Bedfordshire Clanger Calamity

by steve higgs

  ‘I am Detective Sergeant Craig. Kate Harris can you account for your whereabouts on Saturday night?’

  She blinked up at the detective. ‘What?’

  ‘You filed a missing person report in which you stated that you arrived home at approximately 1900hrs expecting to find your boyfriend Joel Clement already there. You stated that you waited up for him and made several phone calls, but he failed to appear at any point that night. Did you stay at home throughout Saturday night?’

  She blinked again, confused by the question. ‘Yes,’ she replied, the word coming slowly as if she questioned whether it was the right answer to give.

  Albert knew what was going on. He’d been the detective asking these questions many times himself.

  The detective pressed her with his next question. ‘Can you provide anyone who can confirm that you stayed in the house all night?’

  ‘Someone who can confirm … why?’ The tears had stopped and now Kate Harris just looked confused.

  ‘Just answer the question, please, Miss Harris. The officers who came to your house found blood on the floor in the kitchen.’

  ‘Joel hit his head on the oven extractor. I told them that,’ Kate protested.

  The detective narrowed his eyes. ‘Can you provide a reliable alibi for your whereabouts on Saturday night?’ The detective’s voice was flat and calm. He was just doing his job, neither deriving pleasure from it, nor loathing that it was his job to do.

  ‘Alibi.’ The word slipped out on a hushed breath as around the café, staff and customers were all utterly silent to hear what was being said.

  With a nod to the two uniformed officers, DS Craig decided he had enough to proceed. ‘Kate Harris I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Joel Clement.’

  ‘What!’ Kate physically jerked at the suggestion she was responsible for her boyfriend’s murder.

  The detective sergeant carried on despite her interruption. ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  Sitting less than a foot from where Albert was standing, Kate was sobbing uncontrollably now. Albert had no idea who Joel Clement might be or what might have befallen him, other than he had been murdered, and he had no reason to doubt that the police had evidence that linked the murder to the woman. However, a lifetime – roughly six decades – of thinking like a detective, told him they were off the mark this time.

  Respecting the uniform, he took a step back as the two junior men moved in to physically arrest Kate Harris.

  ‘I didn’t do it!’ Kate wailed. ‘Why would I hurt him? I loved him!’ she was struggling to get the words out and her makeup was a mess.

  Albert knew the officers would have to cuff her. It was standard practice and the only safe way to manage a person once arrested. He remembered many occasions when his cases led him to do exactly the same. Nevertheless, her reaction looked real not faked – she hadn’t killed Joel Clement.

  The first uniformed officer to touch her, went for her right arm, but she jerked and attempted to snatch it away, succeeding in breaking his grip. ‘I said I didn’t do it!’ she yelled, emotion overcoming her. Her dog was still tucked under her left arm, and now the situation was becoming dangerous and difficult.

  The detective sergeant, who blocked her route from the shop, raised his voice to say, ‘Move back, please, sir.’ It was clearly aimed at Albert who hadn’t moved and was trying to decide what his course of action ought to be. He couldn’t intervene, that would be wrong, and the officers would be right to arrest him were he to do so. However, he also felt unhappy to do nothing.

  Kate cried out in anguish and twisted away again, shouting, ‘Stop it! Leave me alone!’

  The customers in the shop were all staring at the incident, and the ruckus had drawn the staff from the kitchen to gather behind the counter where they now stood and gawped. Albert heard one ask, ‘What’s going on?’

  The reply came from the stern-faced woman who was smiling when she said, ‘Kate killed Joel. I always said she was nothing but a gold digger.’

  Still weeping, Kate had nowhere to go and the three officers had done an effective job of pinning her in place until she calmed down. Albert liked that they hadn’t gone down the route of using force to arrest her. ‘You’re really going to arrest me?’ sobbed Kate, looking dazed and bewildered.

  They didn’t need to answer; she already knew that they were. Confused by what was happening to her, she turned to look at Albert and thrust her little dog into his arms. ‘Look after him, please,’ she begged. The cops were just about to put the cuffs on her when someone vaulted the counter.

  It was a man in his early thirties, and he was royally angry. ‘Hey!’ he bellowed. ‘Take your hands off her! What’s the meaning of this?’

  Demonstrating the seasoned nature of his career, the DS Craig swivelled around to face the new threat. ‘Stay back, sir. This person is under arrest for the murder of Joel Clement.’

  ‘Don’t be so absurd,’ the man snapped in reply. He wore chef’s whites and a hair net, but it was his face that stole Albert’s attention; there were facial resemblances between his features and Kate’s, and he was willing to bet they were siblings.

  DS Craig wasn’t in a mood to be messed about. ‘Stand back, sir. Or I shall have you arrested for obstructing me in the course of my duties.’

  ‘You are not taking my sister,’ the man growled. ‘She hasn’t done anything wrong.’ Albert closed his eyes and sighed. It was the wrong thing to do. Even if the police had this all wrong, challenging them now, and so directly, was foolhardy.

  ‘Take her to the car,’ snapped DS Craig, essentially challenging Kate’s brother to stop them. When the officers moved, each holding one of Kate’s arms, the detective stared at the chef effectively daring him to intervene.

  Albert thought he was going to and breathed a genuine sigh of relief when the brother made the right decision and backed down.

  When the café door closed, the people inside could still see the police and their suspect through the windows which dominated the entire front aspect of the building. It was deathly silent inside until the stern-faced woman said, ‘Get back to work, the lot of you. Nobody’s paying you to gawp.’

  The staff didn’t move though, not immediately. Most of those Albert could see were looking at the brother. He appeared to still be debating going after his sister, but upon hearing the stern-faced woman’s orders, he spun around to challenge her instead. ‘Who do you think you are, April? You’re not in charge.’

  His response was quickly followed by a woman standing behind the counter, whose meek voice wanted to know, ‘Is anybody paying us at all now?’ Her question stopped everyone in their tracks. ‘They just arrested Kate for Mr Clement’s murder. If the owner of the café is dead, what does that mean for the rest of us.’

  Now that his eyes were drawn to the huddle of staff behind the counter, Albert saw just how upset most of them looked. The split between men and women was about even, and the age range ran from teenagers up to three people who looked to be in their mid-sixties. The stern-faced woman was one of the oldest. Albert counted twelve staff in total. Their conversation became a mess of noise as everyone spoke over the top of everyone else.

  Watching them, Albert wrinkled his nose as he thought about what he wanted to do. He was still holding the woman’s dog and needed to give it to someone before he left but he was currently in no hurry to do so. He was also in no hurry to leave and though he was booked to stay for only one more night in Biggleswade, he knew the pub wasn’t fully booked if he chose to stay.

  Stroking the dachshund absentmindedly, the sound of a chair being dragged across the tiled floor brought his attention crashing back to his own dog. ‘Rex!’ he yelled as he looked about for the large German Shepherd. Rex was not where he’d been left, and nor was Albert’s chair which was weaving between tables on its way to
the window.

  Ha! Got you! thought Rex, pouncing on the forgotten piece of pastry with glee. His human could disapprove all he wanted now that it had been swallowed.

  Albert caught up to his great brute of a dog, grabbing his collar and yanking his head out from under a table. They were right over by the door, his dog under a table at which two men sat.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ mumbled Albert, getting nothing but a stiff nod in response. Albert dragged his dog away, Rex letting him as he licked his lips joyously. Neither Albert nor Rex intended to notice the two men, truthfully neither of them really did, but their brains logged their details anyway.

  They were on the large side, both in height and girth, but the girth was mostly muscle, honed from many hours in the gym. They were dressed very differently, one in a smart grey jacket, with a white shirt and plain dark grey tie. His trousers were black, the effect of his outfit making him look like someone who succeeded in life and needed to dress smartly to meet clients or customers but had no need to wear a suit. Opposite him, drinking tea from a small china cup, his pinky finger extended as he lifted it to his mouth, the second man wore combat fatigues as if he were an extra from a war movie.

  Rex recorded them not by their appearance but by their smell, his nose sifting and sorting constantly whether he wanted it to or not. Neither man nor dog realised at the time how significant that early encounter would prove.

  Motive for Murder

  Rex wanted to remain ambiguous to the dachshund, but found he genuinely felt sorry for the little guy.

  ‘What’s happening?’ the little guy asked, thoroughly confused by the sudden absence of his human, especially given the circumstances of her departure, and how upset she had been.

  ‘She was taken away by the police,’ Rex replied. ‘Did she hurt someone?’

  The dachshund spun through a hundred and eighty degrees, baring his teeth, and growling with a deep snarl. ‘Don’t you cast dispersions on my human! I’ll … I’ll … I’ll take your leg off and beat you to death with it you oversized, one-step-removed-from-a-wolf-looking pile of poop! My human wouldn’t hurt anyone.’

  Rex’s eyebrows shifted in mute surprise. ‘You have a lot of attitude for someone who looks like they were designed to be eaten in a bun.’

  Hans, already bewildered by current events, darted forward to bite Rex’s ankle. He got scooped by Albert though who had no idea what all the noise was about but didn’t think adding a dog fight to the mix was a great idea.

  His face still like thunder, Kate’s brother crossed the café to get her dog. His expression changed while he walked, the man taking a deep breath and forcing his tense shoulders to relax. Just before he got to Albert, he paused and turned to face the room. ‘I’m terribly sorry about all that, folks,’ he addressed the customers, not one of whom had chosen to leave. ‘The police have made a mistake, obviously. However, the incident interrupted your afternoon so please all come to the counter before you leave and take a free clanger home as an apology. One per person, any size you like.’

  ‘Hey, you can’t do that,’ argued April, her stern-face looking even stonier now.

  Kate’s brother just ignored her. ‘One per person, anything you like.’ With his back firmly to the mean-spirited older lady, he gave Albert an apologetic smile. ‘Thank you for stepping in to take Hans. I think Kate would have been doubly upset if they’d taken him away too.’

  Albert inclined his head in acknowledgement as he handed Hans over, and said, ‘Terrible business.’ When Kate’s brother lifted an eyebrow, he added, ‘The murder, I mean. I overheard that it was the owner who died. He was your sister’s … partner?’ he tried, not sure what the correct term might be now that no one seemed to get married any more. Albert was prying – something he did naturally, though he couldn’t now tell if he did it because he’d been a policeman for so long, or if he’d always done it and that was what made him such a good policeman. However, his question made the other man’s eyebrows shoot for the sky. ‘I used to be a detective before I got old.’ Albert explained.

  Albert’s statement seemed to quell the rising surprise at his question. ‘A detective? So you know about this sort of thing? What will happen to Kate now? How long will it take them to work out that they have the wrong person?’

  It was a barrage of questions, but Albert didn’t need to be anywhere other than where he was. Rex had enjoyed plenty of exercise today and there was little left on his agenda other than to read a book, get some supper, and maybe enjoy a gin before bed.

  ‘Do you have a few minutes?’ Albert asked, indicating the table and chairs with his hand.

  Kate’s brother glanced at the clock; it was close to closing time. There was no more baking to do today. He’d worked a long shift, coming in early to make the pastry fresh this morning at five o’clock but the tasks he still ought to perform could wait a while. He took the chair Kate had used to keep herself upright and deposited Hans the dachshund on his lap as the old man sat opposite.

  Rex sat upright, his head appearing above the table where his tongue lolled out to drip drool to the tile below. He eyed the dachshund suspiciously, his attention rewarded by bared teeth again as the tiny dog made another silent threat. Rex chose to ignore him.

  Albert extended his hand. ‘I’m Albert Smith. Formerly Detective Superintendent Smith.’

  The action caught Victor off guard: he’d forgotten his manners and it hadn’t occurred to him to introduce himself. ‘Sorry, I’m Victor Harris, Kate’s brother, but I guess you figured that part out from all the shouting.’

  Albert nodded and moved on. Taking a few minutes to answer the man’s initial list of questions by explaining the process of being arrested and processed. His words filled the man with horror.

  ‘But she didn’t do it,’ he protested needlessly.

  Albert pursed his lips and drew a slow breath in through his nose. ‘The police clearly believe they have reason to think otherwise. They would not arrest her without cause.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Victor asked carefully. He wanted to rail and rage at anyone who would listen, but the kindly old man was giving freely of his time and he had to respect that.

  It was an obvious question, and one Albert had been asked many times in the past. The answer was almost always the same. ‘The police have too little time to allow any of it to go to waste. They discovered the body when exactly?’

  Victor’s eyes rolled to the top of their sockets as he searched the memory part of his brain. ‘They let Kate know two days ago on Sunday night. She called me moments later in a flood of tears. I don’t know what she was thinking turning up to work today, but she stayed home yesterday and today said she didn’t want to be in their house all by herself with nothing to do but wallow.’ Remembering the question, he added, ‘They told her his body was found Sunday morning.’

  Albert nodded along as Victor laid out the little that he knew. Joel Clement, the owner of the Biggleswade Clanger Café had failed to come home after work on Saturday. He lived with Kate in her small terraced house, but sometimes went to the pub on his way home. Often this was with Kate, but not on that occasion as Kate had a Pilates class. She arrived home after the class, expecting to find Joel there waiting for her. On her way, she picked up a takeaway meal from a supermarket to cook for them both, but he wasn’t there, and he didn’t come home at any point that evening. According to Victor, his sister claimed it to be the first time Joel had ever done such a thing and she was mightily angry with him for staying out all night and ruining their Saturday evening. She suspected he’d had a skin-full and crashed somewhere else, muttering that if he’d gotten so drunk he’d gone home with another woman, he’d be staying somewhere else for the rest of his life.

  When he failed to appear looking sheepish and hungover at work the next morning, Kate began to get concerned. She started calling around to people she knew he knew, asking if anyone had seen him. Kate even excused herself from work to go to the pub he frequented at lunc
htime that day to see what they could tell her. The report from the landlord was that Joel had been in, he was a regular and easily recognised, but he left after just two pints. Once the landlord assured her he left alone and had been reading a paper and using his phone rather than talking to anyone, she began to let genuine worry creep in.

  Where was he? The end of the working day came around and he was still not answering his phone. No one knew where he could be, and Kate had run out of people to ask. Almost. Dreading the task, she drove to his ex-wife’s house and knocked on the door.

  Albert had questions about why Joel lived in Kate’s house, when Victor described it as a small terraced house. Surely, as a successful business owner, he must be making decent money and be able to afford a nice house. Of course, a person can choose to spend their money however they wish, but it didn’t sound right to Albert’s ears, and he had planned to ask for more detail. Now he didn’t need to. Joel left his wife for Kate. It sounded like a terrible thing to do, especially when Victor revealed that the couple had two teenage children.

  ‘How old is Joel?’ Albert asked, thinking he must be a decade or more older than Kate who looked to be around twenty-five.

  ‘Thirty-nine,’ replied Victor. ‘He looks older if I’m being honest. He hasn’t taken great care of himself but he’s a great guy and Kate clearly loves him. They hit it off when Kate took a job here. I was already working in the kitchen when a role came up in the café. She trained as an accountant but hated the firm she worked for. It was one of those catch twenty-two situations where she needed the job but hated the job and had no reason to believe a job at a different firm would be any different. I only suggested she work alongside me on a whim, but she knew I loved working here and she quit her old job the next day. That was two years ago.’