Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

by David W Robinson

  Joe put his glass down and leaned forward on his elbows. “Listen to me. You’re asking me to help you prove your husband in innocent. You have to give me something to work with. All you’ve told me so far makes your husband odds on favourite.”

  “Because I don’t know anything about the people he worked with or the company?” Fliss protested. “Does your wife know much about the people you work for?”

  “Plenty,” Joe retorted. “I work for myself, Sheila and Brenda work for me, and my wife did too, before I married her. And she cleared off because she got fed up of working for me, so let’s leave my wife out of this.”

  Joe drummed his fingers on the table, wondering where to take the debate next. Sheila collected their glasses and made for the bar, Brenda excused herself and went to the ladies, and Joe contemplated whether or not the young woman was trying to take a rise out of him.

  It was not without precedent. For all his tough, grumpy exterior Joe knew he was a soft touch for women who cried, and he had felt sorry for Fliss when her husband was carried off by Grant and his crew. Could it be, he asked himself, that she knew Robbie was guilty and she was simply using Joe to angle for his release?

  He decided she was not. The police had it right as far as he was concerned, but even so, small inconsistencies were showing through the certainty, and they would need to be accounted for before Kendrew or anyone else could be charged with these crimes.

  A thought occurred to him. “The murder mystery thing. Where did you and your husband last see it?”

  Fliss, who had fallen into a morose silence (Joe presumed it was preferable to speaking to him without the support of his two companions) stirred. “Sorry? Haliwell’s Heroes? We haven’t seen it before. I’ve seen other murder mysteries, but Robbie never has. He never has the time.”

  “You’ve seen others put on by this group?”

  “What is this?” she protested. “Shouldn’t you be thinking of proving my husband innocent instead of prattling about the play? Or are you worried that the woman you’re sleeping with might have had other men in other hotels?”

  The acid comment irritated Joe again. “You’re asking for my help, but you don’t go out of your way to encourage me, do you? Just answer the bloody question. Have you seen murder mysteries from this group before?”

  “No. Happy?”

  “No. Far from it.”

  Joe played absently with his empty glass, his agile mind churning over the new information and filing it where it belonged. Unfortunately, it was in the area marked ‘unanswered’ and it had a lot of company.

  “Do you have friends, family you can call on?”

  Tears sparkled in her eyes at the mention of others within her personal circles. She fought a brief battle with them, gaining control over her fluctuation emotions, before she answered.

  “They’re all up in Sheffield. I don’t want to leave Lincoln. Not while Robbie is still at the police station. And it’s New Year’s Day. I don’t want to spoil their parties by letting them know he’s been arrested.”

  “I take your point,” Joe agreed. “Here’s what I want you to do. When we go for lunch, and at dinner this evening, I want you to join Sheila, Brenda and me, at our table.”

  Fliss’ response was scathing. “I don’t want to intrude upon your little ménage a trois.”

  Joe would have laughed if it had not been for the dripping cynicism.

  “Cut it out. Understand? Just knock it off. You want me to help, then you speak to me with a civil tongue.” Once more he leaned into the table, stressing his anger. “You know, I deal with bolshie truckers every day of the week. They give me more earache in one day than the missus did in ten years of wedded hell. At the side of them, you’re easy. I have to put up with them because it’s my business and I need them. I don’t have to put up with you.”

  She backed off. “I’m sorry. Like I said, I don’t want to intrude upon your weekend anymore than I want to trouble my family.”

  “You won’t be intruding on anything.” Joe advised her. “But I don’t want you sitting alone in the dining room like a bloody wallflower with everyone feeling sorry for you. I shouldn’t think Wendy Grimshaw will welcome you with open arms, so stay with us. My two girls are the best in the world when it comes to looking after other people, and they won’t mind. It also means you’re close by when something, anything occurs to you.” He spotted Sheila coming from the bar. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going for another smoke. Think, Felicity. Think hard about who else might have been happy to see Reggie and Naomi dead.”

  ***

  Within a minute of Sheila settling back on her seat, Brenda returned. Grateful as she was for their company, Fliss’ mind was obsessed with the thought of her husband in a police cell, and even when Sheila put another glass of brandy before her, she barely acknowledged the gesture.

  “Has Joe been riling you?” Sheila asked.

  Fliss barely registered the question. “What? Oh, no. I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  Sheila giggled. “Nothing new there, then.”

  Fliss frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  “Joe Murray doesn’t like anyone,” Brenda explained. “In fact, I’m convinced there are times when he doesn’t even like himself. He’s the original grumpy old man.”

  “But don’t let that fool you,” Sheila cautioned. “He misses nothing. There are times when he sees things which may not mean much, but when they’re tied up with something else, he eventually gets the meaning and it takes him one step further forward. Isn’t that right, Brenda?”

  Her best friend nodded. “He really is the best, Fliss.”

  Fliss tried to put a note of appeasement in her voice, and found it impossible. “He thinks Robbie is guilty.”

  “That’s because everything is pointing at Robbie, right now,” Sheila told her. “But if Robbie is innocent, and I’m sure he is, Joe will find something that proves it. Trust us.”

  Brenda took a swallow of Campari. “You’ll forgive me, Fliss, but even without all this, you didn’t appear to be having the best of weekends.”

  “No. We weren’t.” Fliss found herself better able to speak to these sympathetic women than she had Joe. “Are you married?”

  “Widowed,” Sheila replied. “Both of us.”

  “And within months of each other. That’s why we’re the best of friends.”

  “Mark you, we have been good friends since we were children, haven’t we, Brenda?”

  “We have.”

  “Robbie and I have been married nearly ten years,” Fliss told them, “but this last two years, it’s been hell. Money troubles, mainly.” Her bitterness flooded out. “That bloody house. And it’s all because of Naomi Barton.”

  She spotted a glance pass between Sheila and Brenda.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I’ll make an exception where that woman is concerned. Everything in our lives has revolved around Naomi Barton. She was one of Robbie’s salespeople, you know. Worked in his team, and he spoke very highly of her. Then she got promoted, and right away her team began to outdo Robbie’s. He couldn’t have that, so he really pushed his people to improve the team’s performance. Then it got worse. She bought herself a flash car, he bought one that was flasher. She enjoyed a Shakespeare weekend in London, we had to go to Stratford-upon-Avon for the festival. All the time it was Naomi this, Naomi that, Naomi annoys me, I hate Naomi. Everything Naomi did, we had to do it better. She lived in a shabby little apartment in Sheffield, but she was house hunting. Then she spotted Parkfield – the house where we live – and put in an offer. When she told Robbie, he went to the agent and gazumped her.” Fliss put on a poor impression of a man’s voice. “Ah’m not having that Naomi bitch Barton put one over on me.” She shook her head sadly and reverted to her normal speech. “He was obsessed with beating her at every turn. She began to dominate our lives without even knowing about it.” Fliss looked up at the two women, her eyes app
ealing for their understanding. “I didn’t care about her. All I wanted was Robbie. I would have been happier if we lived in a council house, happier if he left Grimshaw’s and we never spoke about her again.”

  Brenda patted her hand in an effort to soothe her.

  “Have you no children?” Sheila asked.

  “We were trying, and then when the mortgage bill hit us, Robbie persuaded me that we couldn’t afford them.” Fliss sniffed disdainfully. “It’s a pity Naomi Barton didn’t have kids. Robbie would have wanted at least one more than her.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Joe was pacing back and forth across the front of the hotel, his mind churning over the events of the last 48 hours, the bits and pieces he had learned, the questions that still bothered him, when Wendy Grimshaw left the hotel, and walked out of the grounds towards the Minster.

  He checked his watch. 12:30. Lunch was half an hour away, but Wendy was one of those people he needed to speak to and he had not yet had the opportunity.

  Taking out his mobile phone and dialling, he hurried after her. “Sheila? It’s Joe. There’s something I have to take care of, so I may be late back for lunch. Ask them to put me something to one side, would you?”

  “Carvery, Joe,” Sheila reminded him. “Self service. How long will you be?”

  “I dunno. An hour, maybe longer.”

  “You’ll miss the next episode of Haliwell’s Heroes,” Sheila warned him.

  “So I’ll get it on video when I get back. Just take care of lunch, will you?”

  “Is it to do with the murders?”

  “Would I miss my food for anything else?”

  She giggled. “No. I suppose not. Leave it with me.”

  Joe shut the phone down, dropped it in his pocket and hurried to keep Wendy in sight.

  Crossing the road outside the hotel, she cut slightly left and then right, towards the city centre, along Priorygate, where, 50 yards further down, at the point where the peculiar cone of St Andrew’s Chapel blotted out the cathedral behind, she turned into the grounds, and made her way around the chapel, to the Minster.

  Discreetly following her, Joe found the colossus overpowering. Lincoln Cathedral was not simply large, it was gargantuan, and he reminded himself of the lecture Sheila had given him on the bus from Sanford: at one time, it was the tallest building in the world. From Minster Yard, the twin towers, their upper reaches almost lost to the misty skies, dominated. He had to crane his neck backwards to look up at them. And what they had in height, the rest of the building possessed in breadth. Visible for miles around, at this close range, it was simply awe-inspiring.

  Wendy made her way into the cathedral via a door in the South East walls, and when Joe entered, he saw her sat on a wooden pew, facing the Angel choir and its amazing stained windows, a series of eight, narrow glasses rising up, and topped off by two small and one large rose window above. The rising windows depicted various Biblical scenes, including (inevitably in Joe’s opinion) Adam and Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, the arrival of the Shepherds and Magi in Bethlehem and the Crucifixion. The richness of the colours standing out against the low-level interior lighting struck a chord with him and once more he felt the overwhelming majesty of the place. Somewhere in this same area, he knew, sat the Lincoln Imp, one of the city’s most famous legends, but although he looked for it, he could not see it.

  A chubby man, clad in a surplice and cassock, passed Joe, and with a benign smile, pointed to his head. With an apologetic wince, Joe removed his cap, and stepped quietly across the memorial floor stones, to join Wendy.

  “There was no need to be so furtive, Mr Murray,” she said. “You could have walked with me. I would have appreciated the company.”

  Joe silently congratulated her on her powers of observation, and excused himself. “I didn’t want to intrude upon your grief.”

  “Ah. Aren’t we a polite lot?” Wendy smiled and stared at the windows. “The police had to interview me, but they were very soft, back-pedalling, and everyone knows I have to be questioned, but no one wishes to intrude upon my bereavement. I was watching you just now, you know, in the bar, talking to Felicity. Has she persuaded you that her darling, wonderful husband didn’t do it?”

  “No. Not yet,” Joe admitted. “But she’s raising issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later.”

  “Questions such as who would want both Reggie and Naomi dead?”

  “That’s one of them, for sure,” Joe agreed.

  Wendy did not answer immediately. She was intent upon the images in the rising columns of stained glass.

  “Do you believe in God, Mr Murray?”

  “Tough question,” Joe admitted. “Belief outweighs logic, but although I tend to run on reason, that doesn’t mean to say I dismiss faith. Does it matter?”

  “To you, probably not. To me, yes. There are times when I feel the need to commune with God. Whether you interpret that as being at one with some all-powerful being or with my inner- self, is irrelevant. I need answers to deeper questions; answers which can only be found through introspection. Reggie wasn’t like that. He was like you; a practical man. To him, all the answers he needed were to be found in a toolbox or on a balance sheet. He was also an unfaithful bully, whose only interest was self-interest.”

  Her words made little sense to Joe. “And you need to ask God why he was like that?”

  “No. I need to ask God why I created the monster that Reggie had become.” A wan smile of reminiscence played on her lips. “When I met him, Reggie was a small businessman. He built and installed bespoke kitchens. He made a good living. He was an honest man and a craftsman. I suppose to you it’s the same difference as taking the raw materials and baking your own steak and kidney pies or buying the frozen variety from your wholesaler. I persuaded Reggie that he should expand his business, set up the factory, cash in on the home improvement boom of the 1980s. He did, and it changed him. He became obsessed with profits, with money, to the exclusion of everything else. He employed pushy snots like Kendrew and the Barton woman to sell his high-priced rubbish. Because that’s what it was, Mr Murray. Rubbish. The kitchens Grimshaw’s sell are not a patch on the work Reggie Grimshaw carried out as a master tradesman. They’re fibreboard garbage, mass produced, sold at prices which are at least three times what they’re really worth.” She sighed. “And I created that situation, Mr Murray.”

  Joe found it hard to accept what she was saying. “And now it’s been resolved? Seems a pretty harsh way of dealing with a problem.”

  “And in that, you have my reason for talking to God. Yes, the situation is resolved. A year from now, Grimshaw Kitchens will be a subsidiary of Midland Kitchens. I will take the decision that Reggie wouldn’t, and I will finally be absolved, but will that cancel out my original sin?”

  Joe frowned. He badly needed a cigarette to help clear the fug in his brain. “So what role does the murderer play in this? God’s avenging angel?”

  Wendy laughed. “I fear not. Do you know the tale of the Lincoln Imp?”

  “Some of it.”

  “There are many variations, Mr Murray. In my favourite version, there were two imps, both servants of Satan, and they went, first to Chesterfield, where they sat on the church spire and twisted it, which is why you will still see the crooked spire to this day. The two imps then came here, to Lincoln where, working on the devil’s orders, they caused mayhem. They smashed up tables and chairs, tripped up the Bishop and then they started destroying the Angel Choir.” She gestured at the magnificent area around them. “An angel appeared and told them to stop. One of the imps was brave enough to throw rocks at the angel but the other imp cowered under the broken tables and chairs. The angel turned the first imp to stone and this gave the second imp a chance to escape. The stone imp still sits here where he was turned to stone.”

  She pointed up at a pillar behind them, and Joe craned his neck once more to see the carving of the imp, an evil grin on his face, one leg crossed over the othe
r. He sat in the curved V where the pillar head spread out into the arched ceiling.

  Taking a photograph with his mobile phone, still wondering what the woman was trying to say to him, Joe commented, “Very amusing.”

  “And apposite,” Wendy assured him. “I can’t decide if Reggie’s killer was the imp that got away or the Lord’s angel come to ensure that, once again, good triumphs over evil.”

  “But you don’t know who the imp – or angel – is?”

  Wendy smiled sweetly and gave the barest shake of her head. “I can tell you that you should widen the net. Look further than Kendrew. That trollop you’re sleeping with, Melanie Markham. She and Grimshaw Kitchens go back a long way.”

  The news stunned Joe. “What?”

  “If you’ll excuse me, Mr Murray,” Wendy said. “I need some time alone.”

  Joe stared at her, expecting more, hoping the pressure of his insistent gaze would prompt her, but she had returned to looking fixedly at the stained glass windows. Jumping to his feet, fishing into his pocket for some coins, pausing only to drop a few pounds into the fixed offertory, he marched out of the cathedral, and turned towards the hotel, hurrying along, almost breaking into a run, spurred by the nagging thought that once again some woman had been deceiving him, using him for her own nefarious ends.

  A clock somewhere (he didn’t know if it was the cathedral tower) chimed the hour as he passed through the hotel lobby. Most of the guests were shuffling from the Scampton Room to the Gibson Room. As he fought through them, into the bar, he met with Sheila and Brenda.

  “You’re going the wrong way, Joe,” Brenda told him. “The food is in this direction.” She pointed to the queue.

  “Five minutes,” he promised.

  “And we have some news for you.”

  “I said, later.” He carried on, battling his way into the bar.

  He found the Markham Murder Mysteries crew in the far corner, discussing scene changes to accommodate the ever-changing circumstances of the police inquiry.

  Hovering over them, he said, “Melanie. I need a word.”