‘That’s what I thought, until I realised it was probably one that had been run over on the main road, and they’d found it, just grabbed the best bit of booty on offer, and brought it home to me as a little present.’
‘Makes a lovely stew or a pie,’ said Carmichael, a faraway look in his eyes. ‘One of my ma’s treats for us when I was a nipper was a rabbit pie. One of my uncles used to go out lamping, and bring her back a brace now and again.’
‘I don’t think we want to pursue that line any further, Carmichael. I’d hate to have to arrest a member of your family for poaching.’
‘Much appreciated, sir,’ replied the sergeant, only now aware of what he had let slip.
‘Well, better get our noses back to the grindstone. We’ve got to go back to Coronation Terrace before we’re finished for the day, and I want to go to see someone from Standing’s family too.’
Bob Bryant had managed to trace Malcolm Standing’s next-of-kin, and PC Green had been dispatched to break the news of his death, a job Falconer had hated doing in the past, when it had fallen to his lot. It was the worst news you could bring to anyone, and it always made him feel like an absolute heel having to be the one to break it. He and Carmichael therefore had the address of Mr and Mrs David Standing with them, so that they could pay a visit after returning to Coronation Terrace to continue their questioning of Chelsea Fairfield.
She was up and about, having woken about a quarter of an hour before they arrived, and was now having a cup of tea at Mrs Jenkins’ kitchen table. She looked less panic-stricken and upset than she had before when she turned to greet them, and Falconer considered that she had only been going out with the young man for three weeks, and they had not yet instigated a physical relationship. Maybe she’d get over it quicker than he’d thought when he saw her earlier.
At their arrival, Ida Jenkins hurriedly produced two more cups and saucers and poured tea for her two new visitors. As Carmichael ladled sugar into his, she remarked, ‘I’ve never seen anyone take his tea that sweet before, Sergeant Carmichael. But then, you do have a big frame to maintain, so I expects you needs it.’ Carmichael just smiled at her, and continued to spoon a little more sugar into his already sticky brew.
Falconer courteously finished his cup of tea before announcing that it was time they resumed questioning. ‘I need to know a little more about you and the deceased,’ (he winced at the harsh reality of the word) ‘Miss Fairfield. I know this is painful for you, so soon after the event, but it is necessary, I assure you.’
‘I do understand, and once I’ve told you, it’s done, so fire away, Inspector.’ replied Chelsea.
‘I need to know, and this may seem a little odd, where you work, and where Mr Standing worked. I would also like you to tell me how and where you met, and anything you know about his life before he met you.’
‘I work in the pharmacy in the High Street, and Malcolm … worked,’ (she had a little trouble using the past tense, in this reference to him) ‘as a sous chef in the Italian restaurant, about three doors from the pharmacy. We worked so close together, but never came across each other until recently,’ she informed the two detectives, Carmichael huddled over his notebook, his chair pulled to a slight remove from the table so as not to draw attention to his note-taking.
‘Did he tell you anything about his past, or his family?’
‘Not a lot. He just said he’d worked there for a few years, and that he was estranged from his family. I never met any of them.’
‘Did he say why?’ This had interested Falconer.
At this question, she flicked her eyes away from the table and took a deep breath. ‘We never discussed it,’ she answered abruptly.
‘What, never?’ Falconer was definitely interested.
‘He said he didn’t want to talk about it: that it had been some silly adolescent squabble, and that it wasn’t relevant to his life anymore. I took him at his word.’
‘Do you know where his family lives?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Chelsea answered, shaking her head to emphasise this negative.
‘Did he have brothers and sisters?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, again shaking her head.
‘You really knew very little about him, then,’ Falconer stated.
‘People’s pasts don’t concern me; only their presents and futures,’ she stated emphatically, as if this were really important to her.
‘But surely what has happened to us makes us who we are today’?’ commented the inspector.
Chelsea’s answer consisted of just two words, ‘Not necessarily,’ and then she clamped her mouth shut, and stared down at the table blankly.
‘I think we’ll leave it there for now, thank you, Miss Fairfield. We’ll be in touch when we have any more news or information. Thank you for your time, and thank you again, Mrs Jenkins, for the refreshments.’
They rose to leave but, just as they were passing through the kitchen door, Falconer looked back and caught a sideways glance after them that expressed extreme relief, on Chelsea Fairfield’s face. It could just be a normal reaction. It could be that she was concealing something. He didn’t know which, but he intended to find out.
Chapter Four
16th February
In the office the next morning, Falconer and Carmichael fell into a casual chat as they waited for various pieces of information to filter through to them which would allow them to continue their investigation.
‘Buying that cottage next door to Kerry’s was the best thing I ever did,’ Carmichael threw out casually.
‘It was originally bought by a couple of weekenders, wasn’t it, after that first case we worked together?’ asked Falconer.
‘That’s right, sir. With two very noisy dogs. I don’t think the Brigadier knew what had hit him when they bought it. He did nothing but complain to them when they were down for the weekend, and even went to the Parish Council to see if anything could be done about it, but they said he’d just have to put up with it or get the noise abatement officer in from the council if he wanted to take it any further.’
‘So they didn’t settle?’ Falconer had never heard the full story, and was in just the right sort of mood to have his mind distracted while he waited. ‘They can’t have felt very welcome. I’ve met the Brigadier, and he can be a fearsome character.’
‘They only came down for a few weekends. Kerry left it as it was, telling them that she’d been through it, and they could keep anything they thought was of any interest to them, but the state of the place just defeated them.
‘Not only was there a tremendous amount of work to do, but they had constant complaints about their dogs barking, and there was nothing to do in the village, and only the village pub and the tea-shop to amuse them.
‘They soon got fed up with spending every weekend they came down clearing out and cleaning, and when Kerry and I had a talk about it, and I offered to buy it from them at the price they’d paid for it, they jumped at the chance.
‘Kerry and I knew we’d get married even then, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity for me to take out a mortgage and buy the place, so that we could enlarge the living quarters, without all the upheaval of having to move. And with me buying it, it left Kerry’s nest-egg intact for anything big that came up in the future. It was a form of being joined together before we actually tied the knot.’
‘Smart move, Carmichael. So now you’ve got to do all the clearing out and renovation.’
‘No problem, sir. One of my brothers has got a flat-bed truck, so it’ll be easy to get all the rubbish to the tip, and everyone in my family’s a dab-hand with a paint brush. We’ll get there, and it’s a bit of an adventure, too, all the funny little personal bits and pieces we come across, and all the old photos.’
‘So, life’s being good to you at the moment, Carmichael?’ asked Falconer.
‘It’s just got better and better, since we’ve worked together,’ Carmichael stated, without a whit of embarrassment.
‘You soppy old sentimentalist, you!’ said Falconer, nevertheless feeling pleased. They did work well together, chalk and cheese that they were, and he was beginning to feel proud of the partnership they were forging.
The telephone rang on Falconer’s desk, and as he answered the call, Carmichael applied himself to his computer to carry out the check he’d promised himself he’d do first thing this morning, and had then been waylaid from his intended task by his enthusiasm for his new-found happiness.
Placing the telephone to his ear, a voice spoke without preamble. ‘Get your lazy-ass butts over here now! You promised me you’d both attend the post-mortem, and I’m not starting it without both of you being here in person.’
He realised immediately that it was Dr Christmas, and blushed at being so remiss. Not only had he forgotten all about their agreement the day before, but it seemed, so had Carmichael. ‘I’m so sorry. We both seemed to have suffered a crisis in short-term memory. We’ll be over as soon as we can,’ he apologised, and ended the call, indicating to Carmichael that they were going out.
‘Just a minute, sir. I’ve got something here!’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No, I don’t think it can. I’ve just run Malcolm Standing through the records, and although he has no criminal convictions, it would seem he received a police caution in 2005,’ Carmichael informed him.
‘What for? Anything interesting?’ asked Falconer.
‘Don’t know if it’s relevant, sir, but I don’t think it shows him up in a very satisfactory light,’ said Carmichael. ‘He was cautioned for interfering with a little girl – not very edifying – and it would appear that it wasn’t just a one-off offence.’
‘We’ll see what we can dig up later,’ offered Falconer, continuing, ‘We haven’t got time to do anything about it now. That was Christmas on the phone. We’ve both forgotten about his blasted post mortem. We were supposed to be there first thing, remember?’
‘Oh no!’ groaned Carmichael, turning pale. ‘I’d completely forgotten about that.’
‘So had I, but good old Dr Christmas has stayed his scalpel, until we arrive. Aren’t we the lucky bunnies then?’
‘No, sir,’ disagreed the sergeant, reluctantly following the inspector out of the office, and on their way to an event that both of them would rather have been spared.
Market Darley was too small a town to have its own mortuary, so any bodies in need of storage or a post mortem were kept at the hospital mortuary, and it was in this direction that Harry Falconer drove his beloved Boxster now. Carmichael, beside him in the passenger seat, was unusually quiet, and Falconer enquired if he was all right.
‘Not really, sir. I’ve got a rather delicate stomach.’
‘What, with a physique like yours?’
‘Can’t help it. I’ve always been like it.’
‘Well, I expect Dr Christmas will have the odd bowl or bucket lying around, should you need one. He’s always got things like that on hand, for the various bits and pieces he removes from the bodies.’
‘Gee, thanks, sir! And I had a really good fry-up this morning, too,’ replied Carmichael in a sepulchral voice.
At the hospital, Dr Christmas was already scrubbed-up, gowned, and gloved, practically trembling with his eagerness to wield his various knives, saws, and maybe even a chisel or two. He enjoyed a great deal of Schadenfreude from observing others observing him carrying out this routine task.
Their reactions were so different, and he could never predict who would be sick, who would pass out cold, and who would just observe, and take an intelligent interest, without any reaction at all, to the various bits that were usually on the inside of a body, being delivered, like bastard deformed creatures, to the outside. Sometimes he’d have a little bet with himself, but he hardly ever won. There was nowt so queer as folk, in his opinion.
Falconer heartily disliked seeing people sliced and diced, as if they were in some sort of bizarre cannibal kitchen, but he could cope with it, because of what he had experienced on active duty in the army.
Carmichael was not quite so worldly-wise, and was unusually squeamish when it came to a lot of substances – inside things being outside, blood, and bones being three of them. He also could not deal with vomit, but predicted that it would only be his own that upset his stomach today.
It was the great Y-shaped cut that set Carmichael off: that and the cutting of the ribs to reveal the contents of the chest cavity. Taking a few steps back from the proceedings, he bent nearly double and gave an enormous heave. Dr Christmas’s assistant was more than prepared, however, and managed to pop a bucket under his mouth just before a great whoosh of breakfast sprayed out of the sergeant’s mouth.
‘Ups-a-daisy!’ this anonymous individual encouraged him, and stood there stolidly until the gauge on Carmichael’s stomach was registering ‘empty’. This was all carried out as quietly as possible, as Dr Christmas was speaking into a small suspended microphone, as he noted his findings.
Carmichael was led solicitously away, and settled down somewhere where he could not see what was being carried out, before being offered a large mug of heavily-sugared tea to settle his stomach.
He was just finishing this, and feeling a shade more human, when Falconer and Dr Christmas entered the room, both of them looking perfectly well and not the slightest bit wobbly. ‘Please don’t discuss it while I’m here,’ he begged them. ‘If you want to talk about, I’d rather go outside and get some air, and wait for you there.’
‘I’ll be there in a few minutes,’ Falconer assured him, and he left them to their post-post mortem discussion.
Carmichael sat himself down on the boundary wall of the little mortuary car park, and sucked in mouthful after mouthful of clean, living air, and Falconer, true to his word, joined him within ten minutes. In his hand he held an empty carrier bag, which he handed to Carmichael. ‘Here you are!’ he said.
‘What’s that for?’ asked Carmichael.
‘To keep under your mouth on the drive back to the station. After this start to the day, if we go out again, we’ll take your car. I will not tolerate you being sick in my Boxster, and that’s that! If you’re sick at the wheel of your own car, I’ll happily hold the bag over the steering wheel for you, but I will not allow even the chance of you ‘chucking up’ in my beauty.’
Back at the station, Falconer had a word with Bob Bryant about the information that Carmichael had turned up on the computer before they had been peremptorily summoned to the mortuary. ‘This dead chap, Bob,’ he explained. ‘Name of Malcolm Standing. It seems he received a caution for child abuse in 2005, when he was in his early twenties. I wondered if there was anything you could dig out about it for me.’
‘Seems to ring a bell, but I don’t know if the details will be on the computer yet,’ Bob answered, his expression one of careful thought. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up – or get dug up – for you. I’ll also ask around, see if anyone remembers it, or was involved. I’ll send up anything I find to you, ’ASAP.’
‘Thanks, Bob. I owe you one.’ If you wanted to know anything about past cases, or even police gossip, you consulted Bob Bryant, who seemed to have worked on the desk forever, and knew every little thing that happened, as if it reached out to him from the past out of the ether.
Upstairs in the office, he found Carmichael sprawled backwards in his chair, still an unnatural colour, and insisted his sergeant took an early lunch, as his tank was obviously out of fuel, and he wouldn’t be able to think straight without it. Carmichael smiled at him wanly and ambled off, still looking unhappy, in search of nourishment and a happier tummy.
Chapter Five
15th February – afternoon
When Carmichael returned to the office, he looked a lot more like his normal self and, as Falconer had just stopped to eat his own healthy lunch – a box of salad and a wholemeal bap, followed by an apple and a banana – he took the opportunity to find out a little more about Carmichael’s family, the members
of which he had met at the sergeant’s and Kerry’s wedding at the very beginning of the year, but had been rather ‘blurred’ at the time, and he was now unable to recall them very clearly.
‘Well, there’s six of us,’ Carmichael started. ‘Four boys and two girls.’
‘And where do you come in that order?’ Falconer enquired.
‘I’m the fourth and last boy, then come my two sisters.’
‘And their names – all of them?’
‘My oldest brother’s called Romeo, but everybody calls him ‘Rome’. He’s a builder. Gave me a bit of a hand when I built my little hideaway, when I lived at home. Then there’s Hamlet – I told you my ma had this Shakespearian thing about names. He’s known as Ham, and he works on a farm.
‘Number three is Mercutio – just called Merc, like the car. He’s a sort of ‘man with a van’. He does small removals, house clearance, odd jobs, and gardening. He reckons the variety of jobs is good for him and stops him getting bored. Then it’s me, but you know about me, because we work together,’ said Carmichael, stating the bleedin’ obvious. ‘I got the Ralph bit, because my ma was really taken with an actor at the time – some fellow called Richardson.’
‘Tell me, Carmichael, is your ‘ma’’ (Falconer suppressed a wince at this mode of maternal address) ‘a great Shakespeare fan, then?’
‘Not really. She just liked the names he used in his plays. Said they had a sort of ‘ring’ to them, like, but I’d better finish my family run-down.
‘Next come the two girls. Juliet’s the elder, and she’s a hairdresser and beautician. Then, finally, there’s Imogen, who’s a librarian. She’s done really well, passing all her exams and everything, and we’re all very proud of her.’
‘I should think they’re all very proud of you, too,’ Falconer commented.
‘Yes, well, sort of,’ replied Carmichael.
‘What do you mean, sort of?’ asked Falconer, not quite understanding why his family should not be really happy about what he was doing.
Brief Cases Box Set Page 6
