Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose

by Peter Lovesey

“Is Mr Beckington there?”

  “Mr Beckington? Yes.”

  “Ask him to come down at once. I’ll make sure no one goes in.”

  When she came off the phone, Pauline looked around for the small girl. She’d wandered off, probably to spread the news. Soon the whole store would know that Santa was dead in his grotto. Pauline shook her head and went to stand guard.

  She told the queue that Santa was going to be late, and someone made a joke about reindeer in the rush-hour. This is totally bizarre, Pauline thought, standing here under the glitter with these smiling people and their children, and “Jingle Bells” belting out from the public address, while a man lies murdered a few yards away. Her nerves were stretched to snapping-point.

  Fully ten minutes went by before Mr Beckington appeared, smoking his usual cigar, giving a convincing impression of the unflappable executive in a crisis. He liked customers to be aware that he managed the store, so he always wore a rosebud on his pinstripe lapel.

  He nodded sociably to the queue and murmured to Pauline, “What’s all this, Miss Fothergill?” as if she were the cause of it.

  She took him into the grotto. They stopped and stared.

  The winking lights were on. The model figures were in motion, wielding their little hammers. Santa was alive and on his throne, dressed for work. Zena the gnome was powdering his beard.

  “Ho-ho,” Ben greeted them in his jocular voice, “and what do you want in your Christmas stockings?”

  Mr Beckington turned to Pauline, his eyes blazing behind his glasses. “If this is some kind of joke, it’s in lamentably bad taste.”

  She reddened and repeated what she’d seen. Ben and Zena insisted that everything had been in its usual place when they’d arrived in the lift a few minutes late. They certainly hadn’t seen a dead body.

  The Santa costume had been on its hanger in the workshop. She gaped at them in disbelief.

  Mr Beckington said, “We’re all under stress at this time of the year, Miss Fothergill. The best construction I can put upon this incident is that you had some kind of hallucination brought on by overwork. You’d better go home and rest.”

  She said, trying to stay calm, “I’m perfectly well, thank you. I don’t need to go home.”

  Ben said in the voice he used to his infant visitors when they burst into tears, “Now, now, be a sensible girl.”

  “If it’s all my imagination, where’s Mark Daventry?” Pauline demanded.

  Mr Beckington told her, “He’s down with ’flu. We had a message.”

  “Darling, I think some meany played a trick on you,” Zena suggested. “That kid with the teeth missing is a right little scamp. Some practical joker must have put her up to it.”

  Pauline shook her head and frowned, unwilling to accept the explanation, but trying to fathom how it could have been done.

  “If you’re not going home, you’d better get back to your position,” Mr Beckington told her. “And let’s get this blasted grotto open.”

  She spent the rest of the morning in a stunned state, going through the motions of selling toys and answering enquiries while her mind tried to account for what had happened. If only the small girl had returned, she’d have got the truth from her by some means, but, just when the kid was wanted, she’d vanished.

  About 12.30, there was a quiet period. Pauline asked Zena to keep an eye on her counter for five minutes. “I want to check the stock-lists in the sports department.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To see if a crossbow is missing.”

  “You still believe this happened?”

  “I’m certain.”

  The sports department was located next to the toys on the same floor. Disappointingly, Pauline found that every crossbow was accounted for. She told herself that if the murderer was on the staff, he could easily have borrowed the weapon and replaced it later. But what about the bolt?

  She examined the crossbow kits. Six bolts were supplied with each. She checked the boxes and found one with only five. She hadn’t been hallucinating.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Zena asked, when Pauline told her.

  “I’ve got some more checking to do.”

  “Proper Miss Marple, aren’t you? You’re wasting your time, darling.”

  “Coming from you, that’s good.”

  Zena said without a hint of embarrassment, “Jealous of my coffee breaks, are you? That’s all water under the bridge. Look, I still say this is someone playing silly games. It could even be Mark himself.”

  Pauline shook her head. “Zena, he’s dead, and I’m going to find out why. Tell me, did you and Ben arrive together this morning?”

  Zena smiled. “You bet we did.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “He guards me like a harem-girl since he found out Mark was chatting me up. We had a monumental row last week, and I told Ben straight out that he shouldn’t take me for granted. Now he watches me all the time.” She adjusted her pointed hat. “I find it rather a turn-on.”

  “But you definitely finished with Mark last week?”

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t say he was heartbroken. You know how he is. Adaptable.”

  “That isn’t the word I’d use,” said Pauline, thinking of all the women Mark had “chatted up.”

  In her lunch-hour, she went downstairs and talked to the security man on the staff entrance, a solemn Scot who’d made himself unpopular with everyone but the management by noting daily who was in, and at what time. Pauline asked if by any chance Mr Mark Daventry was in.

  “Yes, he’s here. He arrived early this morning, just after 8.15.”

  She said, “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Someone told me he was down with ’flu.”

  To prove his point, the security man showed her Mark’s overcoat in the staff locker-room. She knew Mark’s camel-hair coat with the leather buttons and the shoulder-flaps. There was no question now that what she had seen was true.

  She asked the security man about Ben and Zena. They’d arrived together at their usual time, 9.50—which was odd, not to say suspicious, considering how late the grotto had opened.

  She decided to have it out with them. The grotto closed between 1.00 and 2.00, so she found them out of costume in the staff canteen.

  They’d finished lunch and Ben had his arm protectively around Zena’s chair. They looked up like two choirboys on a Christmas card, innocence personified.

  She warned them that she’d been checking downstairs. “I want a straight answer. Why weren’t you ready to open the grotto at ten this morning?”

  “There’s no mystery, darling,” answered Zena. “We had to wait ages for the lift.”

  A reasonable explanation. The lift was their only means of access to the grotto. Pauline had to accept it for the moment. She said, “I’m going to make a search of the grotto.”

  Ben said affably, “Fine. Let’s all make a search.”

  They had twenty minutes. Pauline had hoped to find bloodstains on Santa’s throne, but it was painted red. She went behind the scenery, where it was supported on wood and chicken-wire. “There’s something under here.”

  It was a wooden packing-case. Ben dragged it out and pulled off the lid. There was a layer of the small white chips of polystyrene used in packing. Ben dug into them with his large hands.

  Zena screamed as a tuft of dark hair was revealed. It didn’t take much more digging to confirm that Mark’s body had been crammed into the packing-case.

  “I suppose all three of us are imagining this!” Pauline said pointedly.

  “We’d better report it,” said Ben in a shocked voice. Reassuringly, he and Zena gave every sign of being genuinely surprised at the discovery.

  “Before we do,” said Pauline, “would you mind looking in his pockets?”

  “Why?” asked Zena, but Ben was already starting a search. In one of the inside pockets was the note that Pauline hoped to find. Something must have lured Mark t
o his death in the grotto early that morning.

  It was a short, typed message: See what Santa has for you, darling.

  Tuesday morning, 8.45.

  “I’ve seen that typestyle recently,” said Ben.

  “On our letter of appointment,” said Zena.

  “Sylvia?” said Ben, frowning. “Mr Beckington’s secretary?”

  Pauline and Zena exchanged a long, uncomprehending look. They covered the body and took the lift to the management floor above. On the way up, Pauline said, “I’ve thought of something terribly important. Did you find out why you had to wait so long for the lift this morning?”

  “Not for certain,” Ben answered. “The usual cause is a storeman delivering goods.”

  Pauline said, “I believe it was the murderer, jamming the lift-door open at our floor so that no one would interrupt the killing. When it finally arrived, did you see a storeman?”

  “No,” said Zena, “it was empty.” She hesitated. “But we smelt cigar smoke.”

  There wasn’t time to reflect on that, because the lift-doors opened at the top floor and Mr Beckington was waiting there, a cigar jutting from his mouth. At the sight of the three of them together, his features twisted in alarm. He turned and made a dash for the emer-gency stairs.

  “Ben!” shouted Zena.

  Ben set off in chase.

  The commotion brought people from their offices, among them Sylvia. Pauline grabbed her arm and drew her into the lift. Zena pressed the button for the ground floor and the three women started downwards.

  “Mr Beckington,” Zena blurted out. “He murdered Mark.”

  Sylvia’s hand went to her mouth.

  “But why?” said Pauline.

  Sylvia said in a small, shocked voice, “He was jealous. Silly man. He was forever trying to start something with me, but I wasn’t interested. I mean, he’s married, with a daughter my age. Then last week Mark started taking an interest in me. I always thought him dishy, and . . . well, on Friday evening we spent a little time together in the grotto.”

  “By arrangement?”

  Sylvia nodded. “When everyone else was gone.”

  Pauline showed her the note they’d found in Mark’s pocket.

  “I didn’t type this!” said Sylvia.

  “Mr Beckington did,” Pauline explained, “on your typewriter, to make sure Mark turned up this morning. He killed Mark in the grotto and he must have still been in there when the child sneaked in. He must have been hiding behind the scenery when I came in. I raised the alarm, and while I was standing outside like a lulu, he hid the body in a packing-case. I just hope Ben catches him.”

  “My man’s strong,” said Zena, “but fast he isn’t.”

  The lift gave a shudder as they reached the ground floor. When the doors opened, a police sergeant was waiting. Two constables were nearby, standing at the foot of the stairs.

  “All right, girls,” said the sergeant. “Just stand over there, well out of the way.”

  In a moment, there was the clatter of footsteps on the stairs, then Mr Beckington ran straight into the arms of the waiting policemen. Heoffered no resistance.

  Pauline felt a tug on her skirt and looked down at the small girl.

  “You?” she said. “You called the police?”

  The child smiled smugly and nodded.

  “And you believed her?” Pauline said to the sergeant.

  “She’s my daughter, miss. The way I see it, if my little girl tells me Santa’s snuffed it, I’ve got to be very, very concerned.”

  NEVER A CROSS WORD

  Poison, perhaps.

  Quick-acting, if you choose the right sort. No mess. Simple to administer.

  The problem with a poisoning is that science has progressed so far that you can’t expect to get away with it any more. The police bring in people who make a whole career out of finding symptoms and traces. Poison is not practical any more.

  “I’m putting on the cocoa, blossom,” Rose calls from the kitchen. “Did you switch on the blanket?”

  “Twenty minutes ago, my love,” answers Albert, easing his old body out of the armchair.

  “And I thought you were day-dreaming. I ought to know better. My faithful Albert wouldn’t forget after all these years. Is my kettle filled?”

  He puts his head around the door. “Yes, dear.”

  “And the hottie—is it emptied from last night?”

  “Emptied, yes, and waiting by the bed.”

  “You’re a treasure, Albert.”

  “I do my best, sweetpea.”

  “I sometimes wonder how I ever got through the night before we bought the electric blanket. I’ve always felt the cold, you know. It isn’t just old age.”

  “We had ways of keeping warm,” says Albert.

  “You’ve always had a marvellous circulation,” says Rose for the millionth time. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  Perhaps suffocation is the way. The pillow held firmly over the face. No traces of poison then. How do they know it isn’t a heart attack? Mental note: visit the library tomorrow and find out more about suffocation.

  “Nearly ready, honeybunch,” says Rose, in the kitchen stirring the milk in the saucepan. “We’re a comical pair, when you think about it: I make the cocoa to send us to sleep. You make the tea that wakes us up.”

  And wash up your sodding saucepan. And the spoon that you always leave by the gas-ring, coated in cocoa. And wipe the surface clean.

  “I couldn’t bear to get out of bed as early as you do,” says Rose. “My dear old Mum used to say . . .” Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool. “. . . six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool. I don’t know how true it is. Sometimes I feel as if I could stay in bed forever.”

  “It’s coming to the boil, love.”

  “So it is, my pet. Where are the mugs?”

  Albert fetches them from the cupboard and Rose spoons in some cocoa, pours in the steaming milk and stirs. She gives Albert a sweet smile. “And now it’s up the stairs to Bedfordshire.”

  “I’ll check everything first,” he says.

  “Lights?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doors?”

  “Of course, my darling.”

  “See you presently, then.”

  “Careful how you go with those mugs, then.”

  A fall downstairs? Probably fatal at this age. Maybe that’s the answer—the loose stair-rod near the top. Not entirely reliable, more’s the pity.

  In bed, sipping her cocoa, Rose says, “Nice and cosy. Pity it can’t stay on all night.”

  “The electric blanket? Dangerous,” says Albert. “They don’t recommend it.”

  “Never mind. I’ve got my hottie and my kettle ready.”

  “That’s right.”

  The hot-water bottle and the electric kettle are on Rose’s bedside table ready for the moment, about two in the morning, when her feet get cold. She will then switch on the light above her head, flick the switch on the kettle and wait for it to heat up. Some nights Albert doesn’t notice the light and the kettle being switched on, but he unfailingly hears the slow crescendo of the kettle coming to the boil. Then Rose will fill the hot-water bottle and say, “Have I disturbed you, dear? It’s only me filling my hottie.”

  Depressed, Albert stares at the wrinkled skin on the surface of his cocoa. Separate bedrooms might have been the answer, but he’s never suggested it. Rose regards the sharing of the bed as the proof of a successful marriage. “We’ve never spent a single night apart, except for the time I was in hospital. Not a single night. I look at other couples and I know, I just know, that they don’t sleep in the same bed any more.” So the guest bedroom is only ever used by guests—her sister from Somerset once a year when the Chelsea Flower Show is on and, once, his friend Harry from army days.

  Rose says, “Did you notice the Barnetts this afternoon? Am I mistaken, or were they being just a bit crotchety with each other?”


  A night in the guest room would be bliss. Uninterrupted sleep. Just to be spared the inevitable “Have I disturbed you, dear?” at two in the morning.

  “Albert, dear.”

  “Mm?”

  “I don’t think you were listening. I was asking if you noticed anything about John and Marcia this afternoon.”

  “John and Marcia?”

  “The Barnetts. At bridge.”

  “Something wrong with their game?”

  “No. I’m talking about the way they behaved towards each other. It may have been just my imagination, but I thought Marcia was more prickly with him than usual—as if they’d had words before we arrived. Didn’t you notice it?”

  “Not that I can recall,” says Albert.

  “When he had to re-deal because of the card that turned face up?”

  “Really?”

  “And when he reached for the chocolate biscuit. She was really sharp with him then, lecturing him about his calories. He looked so silly with his hand stuck in the air over the plate of biscuits. You must remember that.”

  “The chocolate biscuit. I do.”

  “Unnecessary, I thought.”

  “True.”

  “Humiliating the poor man.”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, it isn’t as if John is grossly enormous. He’s got a bit of a paunch, but he’s over seventy, for pity’s sake. You expect a man to have a paunch by then.”

  “Goes without saying,” says Albert, who actually has no paunch at all.

  Rose drains the last of her cocoa. “You know what would do those two a power of good?”

  “What’s that?”

  “If they spent some time apart from each other. Since he’s retired, she sees him all day long. They’re not adjusted to it.”

  “What would he do on his own?”

  “I don’t know. What do men do with themselves? Golf, or bowls. Fishing.”

  “When I go fishing, you always come with me and sit on the riverbank talking.”

  “That’s different, isn’t it? We’re inseparable. We don’t need to get away from each other. We haven’t the slightest desire to be alone.”

  There is an interval of silence.

  Rose resumes. “They won’t catch you and me saying unkind things to each other in public, will they?”