The Mother's Day Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  "That kind always do. Her husband Charles Fox is in Pentonville. He was sent down for fourteen years for drug smuggling and bank fraud. Apparently, he's turned himself into the prison cigarette baron. None of the screws have yet worked out how he gets the fags in. My guess is that he has someone on the outside who chucks them over the wall during exercise periods."

  "Didn't Fox have some little helpers, too?"

  "Yes. Owen Griffiths is in Wandsworth nick. I gather he signed up for the prison educational service. He gives lectures on chemistry. The rumour is he runs a private class for safe breakers on cooking up explosives. Tom Hobson got away, sailed to Spain and sold his fishing boat. Now I hear he's drinking away the money. He'll run out and come back to Blighty eventually. Then he'll be arrested and serve his time."

  "What about the guy who tried to kill you with the forklift truck?"

  "Steve. They couldn't prove that. So he just got six months for criminal damage - driving the truck into the harbour. And his mates Jock and Toby vanished. Nobody has seen them since. They'll have changed their names and be scraping a crust from a life of crime around some other harbour."

  “Did that bent copper get away?” Shirley asked.

  “No. Holdsworth was found guilty of corruption and jailed. But none of the other lags like a bent copper, so he spends his days in solitary confinement playing chess against himself.”

  "So they all lived unhappily ever after," Shirley said. "Sounds like you've got your story sewn up already. So it won't take you long to write."

  "Have you got anything to do today?" I asked.

  "Nah! I rang my mum at midnight last night. It was already Mother’s Day in Australia - eight in the morning. She was just cooking her breakfast. Two steaks and the heart of her latest victim."

  "So she's still in the wrestling ring."

  "Yeah. Had a match two nights ago. Beat Esme Cracker, the Melbourne Mauler, in five rounds."

  I reached for my other sock.

  "Seems we both don't have much to do this morning," Shirley said.

  "True," I said. "My story is for tomorrow's paper so I could write it this afternoon."

  "So you gonna put that sock on? Or take the other one off?"

  I looked at Shirley. She winked at me.

  Twice.

  I peeled off my sock and threw it into the corner of the bedroom.

  Bonus chapter

  Now read chapter 1 of The Tango School Mystery, Book 1 in the Deadline Murder Series

  The Tango School Mystery

  A Crampton of the Chronicle adventure

  Deadline Murder Series Book 1

  Chapter 1

  My Australian girlfriend Shirley looked at her porterhouse steak and said: "That's a real beaut, Colin."

  The lump of meat which overlapped Shirl's huge dinner plate was the same shape as South America - broad at the top, narrowing down to a tip. It was cooked so rare I half expected to see the thing twitch. It had a kind of fierce red which made it look as though it had been out in the sun too long rather than under a grill.

  A rivulet of blood oozed from one side - roughly where Sao Paulo would be - and merged with a slice of grilled tomato. As though the steak had been served with a blood clot on the side.

  I said: "Don't you Aussies believe in cooking your food?"

  Shirley seized her knife and fork and made an incision in the steak close to Venezuela. "If I were back in Adelaide, I'd have slapped this on the barbie so quick it would barely have had time to brown its bum." She forked a lump of the meat into her mouth and chewed contentedly.

  We were sitting at a corner table in Antoine's Sussex Grill in Brighton's Ship Street. The place had oak-panelled walls, a green carpet, and dusty chandeliers. It was like being in a baronial hall on the baron's night off. In this case, on everyone's night off. Shirl and I were the only diners.

  But that suited me just fine after the day I'd had in the Evening Chronicle's newsroom. Twenty minutes before the afternoon edition deadline, the Press Association ticker spewed out the news that the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, had announced that the long-awaited 1964 general election would take place on the fifteenth of October. That meant a tasty little front-page splash I'd conjured up about a jewel heist in Lewes got bounced to an inside page.

  And with politics dominating the news, my byline - Colin Crampton, crime correspondent - wasn't going to appear on the front page much before polling day in just over three weeks' time.

  Not that I'd have much time for proper journalism. Not with the special assignment my news editor Frank Figgis had handed me. But I wasn't going to trouble Shirley about that.

  Not just yet.

  Shirl wiped a dribble of blood from her chin with a napkin. She cut a slice off Ecuador and stuffed it into her mouth. She pointed at my own plate and said: "What's that? It looks like bits of a dead rat."

  I said: "It's jugged hare."

  "I'd rather eat a juicy steak than a mouthful of hair."

  "It's not hair with an A I R. It's hare with an A R E," I said. "You must have heard the story about the creature that got beaten by the tortoise."

  "Guess the bludger should have spent less time snoozing by the road. Then he wouldn't have ended up in the pot with all those vegetables."

  I reached for the bottle of Burgundy we'd ordered and refilled our glasses.

  Shirley hoisted her glass and had a generous slurp.

  "Still, this is ace tucker. I'll hand you that," she said.

  I cut some of the hare's tender stewed flesh from a leg bone.

  "It should be," I said. "This place is owned by a bloke who used to be head waiter at the Ritz hotel in London before the war. Made a name for himself by cooking crêpe Suzette at the table for Winston Churchill."

  Shirl made a long cut in her steak somewhere near the Atacama Desert.

  "I bet the old boy's never eaten here, though," she said.

  "Not likely to now. He's retiring from Parliament at this election. But he may have eaten near here when he was a kid."

  "How come?" Shirley asked.

  "He was at a school in Hove for two years. Sent there by his mum and dad after they'd discovered he'd been savagely beaten by a sadistic headmaster at his previous school. Never happened to him here, though. The Hove school was run by two maiden ladies - they were sisters. I think someone told me their name was Thompson. According to the stories, Winston loved it here. I suppose anywhere would seem good after your bum had been whipped until the blood ran down your thighs. Anyway, he later went on to Harrow, the posh public school, so I guess the Misses Thompson must have done him some good."

  "Guess so," Shirley said.

  "Anyway, speaking of blood, I don't remember seeing that blob before." I pointed at Shirley's steak. A little red lake had formed in the Amazonian rain forest.

  Shirl brushed it to one side with her knife. "Probably released from inside as the meat cools," she said.

  Plop.

  A fresh drop of blood landed in the Argentinian Pampas.

  "But that wasn't," I said.

  "Jeez," Shirley said. "I've never seen that before."

  We looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Together, our necks swivelled back. Our gaze travelled up to the ceiling.

  A round crimson patch, like a carnation in bloom, flowered on the plaster. Our eyes widened and our jaws dropped. We watched blood ooze through the ceiling. It formed into the shape of a teardrop. For a moment it swayed gently from side to side. Then it detached itself, slowly as though reluctant to leave its resting place.

  It fell like a solitary raindrop. A scarlet raindrop.

  Plop.

  It landed on the tablecloth and splattered like a gunshot wound.

  "Antoine's not going to be thrilled by the laundry bill," Shirl said.

  I switched my attention back to her. "It may be a laundry bill down here, but what's the damage upstairs?"

  Shirley dropped her knife and her hand flew to her mouth. "I must be as dumb
as a box of rocks. What's up there?"

  "It's an apartment over the restaurant. Nothing to do with Antoine. I don't know who lives there."

  "And I guess he hasn't just dropped a raw steak on the floor. Not for that amount of blood."

  "No. I'm going up there to find out what's happened."

  I pushed my chair back from the table and stood up.

  I looked at Shirley. Her eyes had glazed with concern.

  "What a way to end the day," she said. "It couldn't be worse."

  "Not worse?" I said. "I'm not so sure. Not after what happened earlier today at the Chronicle."

  To continue reading The Tango School Mystery go to: http://getbook.at/tango-school-mystery

  Read more Crampton of the Chronicle stories at https://www.colincrampton.com

  Author's note and acknowledgements

  There is an old saying that life imitates art. In the case of The Mother’s Day Mystery there is some truth to that - and an extraordinary coincidence. Shortly after I'd finished writing the first draft of the book I read a news story in a British newspaper about a "very intelligent" schoolboy who'd been jailed for four-and-a-half years. He'd committed a string of crimes including trying to blackmail his headmaster. What made the coincidence even more remarkable was that the schoolboy in question was described by the trial judge as "possibly the most able chemist the college has produced in recent years".

  I mention this to emphasise that the crimes of Spencer Hooke are not based on those of the jailed schoolboy. But the coincidence is a sharp reminder that sometimes - perhaps more often than we realise - the inventions of fiction find echoes in the world of reality.

  Steyning Grammar School is very firmly in the world of reality. At least, it certainly was when I was studying for my A levels there in 1965, the year in which The Mother's Day Mystery is set. In those days, it was an old-fashioned grammar school, which did have a chemistry lab but without a drugs testing chemistry master. These days it continues successfully as a comprehensive school, which it became in 1968. I should make it clear that Steyning Grammar School was not the alma mater of the real-life blackmailing schoolboy.

  As always, I must thank all those people without whom a Crampton of the Chronicle book could not appear. First among these is Barney Skinner who formatted the book for publication and designed not one but two wonderful covers. Followers of the Crampton books voted to choose the cover they liked best. Barney is also the webmaster behind the popular Colin Crampton website. If you've never visited the site, you'll find a wealth of background material about the books and some short stories to read.

  I must also send a big thankyou to the members of the Crampton of the Chronicle Advanced Team who read the draft manuscript and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. In alphabetical order those who helped included: Nancy Ashby, Jaquie Fallon, Sue Gascoyne, Andrew Grand, Jenny Jones, Mark Rewhorn and Christopher Roden. Needless to say, any errors that remain are mine and mine alone.

  I also want to thank you, the reader, for reading this book. An author without readers is like a town without people. So a huge thankyou to everyone who enjoys reading the Crampton of the Chronicle books.

  I'd like to finish with a final plea. In these days of internet sales, online reviews are very important for an author. So if you have a few moments to add a short review on Amazon or Goodreads, I would very much appreciate that. Thank you.

  Peter Bartram, November 2018

  About the author

  Peter Bartram brings years of experience as a journalist to his Crampton of the Chronicle crime mystery series. His novels are fast-paced and humorous - the action is matched by the laughs. The books feature a host of colourful characters as befits stories set in Brighton, one of Britain's most trend-setting towns.

  Peter began his career as a reporter on a local weekly newspaper before working as a newspaper and magazine 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 Buckingham Palace. Peter wrote 21 non-fiction books, including five ghost-written, in areas such as biography, current affairs and how-to titles, before turning to crime – and penning the Crampton of the Chronicle series. There are now 10 books in the series.

  Follow Peter Bartram on Facebook at:

  www.facebook.com/peterbartramauthor

  Follow Peter Bartram on Twitter at:

  @PeterFBartram

  More great books from Peter Bartram…

  HEADLINE MURDER

  When the owner of a miniature golf course goes missing, ace crime reporter Colin Crampton uncovers the dark secrets of a 22-year-old murder.

  STOP PRESS MURDER

  The murder of a night watchman and the theft of a saucy film of a nude woman bathing set Colin off on a madcap investigation with a stunning surprise ending.

  FRONT PAGE MURDER

  Archie Flowerdew is sentenced to hang for killing rival artist Percy Despart. Archie's niece Tammy believes he's innocent and convinces Colin to take up the case. Trouble is, the more Colin investigates, the more it looks like Archie is guilty.

  THE TANGO SCHOOL MYSTERY

  Colin Crampton and girlfriend Shirley Goldsmith are tucking into their meal when Shirley discovers more blood on her rare steak than she'd expected. The pair are drawn into investigating a sinister conspiracy which seems to centre on a tango school.

  THE MORNING, NOON & NIGHT TRILOGY

  Three books in one.

  The adventure starts in Murder in the Morning Edition… when crime reporter Colin Crampton and feisty girlfriend Shirley Goldsmith witness an audacious train robbery

  The mystery deepens in Murder in the Afternoon Extra… as the body count climbs and Colin finds himself hunted by a ruthless killer.

  The climax explodes in Murder in the Night Final… when Colin and Shirley uncover the stunning secret behind the robbery and the murders.

  Read all three books in The Morning, Noon & Night Omnibus Edition or listen to them on the audiobook available from Audible, Amazon and iTunes.