Shiver

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘What-ho, Harry!’ the medical man greeted him, approaching from the end of the alleyway. ‘What have you got for me now? I say! Is that what I think it is, or are my eyes deceiving me? Can it really be a citizen of Carsfold with a pumpkin over his head, and slightly charred around the edges at that?’

  ‘Your vision is 20/20, Philip. I reckon it’ll be some time before I can figure out exactly what’s happened here. SOCOs should be arriving any minute now. Get the body away as quickly as you can, will you, and let me know exactly how the poor chap died. This little caper has also put Roberts in hospital with what sounds like concussion, and is dragging Carmichael away from his Halloween celebrations with his family, so there’s plenty to answer for.’

  ‘Roberts in hospital again?’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘Par for the course, then,’ answered the doctor, basing his response on past events. ‘Shame about Carmichael, though. I hope he doesn’t take it too hard.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Falconer. ‘The kids’ll cope. Just not sure about their stepfather.’

  Number one was the home, he discovered from the notes his constables had made, of one David Weston and family, and was situated directly to the left of the property that contained the scene of the crime, as one looked at the front of the houses from the front of Chestnut Close.

  At the front door, David Weston bade him enter, and invited the inspector to call him ‘Dave’, although no similar invitation of familiarity of address was forthcoming from the detective. He was perfectly happy to be called Inspector Falconer, and wished to invite no closer means of address.

  In the light of the street lamps, Falconer had already noticed how beautifully tended and tidy the front garden of number one was. The inside of the house proved to be tended to a similar level, the house looking as if no one had ever lived in it, not a speck of dust sullying any visible surface, and not one item being out of place. Even the Radio Times was sitting tidily in a magazine rack, and not spread open, on a chair seat or table top.

  A woman, equally spick and span, occupied a recliner chair, her legs tidily crossed at the ankles, and her hair and make-up immaculate, even though they were neither going out nor entertaining at home and, for a split-second, Falconer questioned whether he was in Carsfold, or had accidentally strayed into the unnaturally perfect community of Stepford.

  ‘Do take a seat,’ his host exhorted him, and the detective slid slowly down into a chair, wincing as he crushed the cushion it contained on his descent.

  Before the man could utter another word, his smug-looking wife piped up with, ‘My Dave was the first one on the scene. He was already out in the garden, and helped pull that awful man out of his burning shed.’ Her mouth twitched up in a self-important smile, as she uttered this interesting snippet of information.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Brenda,’ barked her husband with unexpected fervour. ‘Granted, I was one of the first there, but I wasn’t outside when it went up. I’d gone into the garage to check I had enough compost to put in the wallflowers for their spring showing.

  ‘Sorry about that, Inspector. She thinks that, just because I wasn’t in the room with her, I must be outside working in the garden, even at this time of night.’ Dave Weston appeared flustered at his wife’s remark, and was eager to move on, although he mustered up the effort to make a face that expressed the sentiment ‘silly little woman,’ in Falconer’s direction.

  ‘It was amazing how quickly the sound of that petrol, or whatever it was, going up, gathered a crowd in that disgusting jungle of Jordan’s.’

  ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead, Dave,’ Brenda simpered, looking through her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at Falconer, to see if he noticed her fineness of feeling.

  ‘It’s hardly a state secret that he let his garden go to wrack and ruin and never lifted a finger to keep it under control,’ snapped back her husband. ‘Why, I should think the origin of every weed within a quarter of a mile of here is his garden. There were enough seeds blowing around from that patch to destroy a country house garden, let alone a collection of small, private gardens.’

  ‘I gather you didn’t approve of his neglect of his property,’ commented Falconer quietly.

  ‘I certainly did not!’ Weston replied with fervour. ‘I work hard, now I’ve retired, to keep our little patch looking as perfect as possible – I even have a vegetable plot at the end, and I keep all my beds as weed-free as possible, which is not an easy task, with that lazy, neglectful beggar living next door.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll be able to persuade Michelle – that’s his wife, no, widow now, Inspector – to employ someone to keep it down.’

  ‘Fat chance! She’ll be even shorter of cash now, without her husband’s benefits. Anyway, I’ve even offered to run the mower over it myself, and pour over some weed-killer in the worst areas, but he very rudely told me, in somewhat choicer words, to ‘get lost’.’

  Feeling he was losing control of the situation, as it sank into neighbourhood ire, Falconer cleared his throat loudly and began to question the couple in a more professional manner, about their movements that evening, and anything that Dave had heard while outside, as Brenda had deemed it beneath her dignity to join her husband out at the scene of the tragedy.

  It seemed simple enough. Brenda had remained in her chair watching her favourite soap opera. Dave had been, as he had claimed, checking his supply of compost in the garage, when he heard the noise of the shed blowing up, had raced down the garden to see what he could do to help, and stayed there, milling around with the other neighbours, until PC Green had arrived and dispersed them back to their own homes.

  Glad to leave the clinical cleanliness of number one, Falconer called next at the house of the widow, prepared for tears and woe, and finding, instead, a thoroughly together, over-dressed, and heavily made-up woman, with a tall glass tinkling with ice-cubes in her hand. She appeared totally unfazed at her sudden plunge into widowhood.

  ‘Come on in, Inspector,’ she invited him. ‘Sorry about the lack of tears and grief, but Larry and I didn’t really get on that well, and I’ve just realised that I can move my boyfriend in now, if I can get his name put on the lease.’ So much for sorrow at the loss of a life. Was no one to mourn this man, who had died in such a bizarre way?

  Falconer entered the living room, noting the contrast in housekeeping standards and styles of furnishing. Things were very much more relaxed – if not actually lax – in this household, and nowhere near so spotless.

  After he refused a drink, it not seeming respectful, given the circumstances, Michelle Jordan sat down herself, informing him that she and her husband had not been a proper couple for years now, and that she considered him to have been a perverted, dirty, drunken, old bastard, without a decent bone in his body, and that if this hadn’t happened tonight, she’d have left him by Christmas.

  What an epitaph for the man! And from his own wife!

  Over the next quarter of an hour the inspector was to learn that Larry Jordan had started having casual affairs from the end of their first year of marriage, and had also begun to drink heavily about the same time. He had given up work within months of their wedding, and had existed exclusively on benefits and the odd crooked deal ever since.

  If he wasn’t off with one of his floozies, he was holed-up in that filthy old shed of his, to avoid her company and guzzle whisky without criticism or interruption, she explained, at length. She’d just left him to his own devices for years now. Life was easier if she just ignored him and got on with her own life.

  What a joy he must have been to the neighbours, thought Falconer, having already heard the Westons’ opinion of the man. Would no one have a good word to say about the man? Would no one mourn his death?

  He left number two rather more abruptly than he had expected, as a piercing scream rent the air, penetrating indoors in the absence of double glazing in these properties, and he rose abruptly from his seat and rushed outside to see what was amiss, hoping that more
criminal activity was not in the offing. Subliminally aware of the screech of brakes, he had already been halfway to his feet when the scream rent the air,

  Outside number four (which was where Falconer had found space to park his car when he had arrived) were three figures, vaguely visible in the dim illumination from the street’s lampposts. One was smaller and obviously a woman, garbed in a dressing-gown and slippers, and with a towel round her head; it was from this figure that the sounds of distress were emanating. The other two gave the impression of being male; one was much larger than the other, but was nevertheless being beaten round his oddly shaped head with some sort of long weapon.

  As he approached, the man suffering the assault seemed to catch sight of the inspector and called out, ‘Can you make him stop, sir?’ unbelievably in Carmichael’s voice. Unbelievably, because the figure, which Falconer could now see was being soundly thrashed with a French stick, no doubt not as fresh as it could have been, appeared to be a refugee from the set of a horror film. Falconer knew it was Halloween, but thought that the dressing up would have all been confined to children, and he wondered, a) how this lone adult specimen came to be on Chestnut Close? and, b) how on earth it had managed to sound exactly like his DS?

  ‘It’s me, sir,’ pled the familiar voice from the very unfamiliar face, visible now that the tenant of number four had stopped hitting him round the head momentarily. ‘I came straight here when Kerry passed on the message that you needed me. I didn’t bother calling into the house to change: it sounded urgent.’

  ‘Carmichael! I might have known you’d be at the centre of any disruption …’

  ‘You know this man?’ asked the woman who had screamed.

  ‘For my sins, I do indeed,’ admitted the newcomer to the scene. ‘I am Detective Inspector Falconer of the Market Darley CID, and this, in the spirit of the season, is my assistant, Detective Sergeant Carmichael, who had been celebrating the occasion of All Hallows’ Eve with his children, when urgently summoned for duty, I can only assume. Please excuse his appearance. Am I correct, Carmichael?’

  ‘Absolutely spot-on, sir.’

  Falconer suppressed a private smile, remembering how much more terrifying Carmichael had looked, on occasion in the past, when he had been transferred to plain clothes. That particular young man had had no idea of the literal meaning of the word ‘plain’, and had turned up for duty in some hair-raising outfits. Even now he was not totally free of the affliction and had, in the not-too-distant past (shortly after he had returned to work after being off injured for some time) been seen dressed in glaring checked trousers, a pink and purple striped waistcoat under a custard-yellow jacket, and a hat that a donkey in a field somewhere was clearly missing. (During his recuperation, Carmichael had become addicted to an antiques challenge programme on daytime television, and had developed an unfortunate infatuation with the style of dress of its presenter.) The desk sergeant had had to have a short sit down after catching sight of this apparition entering the building, Falconer recalled.

  Shaking his head and returning to the present moment, the inspector asked, ‘And you are?’

  ‘Deborah and Peter Sage,’ declared the woman, holding out her hand in introduction. Her husband appeared to be more concerned with picking up every crumb of French stick that had broken off during his assault of DS Carmichael, than on making physical contact. As he manhandled a handful of small pieces of bread that had become detached from the mother-loaf, into the pocket of his baggy jeans, he was heard to mumble, ‘Absolute lunacy, a member of the forces of law and order turning up on the doorstep of a law-abiding citizen dressed as a monster. Never heard the like in all my life. I shall be lodging a complaint.’

  This last, he addressed to Falconer, his head swivelled at a severe angle to his body, so that he could look up at the more senior policeman. ‘This sort of behaviour is simply not acceptable. Had my wife been elderly, she could have suffered a heart attack from the shock of seeing such an apparition on her own doorstep.’

  ‘I can’t apologise enough, sir. I’m sure DS Carmichael was only anxious to report for duty with the least possible delay, and hadn’t given a thought to how he actually looked.’

  Carmichael merely nodded, having been effectively silenced by a fierce glare from his superior who wanted, at all costs, to prevent his sergeant from getting involved in a convoluted and complicated explanation of how he had ended up outside their front door looking as he did.

  ‘My car is parked outside your house. I expect he thought I could be found inside. Now, I should be grateful if we could go into your house. A rather serious incident has occurred, and we are here to investigate it, me already being a man down, as my detective constable was injured here earlier this evening.’ He was glad they simply accepted this statement about Roberts, as it was much too complicated and time-consuming to explain how the DC came to be on the spot in the first place.

  As they walked through the hall, Sage suddenly requested, ‘Would you mind speaking to us separately, please?’

  Falconer gave him an old-fashioned look, but wasn’t given the opportunity to ask why. Sage offered an explanation with no coaxing. ‘I’ll be honest with you and tell you that we’re not on speaking terms at the moment, and that’s all I’m prepared to say, until I’m on my own with you.’ For the first time, Falconer noticed that Mrs Sage had eyes red from weeping, and seemed to be in an emotionally fragile state.

  ‘I’ll speak to Mrs Sage first, in the sitting room, if I may?’ Falconer requested, only for Mr Sage to disappear through a door that the inspector assumed was that of the kitchen, muttering under his breath.

  ‘That’s me, Mr Second-Class-Citizen. I work away all week to earn enough to keep this place going, while she’s being knocked off by that drunken lunatic next door, and it’s me that gets relegated to the kitchen when it comes to investigating that bloody reprobate’s murder. And I’ll probably be the one blamed for it.’

  In the sitting room, Deborah Sage was pouring out information like a leaky tap, without a thought for getting properly dressed. She could not keep the situation to herself, and immediately admitted that she had been having an affair with Larry Jordan while her husband Peter was working away during the week. He may not have been the most savoury of characters, but she herself liked a drink or six, and he made her laugh, which was more than ‘Neat Pete’ did, with his fixation for everything to be just so.

  Larry Jordan made her happy and he made her feel like a woman – desirable and sexy, not middle-aged and frumpy. She would have gone out to see him later tonight, if the tragedy had not occurred, and now she felt bereft. Whatever would she do for company now? To whom could she turn, now that Larry was dead – and murdered, too? When Peter was home at the weekends, he spent all his time upstairs in the spare bedroom playing with his model train set. She’d go mad with boredom and loneliness, and at this point her dressing gown began to droop open at the front, as if it felt as hopeless as its wearer.

  At the party at the town hall, the Westons’ daughter, Rebecca, was showing off to her friends about her own desirability. She was a fairly innocent teenager who had not yet had a boyfriend, but wanted to appear worldly-wise to her peers.

  ‘I’m not kidding. He stood at the end of the path and put both his hands on my bum, and he squeezed hard, looked me in the eyes, and licked his lips. He’s absolutely gagging for it with me, and if it weren’t for my stuffy old dad always being around, I’d give it to him, too.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, Becky, would you? Really?’ asked her best friend, wide-eyed.

  ‘Without a second thought. You’ve got to get your experience somewhere, haven’t you? And where better than from an older man?’

  ‘Older man, yes, but that fellah next door to you must be at least a pensioner. Yuck!’

  ‘Look, he’s forty-two, okay? He’s nowhere near a pensioner,’ protested Rebecca Weston indignantly. ‘And he’s always got booze down in his shed.’

  ‘So at least you can ge
t pissed before you have to face doing it with him,’ nodded her best friend, all understanding.

  ‘That’s not what I meant at all, and you know it!’

  In number one Chestnut Close, Dave Weston was pacing the living room floor restlessly. ‘What on earth made you tell that copper I was actually out in the garden when that shed went up?’ he asked of his wife, who was not looking quite so smug now.

  ‘Because you were,’ she replied, aware that she had done wrong, but not quite sure how. ‘You were never in the garage checking on the compost, because you’ve not got any out there.’

  ‘I know that, and you know that, but that copper didn’t. You should never have said I was in the garden. He might just get the idea that I was responsible for making off with that whisky-sodden waste-of-space next door, Jordan.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Dave. He wouldn’t think that of a nice respectable man like you.’

  ‘Don’t you be so sure, woman,’ her husband replied. ‘He’s got eyes in his head. He can see perfectly well that I’ve got a vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden, and that there are ripe pumpkins in it. What’s that going to make him think, with you blurting out that I was actually out there when the shed went up?’ And if he gets to hear what I saw that filthy pervert do to our Rebecca on her way out this evening, he’ll have the cuffs on me so quick, I won’t know what’s happening, he thought, doing another restless round of the carpet, and ignoring his wife’s reassuring twittering.

  Back in number four Chestnut Close, Deborah Sage went across to the coffee table to get a handkerchief out of her handbag, its gaping mouth exposing that she kept a silver – or at least silver-plated – hip flask within its cavernous depths. Seeing the direction of his gaze, she snapped it shut, no doubt jealous of the treasures and secrets she kept within.