by Syd Moore
‘Billy was a deep thinker,’ Margot went on. ‘He had points to make. But he was sensitive, my poor darling. Delicate. Your callous words were the sword to his heart.’ She took another shuffle closer, so that the point of the sword moved over onto the edge of Laura’s collarbone.
I watched in increasing discomfort as the blade broke Laura’s pale skin and a little bobble of scarlet appeared. The poor woman bleated.
A crackle of startled cries broke out from the residents behind me as a scarlet ribbon unfurled and curled down Laura’s front.
‘Your time’s up,’ Margot sneered. ‘Kneel down,’ she said, and for a moment I thought I heard not one voice but two. The other a deeper timbre, resonant and full of electrical reverb.
To my dismay, Laura complied. Her knees cracked as she bent onto them and held her head up.
Oh my god, that pose was ominous.
The scene was starting to look really worrying. Where were the friggin’ police when you needed them?
‘Now,’ intoned Margot, ‘is the time to repent of your sins.’ The acoustics in the room had somehow changed. Her words were echoing and ricocheting around the room. Like they would in a church or a cave. ‘Time to pay for taking my boy. A life for a life.’
Laura began to full-on sob.
Margot smiled and I heard a dark demonic howl begin to issue from her. It sounded too full and bassy to come from such a small frame but there was no one else laughing here. ‘Poor dear William lost his head for a moment,’ she crowed. ‘So it’s only right that you now lose yours.’ And with that, she summoned her energy, arched her back and raised the sword to Laura’s neck, measuring up for the strike.
I breathed out loudly. ‘Come on Margot, put it down. This is ridiculous.’
‘Oh, you don’t think I’ll do it, do you?’ She sniggered and, oh my god, began to swing back the sword, gathering momentum to chop through Laura’s slender neck. ‘So funny,’ she grinned, her voice high and staticky, ‘how nobody thinks old ladies are any threat at all.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t say that,’ said a voice to my side, and instantly the air was filled with a strange buzzing noise.
A wiry metal contraption leapt across the room and fastened onto Margot’s back. The woman bolted upright immediately, dropping the sword from her hands.
Laura shrieked as it hit the floor and broke into two pieces.
Margot’s body shuddered and jerked as if she were doing some crazy victory dance.
It was such a strange sight that it took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on. But by then Tabby had tasered Margot to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next few moments were filled with panicked activity. The noise, the instant neutralisation of the sword-wielding loon, and the wail that went up from Laura, all contrived to unloose the gathered spectators from their paralysis, and bodies flew about all over the day room with remarkable speed.
Nicholas went for Tabby who seemed to be enjoying her nephew’s early Christmas present a little too much. He prised the stun gun off her and laid it on the carpet several feet away and out of Tabby’s grasp.
I jumped over to Margot’s prone and dazed form. Barbs from the gun were still stuck onto her black pyjamas so I turned her over and pulled them out. Jocelyn helped me roll her on her side and put her into recovery position. She seemed to be breathing fine but her eyes were still an inky black, as if her pupils had dilated to fill the sockets.
Starla had plucked a phone from her kimono pocket and was shouting into it requesting an ambulance, police and, for some unknown reason, a fire engine.
Devlin had raced across to Laura and was cradling her in his arms. ‘It’s over now Laurs,’ he was saying. ‘All over now.’
‘Chris,’ I called. ‘How’s her neck? Do we need to staunch the wound?’
Gently he tilted her head and checked it. ‘Not deep, but I’ll use my robe chord. I think she’s in shock. Better hurry up with that ambulance.’
I instructed Sophia to get water and the first aid kit on the double.
‘How did she do it?’ said a voice from the sofa. Tabby had gone and sat back down on it, assuming her taser duties were now over.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘But we’ll find out.’
At which point in the festivities, Sam finally appeared in the doorway with a policeman sporting a familiar tidy beard, and a young man in cuffs. The latter was wearing a suspicious black tracksuit with a hoody. Rather weirdly, perched on top of that were a pair of sequinned reindeer antlers. They looked completely anomalous, the kind of frivolity you saw stupid people wear to stupid council Christmas parties.
The expressions on their faces suggested that in terms of abnormal scenarios none of them had been prepared for this slasher pyjama party gone bad.
The three paused by the entrance, whereupon Tidy Beard looked from Laura and Margot to me, then shook his head. ‘Strewth,’ he said and turned to Sam. ‘Can’t you two just stick to dogging?’
Luckily, he didn’t wait for an answer and instead piped up to ask if an ambulance had been called, which Starla confirmed very promptly.
Tidy Beard’s shoulders relaxed very slightly. I expect he was relieved he wasn’t going to have to sift through this mess on his own.
Sam started to ask what (the hell) had happened, when the young man in cuffs began shouting, ‘It was her, there on the floor.’
In the absence of a free pointing-finger, he executed a soft headbutt in Margot’s direction. ‘She paid me. She was the one. Said it was a prank. All of it. I just thought that would be good for the channel. Didn’t know nothing about anyone getting done in.’
I looked over at him more closely. The antler pattern was weirdly familiar. Oh blimey I thought, he couldn’t possibly be my goat-foot god. Shame began to heat my cheeks.
Sam, who was holding the boy by the scruff of his hoody, shook him. ‘I found him tapping on the window of Laura’s room,’ he said. ‘This, would you believe it, is Ben Christmas.’
‘Eh?’ I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Actually I don’t. Ben’s got red hair. I met him.’
The boy in the hoody laughed. ‘Oh you’re the one Stevie spoke to, are you? Up at the flat?’
I threw my mind back to the interview I’d conducted in the living quarters above The Griffin. ‘He said he was Ben …’ Actually, now I thought about it, he hadn’t said his name at all. I had just assumed that he was Ben because he was a teenager and was in Carol’s flat, chilling out and looking like he was at home.
‘That was Stevie,’ Real Ben said. ‘I was out buying batteries. I was well pissed with him when I found out though. Thought he might blow the whole thing.’
‘Blow the whole thing?’ I repeated wondering about a bomb.
‘Yeah, he said he showed you his zoo staff ID.’
That’s right. He had needed to prove his alibi. If I remembered rightly the card bore a picture of a tree and, oh dear, a paw-print. There was a possibility of a giraffe in there too. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.
Nicholas, who had lost his regular sneer and was watching everything with languid regard, spoke up. ‘Don’t tell me – he had something to do with the missing snake.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ben. ‘Stevie borrowed it overnight and tipped off the radio. But,’ he glanced at the policeman who was too busy eying up the taser on the floor and scratching his head, ‘it never left the bleedin’ zoo. He put it in an empty tank in the Reptile House. Mrs Lovelock said she didn’t need it, after all.’
The police officer gave up trying to work out what had happened and went to check on Laura, who was the most noticeably damaged person in the room.
‘So we never had a snake here at all,’ Nicholas concluded.
Jocelyn looked up at him and said, ‘I didn’t think we did really.’
Then suddenly, on the floor, Margot started to convulse.
There was the sound of feet and more bustle in the hallway then Sam shouted,
‘Quick! In here.’
In the blink of an eye the room was filled with green-clad paramedics, a couple more policemen and two very fit but slightly bewildered firemen.
Which was all good really because I was feeling dog tired.
Now was the time to hand over responsibility.
Just for a moment I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Turns out it’s not advisable to stay up all night, increase your heart rate and engage in stressful situations when you’re recovering from a cocktail of atropine and aconite. Who’d have thought?
So I spent my second night in a row in Litchenfield Hospital. The nurse there luckily recognised me, which prevented my name being taken down as Margot Lovelock. Unfortunately, the moment I shut my eyes just for a fleeting second, I had passed out. Which meant, faced with two unconscious women at the hospital, when medical staff needed to sort out who was who, they allotted the sword-waving to the sturdier candidate.
Once the nurse had corrected that misidentification I was put on a ward and Margot was secured in a private room patrolled by her own policeman/minder till she came round again.
‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Scrub, while we waited in her Citroën in the car park of The Griffin. ‘My wife is fond of the phrase, “What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.” I think it applies perfectly well to this particular situation.’ Though, it might have applied just as purposefully to most of the cases we’d chalked up so far. ‘My wife,’ she said as an aside, ‘is Edgar’s sister.’
I recognised the name then placed it underneath a mental snap-shot of the Professor Plum vicar from St Saviour’s. ‘Ah right,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said Sam. ‘Your wife’s quite right. I’d have never worked it out myself. It’s a good job that Rosie here,’ he leant over and tapped my knee, ‘has an expert eye regarding Buttery Nipples.’
Sergeant Scrub nodded. ‘I’d never heard of them before,’ she said. ‘But me and Bobby had a go down the social club last night and, you’re right, Rosie – they won’t fell you. Bit of a buzz. Very tasty mind. I’ll be getting the ingredients in for Christmas.’
I nodded with approval. ‘Exactly. I knew that whisky shouldn’t have knocked me out like it did. That’s why I thought Monty should have a look. Dozing off after one shot is uncharacteristic behaviour.’
Sam grinned. ‘Not just a pretty face.’
‘Never,’ I said, and felt sparks kindle in my abdomen. To avoid displaying my pleasure overtly I took my eyes off him and leaned towards Scrub. My hair fell forward over my cheeks. ‘So, Sue, are we correct in assuming Margot hired Stevie and Ben to dress up as the knights and make those noises in the garden?’
Scrub undid her safety belt and hefted herself round in the driving seat to face me. ‘That’s what they’ve said. Ben did most of it as Stevie had to work. But they’re both jointly responsible. According to them, they thought it would present “wicked content” for their YouTube channel and attract more “subscribers”. They filmed it, of course, so we’ve got plenty of evidence.’
‘Interesting,’ said Sam and also edged forwards. He was sitting directly behind Scrub and aimed his words at her ear. ‘So the whole caper was Margot’s idea? Hatched when they met at St Saviour’s?’
Scrub tried to turn even further round to Sam but got her knee stuck between the gear stick and the handbrake so gave up and looked at me. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Well crafty. She changed her instructions halfway through the week when she learned about the devil legends and this Cernunnos bloke you’ve been talking about. Got Ben and Stevie to ditch the knight costumes in favour of black, and reindeer horns.’
Sam darted a glance at me. I knew what he was thinking – this explained my ‘gods theory’.
I still hadn’t come to a definite conclusion about that. I might well have been hallucinating but I did feel there was something in it. Call it intuition or a hunch.
‘It’s bizarre, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘That we actually influenced the case? Without even realising what we were doing.’
‘Indeed,’ said Sam. ‘We must take note and in future be sure to exercise more caution.’
‘Well.’ Scrub shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t dwell on it too much. Margot Lovelock was out for revenge. She was going to use whatever she could get her hands on, and she wasn’t going to let anything get in her way. Nor anyone. Not Graham Peacock, Cullen Sutcliffe. Not Imogen Green nor Robin Savage.’
Sam sighed and shook his head.
Yep, it was quite a wreck Margot had left in her wake.
Although Robin was still in a coma, Imogen had regained consciousness and confirmed that it was indeed Mrs Lovelock who had led them into the woods in search of flowers to make a bouquet for the house, ostensibly ‘to cheer everyone up’.
Making excuses for an inability to bend, due to her much-promoted (non) gammy leg she had instructed Imogen and Robin to help her with the beautiful purple-berried stems, and what Imogen described as the ‘pretty mauve poppies’ that she also noted seemed to be growing in an odd position – in the middle of the path. Sam and I agreed the ‘pretty poppies’ sounded like wolfsbane, one of the UK’s most deadly plants. How it had come to be in full bloom and in the middle of a pathway was something I expected Scrub would unravel at some point.
But Imogen had more news to tell: poor Robin had fallen headfirst into the clump of flowers. Had Margot pushed him? Imogen wasn’t sure. She hadn’t seen. Robin had been by her side and Margot behind her, so maybe. And the motive for that, Imogen was asked? She herself had spoken to Robin about the men at the bar of The Griffin and their comment about someone being back again. Cullen overheard the conversation and informed them he also had some interesting news on that matter. He never actually told them. But the police had interviewed Jack Reynolds, who was one of the regulars. A farmer with a barn conversion on Airbnb, which he had rented to Margot in the summer. This was what Cullen was going to share, but somehow Margot must have got a whiff of it and put a stop to that.
‘And Cullen, for clarity …’ said Sam, knocking me out of my thought cycle, ‘… he was definitely poisoned?’
‘Oh yes.’ Scrub nodded from the front seat. ‘The odds are Margot had intended to use it on Laura, if she hadn’t popped her clogs after the knight-scaring episode. However, she perceived Mr Sutcliffe to represent more of an immediate problem. The lad had a high level of midazolam in his blood. It’s a common medication used for anaesthesia, sedation. Despite his bulk, the dose could have killed him on its own. But Mrs Lovelock apparently was taking no chances: she added in some potassium cyanide for good measure.’
‘Good gracious!’ said Sam. ‘Where did she get that from?’
But I got there first. ‘Her husband is or was a pharmacist.’ I looked at Scrub. Monty had mentioned it in his report.
The Sergeant shook her head. ‘He is, but I’m not sure she could have got it from him either. There are strict rules about these sorts of things today. It’s possible that she might have acquired it from the Dark Web. Or someone with access to it.’
‘Stevie and Ben Christmas?’ I asked but Scrub made a ‘pfft’ noise with her mouth.
‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘The words “piss-up” and “brewery” have been used to describe their entrepreneurial ventures.’ We heard the crackle of gravel and Scrub looked towards the corner of the building. ‘Or more appropriately, a piss-up in a pub.’
I followed her gaze and saw a sleek black Mercedes pull into the car park. A figure in a slate-grey suit was at the wheel.
‘That your man?’ asked Scrub.
The driver hopped out, opened the rear door and Monty emerged from the car with more grace than I could ever muster. He stretched and wriggled his shoulders then grinned at Scrub’s rather bashed-up Citroën.
‘It surely is,’ said Sam and clapped his hands. ‘Excellent! I can’t wait.’
The beer cellar of The Griffin was exactly what you’d imagine: low-ceilinged and grubby, full of pipe
s and fridges making rattling sounds and lots and lots of piled up barrels and crates in different shapes and sizes. Sam and Monty had to stoop as we all trooped into the main part where the beer barrels were kept. I breathed in the smell of stale beer and damp.
There were eight of us down here: myself, Sam, Sergeant Scrub, Monty and two of his young cronies in fantastically unobtrusive white shirts and ties with uniform ‘nondescript’ blond haircuts. They were the same height too, so the only noticeable differentiation were the suits which were contrasting shades of grey. Detective Bobby Brown arrived minutes after Monty and emerged from his car hand-cuffed to the young man who had appeared in the hoody on that Saturday night at Ratchette Hall.
He had been positively identified as Carole’s son, Ben Christmas.
‘So,’ said Scrub, asserting herself over the other men present. ‘First things first. Where’s the body from the tomb and the effigy?’
Ben yanked his cuffed hand (and Bobby Brown’s). ‘Over here,’ he said trailing his custodian. ‘The wooden knight thing’s propped against the wall. It’s got the Star Wars duvet cover over it.’ He turned to Bobby and said, ‘For disguise.’
‘And has it got a missing finger?’ Bobby asked. He spoke very carefully, pronouncing each consonant.
‘Sort of,’ said Ben. ‘We chipped it off like she said. But we didn’t know which hand she wanted so we did both. Didn’t give them to her. She must have come up with her own stone finger. We didn’t know that it was wood till we moved it. It looked stone to me. But she must have thought it was and got a stone finger from somewhere else. She’s the one what put it in Mr Peacock’s hand after he’d carked it. Then the next day, she phoned us up and we told her how we done both hands. And she goes mad, says it’s not the story and shouts we got to “hide the darn thing”. But we didn’t know if she meant the statue what’s on top or the body what’s underneath in the tomb. So we took the lot.’
