I twisted round and looked up towards Billy’s bedroom. The light was on, but as I watched it was switched off. I guessed Mum had said goodnight and had left her little darling to sleep.
I watched some more, expecting to see a pale face appear at the window or, at least, a twitch of the curtains. But Billy had either been ordered to stay in bed on pain of some terrible punishment or he was an expert in covert surveillance. Having seen the lad at close quarters, I suspected the latter.
After half an hour, I had acclimatised to the stink from the bins but my legs were doubled up and had less circulation than the Church Times at an atheists’ convention. I shifted position to ease the pain and rattled one of the bins. I was fast concluding that I was wasting my time. Surely it would be easier to give Figgis his hundred fags? I decided to give it ten more minutes and head for the nearest pub.
Then headlights swung in from the road. A white Ford van turned a semi-circle through the courtyard and stopped outside the end garage in the block.
The driver’s door opened and a small man dressed in a long red cloak trimmed with white fur climbed out. The hood of his cloak covered his head so that I couldn’t see his face. But I could see that he had a long white beard. So Billy had seen Father Christmas.
The passenger door opened. A whippet-like man dressed in the red jerkin and green tights of an elf hurried round from the back. Santa’s Little Helper.
Father Christmas crossed the courtyard, collected the sack from under the pile of newspapers and walked over to the garage. He pulled a large bunch of keys out of his pocket. He spent a few moments rattling through them until he found the right one, then opened the garage door. He disappeared inside.
A minute later he was outside with the sack on his back. This time, it was loaded with something heavy. The elf opened the back doors of the van and Father Christmas swung the sack inside. He shoved the doors shut and looked around.
I crouched lower behind the dustbins.
“That’s the last of the French gaspers,” he said. “Queenie has lined up some more buyers today.”
“By royal appointment, then,” the elf said.
The pair laughed, Father Christmas with a fine tenor ho, ho, ho, the elf with a high-pitched snigger.
“Yeah, French gaspers but English delivery,” said Father Christmas.
“English delivery!” The elf was sniggering so much he was straining his tights and in danger of doing himself a serious injury.
“We’ll drop these off, then head back to the flat for a bevvy,” Father Christmas said.
They climbed into the van. The engine fired, the headlights sparked into life. And before I could crawl out from behind the dustbins, the van had vanished down the driveway and turned into the road.
I winced from the pain in my legs as the blood rushed back and stumbled against the dustbins. I thought about running after the van, but I’d never catch it. But I didn’t need to. I still had plenty of questions, but the answers were closer to hand.
***
I hurried through the alleyway which led round to the front of Billy’s Mum’s house.
I was thinking hard.
It was Father Christmas who’d jolted my brain into action as violently as if he’d just plummeted down the chimney.
“French gaspers but English delivery,” he’d said to his Little Helper. And the pair had laughed themselves silly.
He didn’t mean English as in coming from England. He meant English as in belonging to Mr English.
I cursed myself for not remembering earlier. I'd heard a whisper that the police believed Frank English had been the robber behind the Newhaven bonded warehouse heist. He was a pint-sized Mr Big in Brighton’s criminal underworld - with a vicious streak. Small and nasty, like a dung beetle. Trouble was, since the raid English had gone to ground. The police couldn't find him at any of his usual haunts.
But, then, they wouldn't have been looking for Father Christmas. And English had the kind of brass-neck to try to fence his stolen fags before he left the area. Perhaps he needed the cash to disappear abroad. After all, he was looking at a capital charge. But English had a reputation for wriggling away from justice. I recalled covering a case at Lewes Assizes a couple of years earlier when English had been acquitted of armed robbery on alibi evidence.
And now I knew just why Billy’s Mum was so insistent that the lad hadn’t seen anything as he peered between his curtains searching for a glimpse of Father Christmas.
I reached the front of the house, stepped up to the door and knocked twice.
There was a moment’s silence, then a rattling sound as a chain was put on. The door opened a couple of inches and an anxious face appeared.
“Mrs Victoria Meacher?” I asked.
She glanced nervously behind me. Saw the street was empty.
“Yes.”
“Mrs Meacher, formerly Miss Victoria English.”
“Who wants to know?”
I pulled out a card and handed it through the crack.
“Colin Crampton, Evening Chronicle. We met briefly in the Royal Pavilion gardens this morning.”
“We don’t want your type here.” She started to push the door closed. I shoved my foot into the gap. Winced as she tried to ram the door shut.
“You can talk to me or the police,” I said. “I can arrange them to be here in five minutes. What’s it to be?”
“Don’t bring the police here. Not with Billy in the house. Not just before Christmas.”
“We can talk about that. Inside.”
She thought about it for a moment, then rattled the chain out of its groove and opened the door.
She led me down a dimly lit narrow passage into the kitchen. There was a gas stove with some milk heating in a saucepan. She turned out the gas. Left the saucepan on the stove.
“For cocoa,” she said. “Helps me sleep. I’ll have it later.”
There was a small deal table at the side of the kitchen with a couple of upright chairs. She motioned me towards one and we sat.
“Is Mr Meacher at home?”
She snorted. “Huh! The bastard walked out on me with a barmaid half his age seven years ago. Divorced him five years ago this Christmas.”
“But you’ve kept your married name.”
“So what?”
“You’re Frank English’s sister,” I said. It was Victoria who’d given that perjured alibi evidence.
“Not a crime to be Frank’s sister,” she said.
“About the only thing in his life that hasn’t been. I can understand why you wanted to hang on to your married name.”
She snorted again.
“But you’ve been a very helpful little sister,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been storing the haul from the Newhaven bonded warehouse heist in your garage.”
“You think! There’s nothing there.”
“Not now, because over the last few nights Frank and his little helper have been moving it out.”
“Frank’s not been here. I don’t know where he is.”
“Perhaps not here. But I’ve just watched him take a sack of French cigarettes from the garage.”
“Don’t know anything about that.”
“He was dressed as Father Christmas. Now I know why you were so anxious to deny that Billy had seen Santa. No doubt it was a clever idea on Frank’s part to disguise himself. No-one is going to stop Father Christmas delivering a sack of toys for the kiddies. Except they weren’t toys, were they?”
Victoria’s thin lips were formed in a petulant pout. “Even if they weren’t, I don’t know where Frank’s gone. I had nothing to do with it.”
“I think you did. Because Frank said something else while I was hiding in the courtyard watching him and his little helper. He said, ‘Queenie’s lined up some more buyers today’. That’s you – Queenie, a pet name for Victoria.”
“I’m not the only Victoria in Brighton.”
“True, but you’re t
he only one who visited several newsagents and a tobacconist today while you were doing your Christmas shopping. I know, because I was watching you.”
“Not a crime to go into a newsagent’s. Besides, where I go is none of your business.”
“I think it was Frank’s business. I think you were touring the shops touting for orders for under-the-counter ciggies.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to. But I have made a mental note of the shops you called at. Wouldn’t be too difficult for me to call at those shops and ask them whether they’ve got any special offers. I’m sure at least one will be indiscreet. The fags in the garage, the sales calls. Shouldn’t be too difficult even for Brighton’s finest to put together a case for handling stolen goods.”
Victoria scowled at me. Looked at her milk. Thought about relighting the gas. Decided to leave it. Made up her mind about something.
“Frank made me do it – just as he forced me to give that evidence. I didn’t want those damned cigarettes here. I told him.”
“But you didn’t have to help him sell the stuff.”
Victoria laughed mirthlessly. “You don’t argue with Frank. I found that out years ago.”
“I need to know where Frank’s hiding,” I said.
“And you think I’m going to tell you? In your dreams.”
“You fancy a spell inside yourself. They tell me prison can be a very lonely place at Christmas. Think you can handle it?”
“If I have to.”
But the look on her face told me she wasn’t sure.
A little voice said: “You’re not going to prison. You’re not, are you, Mum?”
We swung round. Billy was standing in the doorway. He was dressed in blue stripped pyjamas. He had a threadbare dressing gown draped over his shoulders. He was clutching a stuffed panda with one ear.
And a single tear was rolling down his cheek.
***
Victoria’s face crumpled.
Her lips quivered. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Behind that defiant bluster was a worried mother. She started to mumble something, but I held up my hand to stop her.
I said: “Billy, your Mum’s not going to prison. I’m going to help her – because she’s going to help me.”
I stared hard at her. “That is right, isn’t it?” I said.
She held my look for what seemed like a minute. Then she gave one short, reluctant nod.
She crossed to Billy. Put her arms around him. Gave him a tight hug. “Mummy’s not going to prison, darling,” she said. “Now go back to bed. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. I’m taking you to see Father Christmas at Hannington’s.”
“The same Father Christmas I’ve seen out the back window?” Billy asked.
“No,” she said. “The real one.”
***
“It’s been a good many years since we’ve had such a strong front page splash on Christmas Eve,” said Frank Figgis.
We were in his office. It was late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Figgis was lounging back in his chair with his feet on the desk. I could see the Christmas lights in North Road from his window. I could hear the faint strains of the Sally Army band outside the Chapel Royal. They were playing God Rest ye Merry, Gentlemen.
I decided after delivering Figgis his Christmas story, I deserved a little merriment. I picked up the night final edition and looked again at the headline:
FATHER CHRISTMAS ARRESTED IN DAWN RAID
“Clever ploy by Frank English disguising himself as Santa,” said Figgis.
“It was the only way he could move around Brighton without being recognised,” I said. “He had to retrieve what he’d stolen and fence them before the police caught up with him.”
“What I can’t understand is how you discovered where he was hiding out.”
“I had a little help there,” I said.
“And it was a bit of luck that he was still wearing the Santa get-up when the police burst in.”
“Word has it he was too drunk to take it off,” I said.
Figgis heaved his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “Suppose you’ve delivered on the Christmas story,” he said.
“Suppose I have.”
I stood up and moved towards the door.
“Still not everyone in the newsroom managed it,” he said. He reached out and patted the large pile of cigarette packets on his desk. “No need to guess what I’m getting for Christmas.”
I turned at the door. “Lung cancer?” I said. “Merry Christmas.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Bartram brings years of experience as a journalist to his Crampton of the Chronicle crime mystery series. Peter began his career as a reporter on the Worthing Herald newspaper in the UK before working as a journalist and editor in London and finally becoming freelance. He has done most things in journalism from door-stepping for quotes to writing serious editorials. He’s pursued stories in locations as diverse as 700 feet down a coal mine and a courtier’s chambers at Buckingham Palace. Peter's murder mysteries feature crime reporter Colin Crampton in “Swinging Sixties” Brighton - and combine clue-solving with comedy.
***
This book is a work of fiction and all the characters, events and places, except those clearly matters of public record, are imaginary and any resemblance to persons living or dead is unintentional and coincidental.
© Peter Bartram 2016
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotation in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher.
Published by The Bartram Partnership.
Contact information at www.peterbartram.co.uk
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