by Tim Ellis
Dark Christmas
(Josiah Dark #1)
Tim Ellis
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2013 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All the characters and places in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to locations or actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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A big thank you to proofreader James Godber
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0125 hours
Wednesday, December 25
Santa’s brought our presents
Hip, hip, hip hooray
Let’s unwrap them now
And take them out to play
He hummed the Christmas Carol under his breath as he let himself into 97 Merridew Road in Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester. Whether it was a proper Christmas Carol, or something he’d just made up in his head, he had no idea, but it rhymed and that’s what mattered. Not that he was any kind of expert when it came to Christmas Carols, or anything else for that matter.
Who’d have thought it – snow on Christmas Day? He wiped his snow-caked boots on the doormat inside the kitchen door. If he hadn’t been so busy with his own preparations for Christmas he might have put a bet on.
The smell of cat’s piss, cigarettes and stale beer wafted up his nose as he made his way through the house and into the lounge. The small penlight in his white gloved hand picked out the cheap five-foot Christmas tree wedged between the widescreen television and the brick fireplace.
There were no interior designers in this house – a potpourri of tinsel and baubles had been thrown at the tree in a haphazard manner – some of it had stuck. There was no colour-co-ordination, no spatial awareness and no artistic content. If he was marking the tree out of ten it would be worth maybe a one-point-five, and that was being festively generous.
He eased the hessian sack down onto the carpet, crouched and rummaged around for the Crumpsall family presents. The white moustache and beard – attached to the lower half of his face by a strip of elastic over the top of his head – bunched up and tickled his nose as he leaned over. He pulled the fur down and squeezed his nostrils together before he sneezed and woke the whole house up.
As he found each of the five Christmas presents, he jiggled them out of the sack and stuffed them under the tree towards the back: One for dad, one for mum, one for Tammy, one for Pansy and the last one for little Billy.
A glass of sherry and a mince pie had been left on the coffee table for him next to the half-finished game of Monopoly, the finger-smudged eight-inch tablet and the overflowing ashtray. He drank the sherry, took a substantial bite of the mince pie and put the rest of it back on the plate. Then he stood up, hefted the sack over his shoulder and made his way to the back door.
It was going to be a busy night. His next delivery was in Cheadle Hulme, then Gatley, Wilmslow and finally Poynton.
As he crunched through the falling snow towards his car, a drunken couple staggered across the icy road.
‘Hey, it’s Santa,’ the young woman said.
‘You’re drunk, Diane. It’s a guy in a Santa costume.’
‘No! Don’t say that. You’re just trying to spoil Christmas for me.’
‘If it really is Santa, where’s his reindeer – Thumper?’
The woman fell on her knees laughing. ‘You shouldn’t have had that last beer, Harry.’
‘Will you stop embarrassing me in public?’
‘Merry Christmas, Santa,’ Diane called.
He gave her a wave. ‘Merry Christmas, Diane.’
‘See, Santa knows my name. Hey, are you going to bring my presents tonight, Santa?’
Harry tried to lift Diane up, but slipped and fell on top of her. ‘Don’t worry, Di, I’ve got your present in my trousers.’
She shoved him away from her. ‘You’re a dirty bastard, Harry Pointer.’
He smiled as he climbed into his car. Had he ever been that young? He’d been falling-down drunk lots of times, but he’d never had a girlfriend. He’d had sex sometimes – with prostitutes. His life had mostly been a long desolate road without love, without joy, without meaning – until tonight.
Tonight would define his life.
***
0345 hours
Something had woken her up.
She jumped out of bed, ran to the window and looked out.
There was no Snowman.
No Snow Dog.
The Polar Express hadn’t stopped for her.
There were no reindeers with jangling bells – no sleigh.
Had Santa forgotten his promise?
She’d been very, very good – hadn’t she?
Maybe . . .
She slipped on her dressing gown, opened the bedroom door and crept downstairs.
Santa hadn’t forgotten.
He’d drunk the sherry, taken a bite out of the mince pie that mummy had put out for him and left her presents under the Christmas tree.
She sat crossed-legged on the rug and pulled the first present towards her . . .
The light went on.
‘Do you know what time it is, young lady?’
‘Santa’s been, mummy.’
‘So he has. Well, don’t open any presents until I’ve made a cup of tea, and . . . Happy Christmas, Helen darling.’
Helen stood up and hugged her mummy. ‘This is the best Christmas ever. Happy Christmas, Mummy.’
Once Margaret Nicholson had her cup of tea, she went back into the lounge and sat in a chair. ‘Okay, darling. You can open some of your presents now, and then we’ll go back to bed.’
‘All right, Mummy. What about Uncle Terry?’
‘He won’t be getting up until later. Save some of your presents for when he’s awake.’
Helen picked the first present up and began shaking it.
‘Who’s it from?’
‘Auntie Trudi.’
‘Open it.’
Helen tore the paper from Auntie Trudi’s present. ‘A jumper.’
‘From Primark – How kind of Auntie Trudi.’
Helen pulled the next present from under the tree.
‘That’s a funny shape, darling. Who’s it from?’
Helen read the tag: ‘To Helen from Santa.’ She picked it up. ‘It smells funny.’
‘Maybe it’s some funny soap from Lush, or sweets from Turkey. Uncle Romney’s just come back from Turkey, hasn’t he?’
‘It’s heavy. Oh . . .’
‘What, darling?’
‘It’s leaking.’
‘You’d better open it up quickly. We might have to put it in the freezer.’
Helen tore at the paper and then screamed . . .
***
0405 hours
‘Dark.’
‘You sound as though you’re awake, Dark. You know Santa won’t bring your presents if you sit there waiting to ambush him?’
He’d slept on the sofa again. The bed
was like a wasteland without Ellie.
Photograph albums littered the floor.
‘What can I do for you, Chief?’
‘Get over to 15 Booth Road in Wilmslow.’
He waited. The Chief wanted him to ask why, but he wasn’t going to. Detective Chief Superintendent John Henn had been Head of the Serious Crime Division (SCD) at Greater Manchester Police (GMP) for three months. Dark didn’t particularly like him, and the feeling was mutual.
In these days of a lean, mean police machine Dark was an anachronism. The only reason he was tolerated was that he had a knack of finding murderers, which affected clear-up rates, improved statistics and kept the people above in a state of delirium.
‘Five year-old Helen Nicholson crept out of bed at three forty-five this morning to open her Christmas presents and got a bit of a shock . . .’
Henn was a decade younger than him, which wasn’t particularly a problem – he’d never hankered after high office or wanted to do anything other than what he was already doing. Licking arses was never a hobby he ever wanted to take up.
‘Are you still there, Dark?’
‘Waiting for you to get to the point, Chief.’
‘The girl unwrapped a body part.’
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Also, I’m sending along a Detective Constable Annie Lake to meet you there.’
‘You know I work alone, Sir.’
‘DC Lake needs a partner . . .’
His left eyelid began to twitch. He closed it and massaged the skin with the tip of his index finger. ‘I work alone.’
‘If you’d wanted to dictate policy you should have applied for my job, Dark.’
‘I’ve worked alone since . . .’
‘And now you’re going to stop working alone. Lake is being groomed. She needs a partner, someone to show her the ropes, but most of all she needs experience . . . You haven’t got a partner and you have a bucketful of experience. I’m the Chief, I make the decisions. It’s a done deal – live with it.’
The line went dead.
Shit!
He had a quick shave and shower, donned his habitual black roll-neck sweater, trousers and shoes, and ran a brush through his unruly silver hair. Depending on the light, people said he resembled a whole host of various male personalities such as Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, George Clooney, or even Richard Gere. In all honesty, he didn’t look like any of them. The shoulder-length hair gave the impression of familiarity, but he thought he looked more like a gangster than a celebrity. Yes, he was reasonably good-looking, but a terrible darkness hung over him like a shroud. He was forty-nine and lived alone since Ellie had left him a year ago today and taken their two daughters – seven year-old Coco and eight year-old Cleo – with her. He’d come home from work and found them gone. No prior warning, and no reason for leaving that he could think of. The printed note simply said:
DON’T TRY TO FIND US
Of course, he had. But a private detective he’d paid a couple of thousand pounds to – came back empty-handed. And there had been no word from them since. It was as if they’d vanished from the face of the earth.
He walked downstairs and put on his black overcoat.
A partner! He hated working with other people, and he especially hated working with arse-lickers.
***
0443 hours
Booth Road was full of semi-detached and terraced ex-council houses that had been purchased under the Right-to-Buy Scheme. Even though most of the houses had been extended, modified and improved, they still looked like ex-council houses. Number 15 was no different from all the others.
He parked his black two year-old Toyota Rav-4 behind the plain white forensic van and walked along the road.
A female officer wearing a thigh-length High-Viz jacket lifted the crime scene tape that had been stretched across the road.
He ducked under it. ‘Thanks.’
The press were already clogging up the street and making everybody’s life a misery.
‘Any news, Inspector?’
‘It is true that a whole family have been murdered?’
‘Has Santa been killed?’
‘You must have had a strange childhood, Wilson.’
He ignored them. Although it was only a temporary solution. Sooner, rather than later, he’d have to feed them some scraps.
A small tent had been erected at the front door to prevent long-range television and camera lenses from gaining entry. He donned the hooded paper suit, gloves, boots and mask.
‘DI Dark?’ a smallish woman asked. Although most average-sized women were smallish to a six-foot three-inch man.
‘And you are?’
‘DC Annie Lake.’ She proffered a hand.
He ignored it and walked past her. ‘Tyree?’
‘All right, you don’t have to shout, Dark,’ the Head of Forensics – Polly Tyree – said.
He made his way into the living room – taking note of the sparse decorations, the crushed beer cans and the overflowing ashtray. ‘Well?’
‘And a Merry Christmas to you as well.’ She pointed to two large and one small clear zip-up plastic evidence bags sitting on the dark brown leather sofa. Each one had a body part and a piece of torn red Santa wrapping paper inside; and a small stick-on white label with the details of the discovery written on it on the outside.
‘Looks like a forearm, a foot and an ear,’ he said. He wasn’t surprised. He’d seen his fair share of what one human being could do to another.
‘I don’t know why they have a forensics department when they’ve got you, Dark.’
He peered more closely. ‘Are those tags?’
‘Yes. Each present has a tag. The foot was for Helen, the forearm for Terry, and the ear for Margaret, so he knew their names.’
‘Distinguishing marks?’
‘No.’
‘Pathologist?’
‘I rang him and said not to bother attending.’
He stared at her, but didn’t say anything. He was glad Polly was on the case. She was the best Scenes of Crime Officer (SOCO) he’d worked with, and he’d worked with a few.
‘He’d have arrived, said what you just said and gone home again. There didn’t seem much point in having both of you here.’
‘Post mortem?’
‘You do know it’s Christmas Day?’
‘I’m fully aware of what day it is.’
Polly touched his arm. ‘Sorry.’
‘Yeah . . . So, post mortem?’
‘He said to drop by about three o’clock.’
Dark nodded.
‘Have you forgotten to introduce me to your new partner?’
‘No. Anything else?’
‘DC Annie Lake,’ the white-suited figure standing to one side of Dark said and proffered a hand.
‘Nice to meet you, DC Lake,’ Polly said, ignoring the hand. ‘I’m Polly Tyree – Senior SOCO, and for future reference we never shake hands at a crime scene.’
Lake dropped her arm. ‘Of course, sorry.’
Polly turned back to Dark. ‘There are boot prints in the snow outside that we’re trying to get impressions of before they turn to slush. He came in through the back door . . .’
‘Forced?’
‘No.’
‘Interesting. Fingerprints?’
‘I’ll let you know later, but we think he was dressed in a Santa costume.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s left a trail of red fibres and white fur.’
‘As you’ve pointed out – it is Christmas. What about the father?’
She shook her head. ‘No. The father is dead. The stepfather hasn’t got a Santa suit either. Also, you know how people leave a mince pie and a glass of sherry out for Santa?’
‘Go on.’
‘Santa drank the sherry and ate most of the mince pie.’
‘And it wasn’t a family member?’
‘I’ll obviously process them for elimination purposes, but I don’t think so.’
‘It’s a strong possibility.’
‘Let’s hope he’s on the database.’ He pointed at the body parts in the evidence bags. ‘And these?’
‘They’re not from the same person. The foot is female, the forearm and ear are male.’
‘Can you tell . . . ?’
‘No, I can’t tell you anything else about them. My unbiased opinion is to wait for the post mortem.’
‘Is that it then?’
‘Yes. The family are in the back room.’
He wandered out.
‘You’re welcome,’ Polly called after him. ‘Have a wonderful Christmas, Dark.’
The three family members were sitting together at the dining table in the back room. The pale-faced mother had her arm round the shoulders of a thin brown-haired girl who was wearing glasses that looked like the bottom of milk bottles.
He slipped off his mask and nodded at the female Victim Support Officer standing by the window behind the family.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Dark,’ he said to Mrs Margaret Nicholson. ‘Is it all right if I ask Helen a couple of questions?’
She nodded.
The man’s hands were shaking as he tried to light a cigarette.
Mrs Nicholson elbowed him. ‘Do you have to?’
He stood up and left the room.
‘Sorry,’ the woman said.
He smiled at the girl. ‘Happy Christmas,’ he said, but then realised it probably wasn’t appropriate. ‘Can you tell me what happened this morning?’
