Merry Murders Everyone

by David W Robinson

  “And that’s gonna be difficult to prove, lad. What do you know about this argument between your Van and Billy Trelfus?”

  “Nothing. At least, she’s never said anything to me. You could ask Denny. But I’ll tell you what, if Trelfus started with her, she would have given him a good mouthful back.”

  “I’ll speak to Denny and Van. Now get yourself back to Tandy Street.”

  Bailey slid open the door of his van and prepared to climb in. “Oh, Joe, by the way, talking of Tandy Street, there’s no way that place is worth a hundred and fifty big ones. Done up, it might be worth one-twenty, but even then you’d be struggling.”

  Joe jerked a thumb over his shoulder at his nephew, and said to Bailey, “Now you’re getting as daft as him.”

  With the darkness of an early winter’s night settling, Joe drove back to The Lazy Luncheonette, where Brenda let them in, and while Lee got into his own car to go home, Joe and Brenda locked the front door, and settled down with a cup of tea. Joe gave her a full account of the visit to Parsloe’s, followed by a more detailed version of what had happened at the police station.

  “We have to check out that holly bush,” he concluded. “George isn’t often wrong about these things, and as matters stand, the police won’t do anything without some form of evidence. Unless you’ve got any other ideas, I can’t think where else to look. Are you up for it tonight?”

  “It’ll have to be late, Joe. Sheila isn’t sleeping well, remember, and I dread the thought of how she’ll react if she catches us.”

  “Eleven o’clock tonight?” He could see the doubt in her face. “Too early? All right then, how about midnight?”

  She nodded. “Pick me up… And hey, don’t forget to bring a torch and a decent camera.”

  Chapter Twelve

  What is wrong with you? Are you so niggardly that you cannot even grant our mother some contentment?

  We may live four thousand miles from the shoddy little town in Yorkshire where we were born, but we keep in constant contact with mother, and she’s told us of your absurd and groundless allegations against Martin. It’s a far cry from the man who wished her every happiness on her wedding day just three months ago.

  Martin Naylor has brought our mother nothing but peace and the contentment she deserves after being on her own for so long, and his efforts to get the bottom of this inexplicable illness have been unstinting. What he and mother need is someone to bring pressure to bear on the medical services, and not a mean-spirited man and loose-legged woman consumed with envy.

  Martin and our mother may be reluctant to press this business further, but unless you grow up and leave them alone, we will be in touch with the police with a view to prosecuting both of you.

  Peter Jnr and Aaron Riley.

  On reading the unexpected email, Joe’s temper flashed. His hand shook as he prepared to type out an angry response, but in the time it took him to roll a cigarette and make a cup of tea, he’d calmed down sufficiently to ring Brenda, and after the initial exchanges, he read the email to her.

  “Don’t respond, Joe. You’ll only make matters worse.”

  His anger was on the rise again. “Have you listened to one word I said? The names they call me… well, fair enough, I can take it, but they’re slagging you off, too. I’m not going to sit by and let them—”

  “They’re Sheila’s sons,” Brenda interrupted. “If it was Sheila suspected of murder, they’d still defend her. That’s what sons are for. According to their limited view of the situation, Martin makes Sheila happy, and that’s all that matters.”

  “And when she turns up dead in a month, who will they blame? You and me for not doing anything to stop it.”

  Brenda breathed out heavily. “Boys are always closer to the mother, Joe, and it doesn’t matter what the reality of the situation is… At least until they have to confront it. We are wrong, even if we’re right, because Sheila tells them we’re wrong. Just ignore it. Are we still on for raiding their back garden tonight?”

  “After getting this kind of abuse from her boys? Just try and keep me away.”

  “Then pick me up about midnight as we arranged.”

  After microwaving a quick meal, Joe spent most of the evening running through his notes on the killing of Billy Trelfus. There were outstanding questions he would have to confront, not least of which was a few words with Vanessa Dixon. He knew her of course. Most of Sanford did, and she was more like her brother than her husband; aggressive. Nevertheless, sometime over the weekend, he would have to find the time to speak to her.

  The lack of firm evidence on any front was a big stumbling block. Suspicion fell on Tel purely and simply because he was next door, unable to recall anything of the previous night (which in Joe’s opinion declared him innocent). It was much more likely that someone else had called after Tel had slipped into drunken oblivion. But who? Frankie and Ros Hepple were both there at different times. Was it possible that one of them had done the deed? Frankie (according to the woman herself and Ian Parsloe) had suffered some of Trelfus’s vitriol in the past.

  It was a personal judgement, but Joe could not see either of them resorting to violence. Not unless they were provoked.

  When it came to the matter of Martin Naylor, he had not shifted his belief that the man was also Mervyn Nellis and Marlon Newman, and despite the refusal of Sheila and her two sons to confront the issue, he represented a serious threat to her life. For Joe’s money, Martin had been far too cocky and confident in the police station. Anyone pulled in, facing the possibility of such serious charges, should have been jittery to say the least. Martin was anything but. Right down to a level of sarcasm which rivalled Joe’s, he had been too comfortable in his denials.

  Martin Naylor did not know Joe Murray. In fact, it was practically certain that he had never met anyone with Joe’s doggedness.

  At just after eleven o’clock, he changed from his jeans and shirt, into a pair of black jogging pants and a black sweater, an outfit he had often used for fancy dress parties when he went as Darth Vader. His trainers, unfortunately, were mostly white with flashes of blue, so he left those behind, and put on a pair of solid, black shoes. Noise, he reasoned, would not be a problem in Sheila’s back garden. He completed the ensemble with a black woolly hat, and at eleven thirty, climbed into his car for the short journey to Brenda’s place.

  She too had dressed in similar jogging pants and jumper, with a pair of black running shoes, but refused to wear anything on her head. “I’ve just had my hair done for Christmas and I don’t want to crash in for an emergency appointment at the hairdressers on Tuesday morning.”

  “I wouldn’t give a Tuesday morning off anyway.”

  “I know, but then, I wouldn’t ask your permission.”

  The weather outside was still bitterly cold, but the rain had stopped, and clear skies settled over Sanford. Winter stars gleamed in the night, and the air temperature plummeted. They were fine in Joe’s car, which although it had many years under its fan belt, was nevertheless possessed of an excellent heater, but once they parked around the corner from Larch Avenue where Sheila could not possibly see the vehicle, they felt the cold snapping at them as they made their way surreptitiously down the back lane between the streets.

  They had driven along past the front of the bungalow and confirmed that the house was in darkness, and as they trod the back lane, Joe kept his voice down and asked, “Does she have security lights covering the back garden?”

  “Not that I know of. The house is locked up like Fort Knox, and everyone knows she’s the widow of a police inspector. Her house has been a no-go area for every burglar in town since forever. Plus, she gets all sorts of wildlife in the garden. Hedgehogs and stuff. Even a fox and a couple of badgers once over. They’d trigger a PIR, wouldn’t they?”

  “Ask me about steak and kidney pies and puddings, and I can answer you. Hedgehogs, foxes and badgers are beyond my brief.”

  They reached the rear gate of Sheila’s bungalow,
and Joe tried the latch only to find it locked.

  “Bolted on the inside,” Brenda whispered.

  She bent slightly at the knee and cupped her hands.

  “Shouldn’t I be lifting you up?” Joe asked.

  “You’re lighter than me.”

  “Remember you’re the one who said that.”

  He placed one foot in her hands and pushed himself upwards. Brenda lifted at the same time, and almost immediately released his foot, unable to hold his weight. Joe was able to grab the top of the tall gate and haul himself up.

  Clinging on grimly, he whispered, “There’s a faint light coming from the bathroom.”

  “It’s from the hall,” Brenda responded. “Martin’s insisted on leaving it on while Sheila’s ill. Just in case she has to go to the bathroom during the night. He doesn’t want her wandering around in total darkness.”

  Joe reached over the gate and scrabbled for the bolt, but when he found it, it would not move. He realised that it was his weight pressing the bolt tight against its staple. He applied one foot to the gatepost, pushed back and as the gate wobbled, he slid back the bolt. At the same time, Brenda tried the latch, with unfortunate effects. Now unbolted, the gate swung open, carrying Joe with it. Unable to stop it all he could do was hang on, and he realised with total horror, that the freewheeling gate would crack into a tall, rough concrete post, from which one end of Sheila’s washing line was suspended.

  Aside from probably knocking him off the gate, the collision would be nothing, but he was concerned with the amount of noise it might make, and with no idea how light Sheila and Martin might sleep, he could not allow it.

  Clinging on for dear life, he put out his arm, hand crooked at the wrist, palm facing outwards to prevent the collision. He was surprised how much it stung, but it nevertheless stopped the gate’s inexorable journey. It wobbled uneasily on its hinges, and Joe, breathing a silent sigh of relief, dropped quietly to the ground.

  He glared Brenda. “Thank you for nothing. I almost broke my bloody wrist on that post.”

  Her voice was a sniping whisper. “I didn’t know the flaming thing was going to swing open, did I?”

  “Let’s just get on with it, shall we? Where is this holly bush?”

  Brenda waved through the open gate, vaguely to one side of the house. “If I remember right, it’s somewhere over in the corner. You can see it through the patio doors in the dining room.”

  Joe looked around the garden and could see very little. There was no moon to guide them, only starlight, augmented by the thin light coming through frosted glass of the bathroom window.

  “Stick to the hedges,” he whispered. “That way, if anyone does come to the door, we’re less likely to be seen.”

  He crept into the garden, skirted round the open gate, and once past the offending washing post, pressed himself back to the hedgerows and began to sidle his way along. Brenda was close to him, her breath coming in short, nervous gasps.

  “Scared or just excited at being this close to me?”

  “Full of it tonight, aren’t you?” she whispered.

  Joe reached the corner of the garden, where the banks of hedgerow turned through ninety degrees. They were hidden from the house by the barren branches of a small apple tree. Joe recalled Sheila complaining that in all the years the tree had been there, she had never seen anything more than the occasional seed apple.

  Peering through the sparse branches, he checked the house for signs of life, saw nothing, and risked shining his light along the hedgerows in search of the holly bush.

  “You’re sure George has this right? She does have a holly bush?”

  “Definitely. One of her favourites. Especially at this time of year. It’s further down there.” Brenda waved a hand through the darkness and towards the house.

  He sucked in his breath. “Okey-dokey.”

  He began to creep along the hedgerows again. Underfoot, the grass was becoming slippery. Moisture in the air freezing as the temperature dropped, and coating the lawn with a thin sheen of ice. That was his diagnosis. But it made him more cautious. Progress was slow as he ensured that he put his foot down firmly after every step.

  And as they edged forward, he could not help thinking about his flat. What was he doing playing pretend burglar on a perishing cold night like this? He could have been at home, tucked up in his warm bed, or sitting by the radiator in the living room, enjoying a warming glass of whisky, or perhaps a hot mug of tea, channel-hopping in the faint hope of finding something worthwhile to watch on television. He could be soaking in a hot bath. Anything would be preferable to sneaking around and shivering in Sheila’s back garden.

  He could imagine her and Martin snuggled up together in bed. Not doing anything, just huddling close together, and it brought to mind his exertions in Brenda’s bedroom the previous night. Even without the inevitable intimacy (inevitable because he and Brenda went back a long way and it was her wont) he would prefer to be cuddled up close to her than watching his step on this freezing grass.

  His thoughts must have distracted his concentration for a moment. His foot slipped from under him, and he went down, twisting the other ankle.

  “Sh—”

  “Shh.” Brenda cut off the curse before it could materialise . “You’ll wake them up.”

  “I’ve broken me bloody ankle.”

  “And if you don’t shut up, I’ll kick the other one and break that. Then you won’t know which leg to limp on, will you?”

  The ice and damp were already beginning to soak through Joe’s jogging pants. He rubbed irritably at his injured ankle, and with Brenda’s help he got to his feet.

  “You can stand on it,” she declared. “It’s not broken.”

  “You’re a doctor as well? Maybe we should have got you to analyse Sheila’s problems.”

  “Just shut it and get a move on. At this rate, we’ll be here all night, and you have to open The Lazy Luncheonette at six.”

  But they did not need to go any further. When Joe flashed his light along the hedgerows, the elusive holly bush was there, right in front of them.

  He understood now why it had been so difficult to see. It was buried in amongst the evergreen hedges, fighting for its rightful place with them. During daylight, the different shape and shade of its foliage – spikier and a lighter green than the hedgerow – would have been easy to spot, but with only a dim flashlight to guide them and a view along the line of bushes rather than face on, it was nigh-on impossible.

  Joe got down on his knee again and shone his light under the bush. Sure enough, there were signs that the soil had been disturbed, which to him signalled that it had been planted only recently. George had got it right.

  He stood and handed Brenda his compact camera. “The flash is set. I’ll prise the branches apart and shine my light on it. All you have to do is take the picture when you can see the soil underneath. Okay?”

  “Gotcha.”

  He crouched down again, and began to pull the branches open. It was harder work than he anticipated. Young the tree might be, but those slim twigs and branches were stout, determined to stay in place. Eventually, he managed to open up a gap wide enough for Brenda to aim the camera. She leaned forward, checked the image on the compact’s tiny screen and pressed the shutter.

  At that same instant, the garden was flooded with bright light from a security lamp above the double patio doors, now open with Martin and Sheila framed in them.

  Joe was so surprised that he let go of the branch he was holding back, and it whipped forward, whacking Brenda in the eye.

  She recoiled with language Joe could not be sure he had ever heard her use. The draymen, yes, but never Brenda.

  On the patio doors, Martin was laughing. Sheila, wrapped in a housecoat was exactly the opposite. Arms folded, she glared daggers at both of them.

  “If you want to take pictures of our garden, Murray, why don’t you just say so? You could have come during the day.”

  Joe’s temper w
as beginning to get the better of him again. While Brenda rubbed at her eye, he turned, took a pace towards the couple, and his ankle reminded him of its tenderness.

  “How long have you been watching us?”

  “Ever since I heard you climbing on the gate.” Martin tapped his ears one at a time. “I have twenty-twenty hearing, and I heard you sliding the bolt back.”

  Joe waved an erratic hand Brenda, now taking a tissue to her eye. “We have proof. This bushes has been recently replanted and—”

  Martin cut him off. “Yes, it has.”

  Joe leapt on the admission. “You see. He’s trying to poison you, Sheila.”

  Her reply was not much more than a hiss. “Oh, for heaven’s sake grow up, will you? Of course he replanted it.”

  Joe was gobsmacked. Brenda stopped and stared with one good eye.

  “You mean you knew?”

  “Naturally. Martin told me all about it.”

  Her husband grinned. “I’m not the world’s best gardener, and I damaged the original bush rather badly when I was mowing the lawn. The least I could do was dig it out, and replace it.”

  Joe was still struggling for words. “But George Robson…”

  “Martin told me what had happened after I spoke with George,” Sheila said. “And now, both of you, get off my property before I call the police.”

  Joe was not surprised by the threat, but Brenda felt it necessary to plead their case. “Sheila. Please. Everything we’ve done is with the absolute best of intentions. We’re sorry.”

  “So am I,” Sheila said. “I never want to see or speak to either of you again.”

  She turned and marched into the house. Brenda took one pace towards the patio doors, but Joe stayed her.

  His face still split in a broad grin, Martin said, “You can leave the way you came. Don’t bother climbing over the gate to bolt it shut, Murray. I’ll do that when you’ve gone.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Joe noticed that when Brenda woke on Saturday morning, the first thing she did was examine her eye where the flailing branch had struck her. It was red and slightly swollen, but there would be no permanent damage. After using an eyebathI both, it was simple enough to cover with a little, carefully applied eye-shadow.