so many years that it took him a second or two to recognise his full name. In the silence that followed, surprised at having been called out, Joe stood, self-consciously aware that all eyes were on him. Strange, he thought. It doesn’t bother me when I’m deejaying.
Aloud, he announced. “I’m Joe Murray.”
“Thank you, Mr Murray. I wonder if I could speak with you now, sir?”
Joe frowned and glanced down at his plate and the unpalatable food. Being the centre of attention did not stop the rumble of irritation in his blood. “I’m in the middle of breakfast,” he protested.
Dockerty sighed. “We have a lot to get through, Mr Murray, and I need to speak to you urgently. I’m sure the Regency will ensure there is fresh food left for you, and it won’t take longer than a few minutes.”
Joe scraped back his chair. “Look after my plate,” he told Sheila and Brenda, and left the table.
The policeman led him from the dining room through to reception and showed him into a back office, where Barrett sat to one side of the desk making notes in a file.
“This is Detective Constable Barrett, Mr Murray.”
Joe and the younger man exchanged nods of greeting. Barrett brought a chair for Joe and placed it opposite the one Dockerty approached.
“Please sit down, sir.”
Taking the chair, while Dockerty removed his overcoat, revealing an ill-fitting, baggy business suit beneath, Joe concentrated on the view through the window of the Regency’s rear yard where crates and barrels could be seen stacked high alongside large capacity bins, everything covered in a thick coating of snow. The bins were obviously already full, and black, plastic refuse bags were stacked up around it. Up above, the sky was as grey and grim as it had been the previous day and Joe guessed it would snow again before the day was out. How much evidence would that snow cover?
Barrett opened his pocketbook, ready to take notes as his boss went into the interview.
“I won’t keep you long, Mr Murray,” Dockerty assured him. “I understand you’re the organiser for the party from Sanford.”
“I’m Chair of the club and I organise all our outings.”
“Thank you. May I ask, then, do you know a man named George Robson?”
Joe nodded. “George? Sure. He’s one of my members.”
The younger man consulted his notebook. “That’s the Sanford Third Age Club, is it, sir?”
“That’s right. Listen, if something’s happened to George…”
“In a moment, Mr Murray,” Dockerty cut in. “Did you see Mr Robson last night?”
Joe nodded. “He was in the bar with everyone else. Will you just tell me what’s happened?”
“All in good time, sir. Can you confirm that Mr Robson was, shall we say, overtly friendly with Mrs Jennifer Hardy in the bar last night?”
Joe tutted. “If you mean did George hit on that bad-tempered tramp from the LHS, then yes. But that’s George. He’s a bugger with the women. Now are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”
But Dockerty would not be moved. “Do you know whether Mr Robson went back to Mrs Hardy’s room last night?”
Tired of the circumlocution, Joe went on the attack. “Ours is the Sanford Third Age Club. Get that? Third age. It means every member must be over the age of fifty. In other words, Dockerty, they’re mature adults, not children. It’s none of my business whether George went back to her room last night. And I don’t see where it’s any of yours, either.”
“But it is, Mr Murray,” Dockerty declared. “At three thirty this morning, another guest reported muttered voices coming from Mrs Hardy’s room, and what sounded like a bottle smashed against a piece of furniture. When the duty manager, Andrew Glenn, knocked, he got no answer, so he used his pass key to let himself in. He found Mrs Hardy on the floor, dead. She’d been hit on the back of the head with a bottle of wine. One of the complimentary bottles the hotel gave out to all the guests last night. The smashed pieces were all around her.”
Joe’s colour drained. His shoulders slumped and he sat back in the chair, stunned. “Hell’s bells. And you think George did it?”
“I arrived at four thirty this morning, sir,” Barrett explained, “and after Mr Glenn, the first person I spoke to was Thomas Patterson, Chair of the Leodensian Historical Society. He told us that Mrs Hardy had been, er,” his ears coloured, “canoodling – Mr Patterson’s word, not mine – with George Robson in the bar last night.”
Joe grimaced. “Do you have a problem with the word canoodling, sonny? Maybe you should speak to your mum.”
Barrett’s cheeks coloured, too, and Joe concentrated on the senior man.
“I’ve known George Robson since we were both kids. Fifty years. He may be a charmer with the ladies, but he’s no killer.”
Joe almost sniggered, but caught himself in time. “So George told her a few porkies? What’s the big deal. He was trying to get her knickers off.”
“I think so, too, Mr Murray,” Dockerty declared, “but Robson told us that Mrs Hardy had asked him to pose as the Director of Leisure Services. When we asked why, he couldn’t satisfactorily explain it. I think Robson accompanied Mrs Hardy back to her room, tried his luck, she said no, he got angry, there was an argument, and he killed her.”
“And what does George say?” Joe demanded.
“He admits he went back to her room, but he says they had sex and he left. That is all he says. The next thing he knew was when Ike, here, woke him up.”
“Ike?”
Dockerty jerked a thumb at Barrett.
“It’s short for Isaac.” Barrett sounded apologetic.
“You poor sod,” Joe commiserated. “Forget what I said about asking your mum. Any woman who could saddle a child with a name like that wouldn’t understand canoodling.”
“Can we leave my mother out of this, sir?”
“If my mother had named me like that, I’d have left her out of my life for good,” Joe commented with a wry smile. He rounded on Dockerty. “Have you confirmed whether George had sex with her?”
“Not yet, sir, no,” the Chief Inspector admitted. “We should get the post mortem report later today.”
“Then without knowing, why did you arrest George?”
“His story was not particularly convincing and he cannot account for his movements between two, which is when he says he left Mrs Hardy, and three thirty five, which we have temporarily established as the time of death based on the noises heard by Mr Patterson in the next room. For now, Robson has been arrested on suspicion and taken to the police station for questioning.”
“That’s crazy,” Joe said. “I can’t account for my movements between two and half past three this morning.” His face screwed up in a scowl. “Actually, I can. I was rushing to the lavatory most of the time. Too much to drink.” He glowered at Dockerty. “But you only have my word for that. Are you going to arrest me?”
“You don’t have a motive for killing her, sir,” Barrett observed.
“Oh yes I do. We had a set to in Debenhams yesterday afternoon. She was arguing with some guy called Dennis Wright and she knocked me in the back. She was intolerant and abusive. I gave her a mouthful about it in the bar last night. I’ve a damned sight more motive for killing her than George had, especially if he’d already had his legover.”
“That’s as may be, Mr Murray, but your fingerprints are not all over her room.”
“And George’s are?”
The Chief Inspector nodded. “We found his prints on the toilet flush handle, on a brandy glass, and in several other places.”
“But not on the bottle?” Joe asked.
“The pieces have been taken away for reconstruction and analysis,” Barrett said. “Once they’ve completed the jigsaw puzzle, we’ll know.”
“I’m telling you now, you have the wrong man,” Joe asserted. “George Robson wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind a woman.”
“We have the testimony of the woman herself,” Dockerty insisted.
Joe’s brow creased. “According to what you just told me, the night manager found her dead. Are you saying she was actually alive when you got to her?”
“No, but before she was killed, she took a photograph of your friend, which confirms he was in the room, and as she lay dying, she scrawled something out on a piece of paper. It told us all we needed to know. Especially when Robson told us of his womanising habits.”
Dockerty’s smug complacency began to get to Joe. “May I see this note?” he asked.
“No, you may not.”
Joe got to his feet. “I’m giving you fair warning. George has the best detective in Sanford to prove him innocent.”
Young Barrett frowned. “The best detective in Sanford? Who?”
Joe pointed to his own chest. “Me.”
“Sit down, Mr Murray.” The Chief Inspector sighed. “Ike may not have heard of you, but I have. Let me give you fair warning. You’re not in Sanford now … or Hull, and I’m not as tolerant as Terry Cummins or your local bobbies. You will keep your nose out.”
“Even if it means letting the real killer escape while you hound an innocent man?” Joe challenged. “I don’t think so. You may not like me, Dockerty, but you’re stuck with me and I will exercise my right to help clear my friend’s name.”
With an angry grunt, Dockerty snatched the file from under Barrett’s forearms, reached into it and withdrew a scrap of paper and a sheet of printed A4. The scrap, Joe noticed, was in a seal-easy evidence bag.
“Take a look at that, Mr finest detective in Sanford.”
Taking his seat again, Joe dragged the evidence bag across the desk and studied the note inside. It contained the simplified, scrawled drawing Dockerty had shown to George earlier.

“In order to make life easier for everyone, we reproduced it on a computer,” Dockerty went on as he passed the A4 sheet across to Joe.
It was the same drawing but very much tidier.

“Now what do you make of that?”
While Joe, lips pursed, studied the two drawings, Dockerty took out Jennifer’s phone. At length, Joe shook his head and looked up. “You tell me what you make of it.”
“Simple,” Dockerty went on as he worked through the phone’s menu. “Remember the woman was dying, and she probably knew it. That’s why the original drawing is so poor. The two horizontal, curved lines represent a man and woman having sexual intercourse. The stick figure represents a woman, Mrs Hardy herself. She was telling us that the man who wanted sex with her was the man who took her life. That man was George Robson.” The Chief Inspector glared defiance. “Well?”
“Seems a bit of a wild conclusion to me,” Joe replied. “I mean, if she was trying to implicate a man, why not draw the figure for Mars? A circle with an arrow pointing up and to the right. It’s not much harder to produce.”
“If you look at her original drawing, you’ll see that the curved lines have small, er, nodules on the end. They could conceivably represent sperm.”
Joe nodded. “They could also represent badly drawn coal tongs.”
“They don’t meet in the middle,” Dockerty pointed out.
“And if they’re sperm, they’re travelling in opposite directions,” Joe argued. “Are they trying to get in or out, or did they just get lost in the condom?”
Dockerty tutted. “I did say she was dying, Mr Murray. She probably realised she hadn’t much time left.”
“And if she was dying, her brain won’t have been working right, so this will never stand up in court,” Joe argued.
“I don’t say that it will,” Dockerty agreed. “We can bring it in as corroborative evidence once forensics give us everything else.” With the phone displaying the photograph of George, Dockerty laid it down facing Joe. “We also have this.”
Joe almost picked it up, but checked himself. “Give me a pair of forensic gloves, will you?”
Barrett obliged, Joe slipped them on and picked the phone up. After studying the photograph closely, he handed it back to Dockerty. “Odd picture. Why is he holding a CD?”
“He claims Mrs Hardy asked him to pose that way,” Dockerty replied. “We don’t think it to be true. We believe he had been pressuring Mrs Hardy into bed, she refused, the argument began to get heated, he just happened to be holding the CD when she took the picture to warn him that she would use it to prove he was there. If you look closely at it, you’ll see the escritoire that is common to all rooms at the Regency, in the background.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense, Dockerty. George is smiling. He does
n’t look particularly threatening.”
“I insist that our explanation makes more sense than his.”
As the Chief Inspector was about to put the phone back into the evidence bag, Joe reached for it. Puzzled, the two police officers waited while Joe fished through the menus. Eventually, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, Joe laid it on the desk.
The photograph had gone and in its place, was a menu detailing the photograph file type, size and more importantly, date and time it was taken.
“Look at that,” Joe said. “Taken on the 25th at 0122. Just turned twenty past one in the morning. She and George left the bar at about one, along with the rest of us. This picture was taken within minutes of getting back to her room. You yourself admitted that the time of death was about 3:35. What the hell was going on for those two and a quarter hours? She takes a picture warning him to get out at twenty past one, and he finally loses his rag two and a bit hours later? Get real. Whatever this photograph means, it doesn’t mean she was trying to get rid of him.”
Barrett looked away and Dockerty coughed to hide his embarrassment. “All the same, Robson’s story remains suspicious.”
Handing the phone back, Joe drummed his fingers on the desktop. “I suppose you won’t let me get a look at the room?”
“Out of the question,” Dockerty declared.
Handing back the two items, staring into Dockerty’s fierce eyes, Joe softened his approach. “Look, Dockerty, I’m not after letting George off the hook for no good reason. If he did it, he did it, and he should pay, but don’t let your professional pride stand in the way of genuine assistance. I am very skilled at seeing things others miss, and by ‘others’ I include the police. I just did, didn’t I? Check with Detective Sergeant Gemma Craddock of Sanford CID. I can bring you other references to my skills, too, people way above Terry Cummins; the Assistant Chief Constable, for instance.”
“I’m aware of your contacts, Mr Murray,” Dockerty responded. “Now let me tell you something about me. I have a reputation for being my own man. I don’t care if you’re sleeping with the Assistant Chief Constable, I will not allow you to interfere with my investigation.”
A Murder for Christmas Page 8