The Usual Santas

by Peter Lovesey

  She pushed the walker over to the charcuterie counter. A young man who in Maud’s opinion looked as if he was barely out of short pants was fiddling aimlessly with the prepackaged sausages on a shelf in front of the glass counter. Maud stopped beside him and said, “I’d like a small, ready-cooked Christmas ham, please.”

  The young man pulled out one of his earbuds. “What?”

  Patiently Maud repeated what she had just said.

  “Ready-cooked?” the boy echoed.

  Maud nodded.

  “I can, like, cut you some slices of that big one there. All the small ones are gone. There are so many old dudes living around here.”

  Maud thought his grin had something of a sneer about it. With considerable self-control, she nodded to indicate that she would like some slices of the ham behind the glass of the deli counter. As the boy walked past her he let out a loud yell that could be heard all over the store. The manager came rushing over from his pyramid of raisins, knocking the whole thing down in his panic.

  “What’s going on?” he wanted to know, sounding horrified.

  “The old bat stabbed me!” the boy said, pointing an accusing finger at Maud.

  She stooped over the handlebars of her walker.

  “What? What’s he saying?” she said in a reedy voice.

  The manager looked from Maud to the assistant, unsure what to do.

  “Go to the staff room and calm down!” he snapped at the boy.

  “But the old bat—”

  “Don’t call the customer an old b- . . . that word!” the manager growled, his face turning an alarming shade of bright red.

  “What did he say?” Maud chirped. She was finding it difficult not to laugh. Carefully she closed the big safety pin and slipped it back into her pocket. She had thrust it into that unpleasant young man’s buttock with all her strength. It was time someone taught him a lesson about old women! The pin was used to attach a reflective disc on a cord to the lining of her right hand pocket.

  “Staffroom, now!” the manager repeated in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

  As the teenager shambled away, the manager turned to Maud with a strained smile. “Please forgive the boy. He’s only been here for a few days. He probably tripped and banged into a sharp corner. What can I get you?”

  “I’d like four slices of your cooked ham. It’s always so delicious,” Maud replied, smiling sweetly.

  She carried the wheeled walker up the wide stone staircase. There was no longer any sign of the bent little old lady who had been so bewildered by all the fuss in the grocery store not long ago. For someone who would be ninety in a few years, she was unusually strong.

  A short while later, she was sitting in her favorite armchair with a steaming cup of coffee and a ham sandwich with plenty of mustard. The spiced rye bread flavored with wort smelled wonderful. She put on her glasses and began to read the morning paper.

  That was when the Problem began to make its presence felt.

  Maud looked at the clock. It was just before ten-thirty. That was unusually early for the Problem. She sighed loudly and decided to try to ignore the whole thing for as long as possible. To her relief, the Problem stopped after a few minutes, and she was able to carry on with her reading.

  At around two o’clock, Maud was woken from her afternoon nap. The Problem was in full swing. It seemed worse than ever. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t ignore it.

  The apartment complex was five stories high and over a hundred years old. It was red brick built on a solid granite foundation. The ground floor housed a parking lot and a small number of shops. In spite of the fact that Maud lived on the first floor, her window was almost fifteen feet above the ground. The walls were thick. The only weakness was the system of pipes throughout the building. If Maud was standing in the bathroom, she could hear almost every word from the neighbors on the floor above. Particularly if they raised their voices— then she couldn’t avoid hearing their exchanges.

  And that was the Problem.

  She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know about it, which was what she would have liked to do: to avoid getting involved in the Problem. All she wanted was peace and quiet.

  But the Problem couldn’t be ignored. Maud couldn’t shut out the sound of raised voices—mainly his voice—and the woman’s sobbing. And the heavy thuds when he hit her and knocked her down. Thump-thump-thud was the sound that came through the ceiling of Maud’s bedroom.

  The Problem had begun in the autumn last year, when a famous attorney and his wife bought the apartment above Maud’s. They were middle-aged and wealthy, and their children had already left home. According to the rumors, he had kicked up an enormous fuss when he wasn’t allocated a parking space, but there was a waiting list of several years, and he just had to put his name down like all the other residents. Meanwhile, he had to park his flashy Mercedes on the street.

  After renovations lasting several months, the attorney and his wife had moved in just before Christmas the previous year. “Peace at last,” Maud had thought. The noise of the building work had been unbearable.

  Over the Christmas period exactly one year ago, Maud had realized that there was a big Problem. Christmas Eve was completely ruined, as far as she was concerned. The attorney had started abusing his wife in the afternoon, and it simply carried on doing so. Maud had been unable to concentrate on the film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on TV that night. All she could hear was quarreling and shouting from upstairs.

  Early on December twenty-sixth, an ambulance turned up. Maud opened the door of her apartment a fraction. She heard the attorney’s well-modulated voice in the stairwell as he spoke to the paramedics:

  “She fell down the stairs yesterday. I wanted to call you right away, but she didn’t think it was anything serious. But when I saw how she looked today, I just had to call . . .”

  Maud closed the door, screwing her face up in disgust. Fell down the stairs! What a revolting man! And he had ruined her Christmas.

  After that, things were quiet for a few months. Twice during the spring she heard the attorney abusing his wife again. The week after Midsummer, Maud met the wife on the stairs. It was pouring with rain outside, but in spite of the weather the woman was wearing huge sunglasses. She had wound a big scarf around her head and pulled it well down over her forehead. Her entire face was covered with a thick layer of dark foundation. It didn’t help. Maud could clearly see the eye that was swollen shut, and the bruise like a purple half-moon over the cheekbone. They exchanged greetings, and the woman scurried past.

  The charming attorney himself was a drinker. That was obvious to Maud whenever they passed on the stairs. He usually ignored her, but she couldn’t miss the alcoholic fumes that lingered in his wake long after he had disappeared up the stairs to his apartment.

  And now it was Christmas Eve once more, and the Problem was raising its ugly head again. Maud could hear the attorney’s furious voice and his wife’s sobs. Thump-thump came the familiar sound from the floor above.

  It was high time she did something about the Problem. Deep down, Maud had already made the decision before the idea began to form in her conscious mind. She went into the bathroom. The voices emerged clearly from the toilet bowl, and the ventilation duct amplified the sound.

  “Fucking bitch! You useless fucking . . .”

  Bang-bang-thud.

  Maud clenched her fists in impotent fury. The anger that flared inside her made her heart beat faster.

  “Fix your face. You can’t fucking go out looking like . . . to the parking meter,” the attorney’s voice echoed through the pipes.

  Maud heard a sniveling mumble in response.

  “I have to do everything myself . . . You are such a disgusting fucking mess . . . I’m going downstairs to get another ticket. You can’t even do that right, you useless bitch! You were supposed to ge
t a twenty-four-hour ticket! What do you mean, you don’t have any money? Don’t you dare . . .?”

  Thump-thump.

  Heavy footsteps crossed the floor above Maud’s head, moving towards the hallway. She quickly hurried into her own hallway; cautiously she opened the front door and left it on the latch. She pushed the wheeled walker onto the landing and placed it next to the elevator. Anyone coming down the stairs on the other side wouldn’t be able to see it, nor would anyone stepping out of the elevator. The stairwell was lit by a brass art nouveau style lamp with a tulip-shaped glass shade. Without hesitation, Maud reached in and partially unscrewed the bulb. Now it wouldn’t come on.

  As she heard the door open on the floor above, she positioned herself behind the wheeled walker. She gripped the rubber handlebars firmly and waited.

  Mumbling and muttering to himself, the attorney stumbled down the stairs. He was playing with the loose change in his coat pocket, trying to scoop it into his hand. He stopped right outside the elevator, fiddling with the coins. Maud could have reached out and touched his right shoulder. His boozy breath made her nostrils flare.

  “Not enough cash . . . have to use my card . . . can’t see a fucking thing . . .”

  Swaying unsteadily, the attorney moved towards the wide marble staircase. Maud tensed her muscles. When he reached the edge of the top step, she summoned all her strength and shot across the landing, cannoning into his calves with the walker.

  “What the f—”

  That was all the attorney managed to say before he lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs, his arms waving helplessly. The dark, flapping overcoat made him look like a clumsy bat. Or possibly a vampire, Maud thought as she hurried back to her apartment. She did, however, remember to screw the bulb back in place before she went inside. She parked the wheeled walker just behind the door as usual. She didn’t bother checking to see whether the attorney was still alive. The heavy thud when he hit the floor at the bottom of the staircase had sounded like a coconut being split open.

  Only when Maud heard the sirens stop wailing outside the main door of the apartment block did she open her own front door.

  The neighbor opposite was standing in the stairwell, looking terribly upset.

  “What’s going on?” Maud asked, making an effort to appear slightly confused.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home . . . I was just going to ring the bell . . . it’s the attorney . . . he’s fallen down the stairs,” the neighbor attempted to explain.

  A young police officer came up and introduced himself to both women.

  “Do you happen to know who the gentleman is?” he asked politely.

  He was addressing the neighbor, who was at least twenty years younger than Maud. She told him the attorney’s name and where he lived. The police officer nodded and said he would go and tell the man’s wife what had happened.

  “Those stairs are lethal. My sister fell down them,” Maud said in a weak voice, pointing with a trembling finger. All at once the neighbor looked calmer.

  “But Maud, my dear, that was before Gunnar and I moved in. And we’ve lived here for thirty-five years,” she said, giving the police officer a meaningful glance.

  She placed a protective arm around Maud’s shoulders and steered her towards her apartment.

  “Let’s get you inside. You’re very welcome to join us this evening if you like, but the children and grandchildren are coming over after they’ve watched Donald Duck on TV, so it might be a bit too noisy for you . . .”

  The question remained hanging in the air, and Maud quickly grabbed hold of it and said, “No, thank you. It’s very kind of you, but . . . no thank you. I’ve got my television.”

  Behind her she heard one of the paramedics say to his colleague, “He stinks like a distillery.”

  The ambulance and the police car had gone. Someone had come to collect the attorney’s weeping wife.

  Maud arranged all the goodies she had bought for her Christmas dinner on a tea cart. She poured herself an ice-cold Aalborgs Aquavit to go with the herring. It had been a stressful day, and she felt that she had earned a little drink. The delicious aroma of Jansson’s Temptation was coming from the oven. Satisfied with the sight of the laden cart, she pushed it into the TV room and sank down into her armchair with a sigh of contentment.

  At long last, the peace of Christmas descended on the old apartment block.

  The Usual Santas

  by Mick Herron

  Mick Herron was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of ten novels: Down Cemetery Road, The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, Smoke and Whispers, Reconstruction, Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Nobody Walks, Real Tigers, and Spook Street, as well as the novella The List. His work has been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, and CWA Steel Dagger Awards, and he has won an Ellery Queen Readers Award and the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel. He lives in Oxford and works in London.

  Whiteoaks, the brochures explained, was more than a shopping center: it was a Day Out For The Whole Family; a Complete Retail Experience Under Just One Roof. It was an Ideally Situated Outlet-Village—an Ultra-Convenient Complex For The Ultra-Modern Consumer. It was where Quality met Design to form an Affordable Union. It might have been a Stately Pleasure Dome. It was possibly a Garden Of Earthly Delight. It was almost certainly where Capital Letters went to Die.

  More precisely, it was on the outskirts of one of London’s north-west satellite towns, and, viewed from above, resembled a glass and steel rendering of a giant octopus dropped headfirst onto the landscape. In the gaps between its outstretched tentacles were are parks and play areas and public conveniences, and at each of its two main entrances were garages offering, in addition to the usual services, full valet coverage, 4-wheel alignment and diagnostic analysis, as well as free air and a Last-Minute One-Stop-Shop. Cart stations—colored pennants hoisted above them for swift location—were positioned at those intervals market research had determined user-friendly, and were assiduously tended by liveried cart-jockeys. From ten minutes before dusk until ten after daybreak the area was bathed in gentle orange light, the quiet humming of CCTV cameras a constant reminder that your security was Whiteoaks’ concern. And in a hedged-off corner between the center’s electricity substation and one of four home-delivery loading bays—perhaps the only point in the complex to which the word “accessible” did not apply—lurked a furtive row of recycling bins, like a consumerist memento mori.

  As for the interior, it was a contemporary cathedral, sacred to the pursuit of retail opportunity. There was a food mall, a clothing avenue, an entertainment hall; there were wings dedicated to white goods (“all your domestic requirements satisfied!”), pampering (“full body tan in minutes!”) and financial services (“consolidate your debts—ask us how!”). There was a boulevard of sporting goods, a bridleway of gardening supplies; a veritable Hatton Garden of jewelers. No franchise ever heard of went unrepresented, and several never before encountered had multiple outlets. Whiteoaks’ delicatessens carried sweetmeats from as near as Abbotsbury and as far as Zywocice; its bookshops shelved volumes by every author its readers could imagine, from Bill Bryson to Jeremy Clarkson. The shopper who is tired of Whiteoaks, it might easily be asserted, is a shopper who is tired of credit. During the summer, light washed down from the recessed contours of its cantilevered ceilings, and during the winter it did exactly the same. Temperature, too, was regulated and constant, and in this it matched everything else. At Whiteoaks, you could buy raspberries in winter and tinsel in July. Seasonal variation was discouraged as an unnecessary brake on impulse purchasing.

  Which was not to say that Whiteoaks ignored the passage of the year; rather, it measured the months in a manner appropriate to its customers’ needs. As surely as Father’s Day follows Mother’s, as unalterably as Harry Potter gives way to the Great Pumpkin, time marches on; its inevitable progress registering as
peaks and troughs in a never-ending flow chart.

  For there are only seventeen Major Feasts in the calendar of the Complete Retail Experience.

  And the greatest of these is Christmas.

  ***

  At Whiteoaks Christmas slipped in slowly, subliminally, with the faint rustle of a paperchain in early September, and the echo of a jingle bell as October turned. Showing almost saintly restraint, however, it did not unleash its reindeer until Halloween had been wholly remaindered. After that, it was open season. Taking full advantage of its layout, the complex boasted eight Santa’s Grottos—one per tentacle—each employing a full complement of sleigh, sacks, elves, snowflakes, friendly squirrels, startled rabbits, and (counterintuitively, but fully validated by merchandise-profiling) talking zebras. And, of course, each had its own Santa. Or, more accurately, each had an equal share in a rotating pool of Santas, for the eight Santas hired annually by the Whiteoaks Festive Governance Committee had swiftly worked out that no single one of them wanted to spend an entire two-month hitch marooned in Haberdashery’s backwater, or worse still, abandoned under fire in the high-pressure, noise-intensive combat zone of Toys and Games, while another took his ease in the Food Hall, pampered with cake and cappuccino by the surrounding franchisees. So a complicated but workable shift system had been established by the Santas themselves, whereby they chopped and changed each two-hour session, swapping grottos three times a day and generally sharing the burden along with the spoils. This worked so well, so much to everyone’s satisfaction, that the first eight Santas hired by the Governance Committee remained the only Santas Whiteoaks needed, returning year after year to don their uniforms, attach their beards, and maintain an impressive 83% record of hardly ever swearing at children whose parents were in earshot.