Merry Murders Everyone

by David W Robinson

  “But you didn’t go through with it,” Vickers observed.

  Martin chuckled. “I never got the chance. She must have tumbled what I was doing, and she disappeared. To be honest, I was as puzzled as everyone else. Not by her disappearance, obviously, but I couldn’t find her. Family, friends, relatives, most of them in France of course, hadn’t heard from her. My biggest fear was that she’d gone to the police, but gradually, as time went by and they never took any serious interest in me, I began to relax. But even after seven years, I could not find her, so I had her formally declared dead, and I collected fifty grand.” He laughed aloud this time. “We even had a mock funeral for her. What a farce. An empty box containing a framed photograph of her. As far as I know, it’s still there, buried in Darlington’s main cemetery.”

  In an effort to stick to the tale, Gemma said, “Your neighbours’ tongues never stopped wagging though, did they?”

  Martin frowned. “Vicious and spiteful. That’s what they were. And there was no justification for it. All right, so I made her throw up a few times, but I didn’t kill her… as you know… as we all know now. It was largely thanks to them that I left Darlington and moved to Ripon, which is where I met Deirdre, and I know you won’t believe me, but at the time, I knew nothing of Billy Trelfus. He only became a problem much later. By now, I’d changed my identity again. I was Marlon Newman. Expensive getting the necessary documentation, but I had money in the bank then, and Deirdre had a sweet little house worth almost a quarter of a million, although there was only a hundred and fifty thousand in equity. I made no mistake this time. Deirdre suffered from brachycardia; an unusually slow heartbeat, and she took atropine to correct it. Substituting a harmless gel for her medication brought on the first heart attack. And when she died within a couple of weeks – overdose of her drugs, this time – there was no requirement for a post-mortem. Even the police thought I’d suffered enough, and by the time they exhumed the body a couple of years later, and learned that the second heart attack had been induced, it was too late. Marlon Newman had sold the house, taken the money, taken the insurance, and disappeared, and I was Martin Naylor once again.”

  Vickers waited for Gemma to finish making notes, and then asked, “So what brought you to Sanford?”

  Martin shrugged. “A combination of factors. I’d read of the old boy claiming the woman who murdered his daughter in Ripon was living here. Billy Trelfus actually made the national tabloids with his idiotic claim. But if he was serious, he could only be one talking about one woman: Francine. Naturally, he didn’t know she was innocent, but if she was indeed in Sanford, I had to find her and shut her up… permanently. Beyond that, I was running out of money again. You’d never believe how fast I can spend it. Not on flashy cars or large houses, but on simple things like long holidays in the Bahamas and the Seychelles. Like it or not, I had to go back to work, and Sanford Comprehensive were looking for a suitably qualified English teacher. I applied, I was selected. It was a good move. You Yorkshire folk are all thickheads essentially. You’ve never been educated beyond the very basic, and why should you be? If we boil it all down, you’re all miners and foundry workers. You don’t need education. Wriggling my way through the predictable questions of an appointments panel was child’s play to me. I’d done it so many times before.”

  “But you didn’t kill Billy right away?”

  “I couldn’t. I needed to shut him up, true, but I was hoping he’d lead me to Frankie first. It goes without saying that he never did. He never left the house other than to go to the shop or the pub, and he was barred from a lot of them.”

  “And in the meantime, you homed in on Sheila?”

  “She was a tough proposition,” Martin said. “Not quite as singular and virginal as she made out, but certainly not a pushover like her friend Jump.”

  On hearing this slight against Brenda’s fun-loving nature, Joe almost went ballistic, but Don Oughton urged him to calm down and keep quiet. His anger bubbling away, Joe wondered if Martin and Brenda had… He cut the thought off and continued listening.

  On the other side of the glass, Martin went on, “Like most women in this town, Sheila’s a habitual gossip, with a tendency to brag about what she has. Two fine sons, both conveniently living in America, a house valued at a hundred and eighty thousand or more, the mortgage paid off, and of course, she was insured to the hilt. A quarter of a million.”

  “But her sons were the beneficiaries,” Vickers pointed out.

  Martin looked vaguely irritated. “Yes, that was a bit of an eye-opener. I planned to contest it when everything was over and done with. The kids would have got something, sure, but I’m certain I could have persuaded the courts to let me have the bulk of it.”

  In the observation room, Joe sat fuming. He longed to reach through the glass, wrap his hands around Martin’s throat, and squeeze the life out of him. He’d been ready to murder Sheila, rob those two boys of their rightful inheritance, and his devil may care attitude to the interrogation, perfectly in tune with Joe’s 1950s ideas of Russian coldness, showed no hint of remorse.

  Back in the interview room, the police had moved on.

  “Sheila fell ill during your honeymoon. Was that you?”

  “Of course it was. She has a cast-iron stomach. I simply added one or two drops of household chemicals – washing-up liquid, disinfectant, bleach – to her meals.” He laughed. “All her meals. Not enough for her to notice, but enough to churn her stomach. And it was only natural for her to blame the foreign food. She’s a Yorkshirewoman, isn’t she? If it isn’t cooked in three inches of lard, she doesn’t believe it’s edible.”

  Both officers were becoming irritated with his demeaning attitude towards their fellow Yorkists.

  “And the holly tree?” Vickers demanded.

  “A simple enough job when we got back from Cape Verde and she was laid up with her gastric problems. I took all the berries from the existing tree so I could use them to screw up her gut again, and I spent one night, the whole bloody night, digging it out and putting a new one in its place. It was bloody hard work, but necessary. I knew she’d call on that know-it-all so-and-so, Robson, and he would tell her that the bush was too young to produce berries, and Sheila being Sheila, she would tell him how wrong he was. It was vital, you see. If any of the tests her GP, that damn fool Khalil, ordered should come back with traces of saponin, I had to be sure that they couldn’t track it down to the garden. I eventually told her of the switch when I’d heard that Robson had been to see Murray.” A broad grin spread across his face. “You don’t know how much I enjoyed watching Murray and Jump playing burglars in the back garden. They don’t need anyone to make fools of them. They manage perfectly well on their own.”

  By now it was obvious that Gemma was struggling to control her anger. “And the bleach? A bit harsh wasn’t it?”

  “The amount of crap I’ve been feeding her since September, I knew it would be enough.” He laughed again. “God, if only she knew what a bloody fool I’d been making of her.”

  “Joe Murray had the last laugh, though, didn’t he?” Gemma challenged.

  Martin sucked in his breath. “Murray’s a pain. I can’t argue with his observational abilities, and you have to admire his guts, but basically, he had nothing. Not until he turned up Frankie.”

  Vickers consulted Gemma’s notes. “Which brings us nicely back to Billy Trelfus.”

  Martin shrugged. “It was that rumour from years before. I couldn’t let it go. Even though he never led me to Frankie, it was still too much of a coincidence for my liking, Deirdre had photograph albums, you know, and the moment I clapped eyes on him, I knew he was her father. God knows what he was doing in Sanford.”

  “He’d been here since just after the war,” Gemma said, demonstrating that the police had looked into Trelfus’s history. “He came here for the work.”

  “I wasn’t that interested in his history. I just knew I’d have to get rid of him eventually, especially as I’d begun t
o work on Sheila. Think about it. Even if you didn’t suspect me of killing Sheila, Murray would plaster my name all the local papers, and if Frankie saw it – assuming she really was in Sanford – it would open up the enquiry we’re involved in right now. The very enquiry I’ve made every effort to avoid. So I bided my time, and my chance came that night. I’d been watching his house for a while, and when I saw that builder, drunk, completely plastered, go into the house next door with his girlfriend, I knew the time was right. About half an hour later, the girlfriend’s mother turned up.” He frowned. “I’m surprised I didn’t recognise Frankie, but then, she is a good few years older, and she’s put some weight on. Anyway, when they left, I knocked on Trelfus’s back door. I told him who I was and how I was looking for Frankie too, and he practically dragged me inside. There was a bit of an argument, but he was like that, you know. A lot like Deirdre. Cantankerous. When I told him that Frankie was innocent, and that I’d murdered Deirdre, he picked up a walking stick and came at me.” Martin smiled across the table. “You see what I mean about you Yorkshire thickies? If he’d had any intelligence, he would have guessed that the only reason I told him was because I was going to kill him.”

  Vickers sighed. “Just get on with the tale, Mr Naylor.”

  “My timing was absolutely perfect. He came at me waving his walking stick, I hooked my foot behind his, gave him a push and he fell back, hit his head on the table or something. A quick check on his pulse to make sure he was fading, and that was good enough for me. If rattling his head like that hadn’t killed him, I’d have finished the job anyway. And when I read that you had arrested that idiot builder from next door, I could hardly believe my luck.” Martin yawned.

  The police had all they needed, and Gemma finally put down her pen and glowered at him. “You have absolutely no remorse, do you? Murder, attempted murder, perverting the course of justice, false identities, and you don’t give a toss.”

  “This is a dog eat dog world, Inspector, and all my life, I’ve been the bigger dog. I did what I had to do to make my way in the world.”

  “All the way to a life sentence,” Vickers concluded.

  Martin chuckled gleefully. “Diminished responsibility, I’ll be hospitalised, and they’ll let me out one day. And if he’s still around, Murray had better watch his step. And Sheila Riley, and Brenda Jump…” He smiled at Gemma. “And you.”

  ***

  It was gone six o’clock when Joe got back to the hospital, to find Sheila out of bed, packing her bags, a doctor arguing with her, and Brenda standing helplessly by.

  “What’s the problem?” Joe demanded.

  “Sheila’s discharging herself,” Brenda explained.

  The doctor turned appealing eyes on Joe. “Mrs Naylor is not yet—”

  Sheila cut him off. “I’ve told you before, my name is Riley. I do not want to hear that awful name again. Not in connection with me, I don’t. And now that the cause of my problems has been ascertained, and the miscreant put away – hopefully for the rest of his life – I shall be back to normal in no time. In case you’ve all forgotten, it’s Christmas tomorrow, and I have no intentions of spending it in hospital. I’ll be better off at home.” She gave the doctor a look of Amazonian virulent determination. A look Joe and Brenda knew well. A look which brooked no argument. “Now would you kindly arrange for my prescriptions so I can get out of here?”

  The doctor made one last appeal. “Obviously, I can’t stop you—”

  “That’s right. You can’t.”

  The medic pressed on regardless. “Your prescriptions may not be enough, Mrs Naylor… Riley. You still need care.”

  Joe nudged Brenda who realised at once what the silent hint meant.

  “The doctor’s right, Sheila. As a compromise, why not stay with me? I have room, and I can keep an eye on you. Make sure everything is as it should be.”

  Sheila’s irritation settled on her best friend. “Brenda—”

  This time Joe interrupted her. “You’ve been telling us to use our heads for the last fifty years. Why don’t you listen to your own advice, Sheila? You need someone to look after you. Martin is no longer part of this equation, and when it comes to looking after people, I’m as much use as a chocolate teapot. Brenda is perfect for the job.”

  “But The Lazy Luncheonette?”

  “I can bring people in to fill the gaps. Besides, you may be right as a bobbin by the New Year. Now use your head. Go to Brenda’s.”

  Sheila gave the matter a little consideration, and eventually nodded, much to the doctor’s relief. “I’ll arrange for your prescriptions and the discharge papers.”

  He left, and Sheila sat on the bed, her eyes on Joe. “The police station?”

  He drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Sheila. Martin has admitted everything. He tried to kill Frankie all those years ago, but she escaped, he definitely murdered Deirdre Ullsworth, and he also killed Billy Trelfus. If we hadn’t got here in time, you’d have been his next victim.”

  Her slim features fell, and she suddenly looked years older. She turned an uncharacteristically self-pitying face on her two friends. “And I treated you two so badly. I even tried to get you thrown out of the 3rd Age Club. I… I really don’t know what to say.”

  Brenda forced a smile of encouragement. “Then don’t say anything. Just come with us back to my place, and we’ll enjoy Christmas as best we can, all three of us.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  On Wednesday morning, along with the rest of the UK, bells rang out and the world awoke to another Christmas Day. In Sanford, the familiar family holiday brought more icy rain and slippery pavements, but no trace of the White Christmas promised by sensationalist tabloid headlines.

  Joe traditionally passed the morning on the phone to friends and family, and the afternoons in the company of Lee, Cheryl and young Danny. The events of the previous few days called for a change. His early routine remained the same. He rang friends and family alike, and exchanged season’s greetings with them.

  Les Tanner had a little more to say than ‘Merry Christmas’.

  “Following on from Monday evening and Naylor’s full confession yesterday, I think the whole of the 3rd Age Club owes you and Brenda an apology. I’m due back at the town hall on Monday, but between now and then, I’ll issue a statement to the membership, formally apologising and rescinding the censure motion. And I do hope you will keep up your campaign to replace me in the Chair by the end of next month.”

  Joe had many reasons to be critical of Les, but when it came to the nitty-gritty of committee procedure, he could not be faulted.

  “I’ll leave it to you to tell Stewart Dalmer. It’ll just about ruin his Christmas. Enjoy your few days off, Les, and I’ll see you at the next club meeting.”

  With the phone calls completed, he visited Lee and his wife and son in the morning, left presents for them, and passed an hour in their company, after which he drove to Brenda’s where he would spend the rest of the day with her and a naturally downhearted Sheila.

  When he arrived, Brenda led him into the kitchen.

  “Sheila’s on Skype to her sons. Bringing them up to speed. She keeps breaking down crying.”

  “Understandable, given the circumstances. The shock’s beginning to set in.”

  With her permission, he moved to the open back door, and lit a cigarette, and from there he gave her a rundown of his conversation with Les Tanner. Brenda applauded their chairman’s decision, and Joe concluded by asking after Sheila’s health and state of mind.

  “Bad. We haven’t had a great deal of sleep. Her stomach is still a bit of a mess, and I can only imagine that it’ll take a while for things to settle properly. The prescriptions help, and she had it right when she said she was better out of hospital. If we’d left her there, she would have done nothing but brood on the way things have turned out.” Brenda, so often the life and soul of any party, did not look as if she was in a celebratory mood. “I’ll be glad when all this is behind us.”r />
  “We’re talking a good few months, I should think. Still, according to Gemma, he’ll get what he deserves. The rest of his life in a cell.”

  “But didn’t you say he was going to plead diminished responsibility?”

  “He won’t get away with it. All those chemicals he used? He’s as sane as me and you. Probably saner.”

  Brenda sighed. “And what about poor old Billy Trelfus?”

  “A miserable old git. A snapper, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.” Joe grinned. “I’m talking as a professional gripe.”

  “If Bailey hadn’t been so drunk that night, he might have heard the argument and collared Naylor.”

  “That’s what I mean about him being sane. He had everything planned.” Joe took another drag on his cigarette. “There’s nothing to be gained from what ifs and might-have-beens, Brenda. Let’s just be thankful we saved Sheila.”

  Brenda nodded, and passed him a small glass of sherry. Sitting at the far end of the table where she could speak to him without raising her voice, she asked, “How are we going to pull her through, Joe?”

  He sipped at the wine and pulled a face. “Give me a pint of Guinness anytime.” Putting the glass on the table, he stubbed out his cigarette in the sink, and sat with Brenda, screwing up his face in a passable impression of deep thought. “We’re friends. Isn’t that what friends are for? To help you through the worst times? Anyway, I have had an idea. It came to me last night while I was emailing Alison.”

  Brenda chuckled humourlessly. “You were emailing Alison? You’re still carrying a torch for her, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but my batteries are not too good. Anyway, I owe her after that business in Palmanova.”

  “Your idea?”

  “Simple. I got the idea from Archie Hepple the other day. He’s going to Lanzarote, early in the New Year. How about we float off to Tenerife for a week? Say Easter time? Just us three. It’ll give Sheila the chance to recover properly, and it’ll help brighten her up. All that sunshine, and there’s plenty of good entertainment, sixties and seventies music like what we like. And don’t worry if you’re a bit strapped for cash. The Lazy Luncheonette will pay for it.”