A Murder for Christmas

by David W Robinson

“That’s not for me to say,” Patterson argued, “but one would hardly consider Dennis Wright a murderer. He told me last night that he considered Jennifer obsessive, but he didn’t appear unduly worried or angry about her persistence.”

  Barrett made a note. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Mr Patterson?”

  The academic shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Barrett closed his pocketbook and put it away. As an afterthought, he took it out again. “Do you know if Mrs Hardy had any family, sir?”

  Patterson nodded. “She had children. Let’s see, Jennifer was about 52, so they would be in their late twenties now. I’m afraid I don’t have any contact details, but they may be in her diary. Failing that, you’d have to come to the university on Wednesday in order to get them.”

  “All right, Mr Patterson, that’s all for now, but my boss, Chief Inspector Dockerty may want to speak to you when he gets here.” Barrett put his notebook away again. “In the meantime, I wonder if I could ask a favour. We need someone to identify the body. Could you oblige?”

  Patterson shook visibly. “Must I?”

  “It would help, sir.”

  With great reluctance, Patterson nodded and Barrett stood to lead the way out. “When Scientific Support are through, Mr Patterson, we’d also be grateful if you could take whatever personal effects we’re allowed to let go.”

  “That’s no problem,” Patterson assured him.

  ***

  The clock read just after five when Detective Chief Inspector Raymond Dockerty arrived at the hotel to be greeted by Barrett. Travelling up to the second floor in the lift, the junior man briefed Dockerty on events so far.

  Coming up to the age of 50, stout, square shouldered, his dark hair thinning on the crown, Dockerty’s reputation for thoroughness was matched only by his reputation for speaking his mind and not caring who heard. A long-serving detective with an impressive arrest record, it was often said that the only things preventing his promotion to Superintendent were his love of detailed investigation and his propensity for treading on delicate toes.

  “Who have you interviewed so far?” he asked when Barrett had run through his initial report.

  “No one, sir. It is still quite early.”

  “I’m up,” said the Chief Inspector, “and I see no reason why these bone idle buggers should be still sleeping when I’m not. And I certainly see no reason why a murderer should be snoring his head off, whether it’s Christmas Day or Judgement Day. Give me those two names again.”

  The lift stopped and the doors soughed open. Coming out into the corridor, leading the way to room 207, Barrett consulted his pocketbook. “Dr Dennis Wright and Mr George Robson. Wright is on this floor, room 204, opposite the woman, and Robson is on the next floor, room 319.”

  “What do Scientific Support have to say?”

  “Nothing too detailed, sir,” Barrett reported, “but you wouldn’t expect it yet. They’re keen to get her away to the mortuary. At the moment, all they’re saying is she was struck from behind. A single blow to the back of the head with a bottle of wine. Cheap house slop, looking at the label.”

  “I’m not remotely interested in your love of fine wine, Barrett,” Dockerty grumbled. “I wouldn’t know the difference between Sainsbury’s red and a bottle of vinegar. Stick to the facts, lad.”

  “Yes, sir. As part of the general Christmas thing, the hotel handed out a 75-centilitre bottle of wine, and a box of Belgian chocolates, to every guest at last night’s disco. The bottle which killed the woman was probably one of those, but we’d need to check the details on the label and compare it to the hotel records to confirm that.”

  “If it’s cheap stuff as you insist, they’re unlikely to have kept a record of who got which bottle.” Dockerty paused outside room 207. “How many guests staying here?”

  “One hundred and fifty-nine, sir. Seventy-one are from the Sanford Third Age Club, and a further eighty-six are with the Leodensian Historical Society. There are two guests not associated with either organisation or each other: Warren Kirkland and Oliver Quinton.”

  “That second one rings a bell,” Dockerty ruminated.

  “Lottery winner, sir.” Barrett beamed in the light of his own efficiency. “I had records run a check on him. Dropped a half share of a large jackpot some years ago, and now spends his time and money chasing rare coins. Kirkland is a businessman from the Midlands. He’s a coin collector, too.”

  Dockerty nodded. “So discount one dead woman, and we have one hundred and fifty-eight suspects.” Dockerty hunched his shoulders. “I want every one of them interviewed, so I’ll address them at breakfast. After we’re through here, you get onto the station and have some manpower shipped in for the interviews.” He nodded at the door. “All right, Barrett, let’s see her.” The constable pushed open the door and allowed his chief in first.

  Forensic officers, dressed in antiseptic white, all-in-one, coveralls, busied themselves around the room, dusting furniture and fittings for fingerprints, one taking photographs, the fourth man labelling sample bottles.

  Jennifer Hardy lay where she had fallen, her outstretched right hand close to a scrap of paper on which was a drawing. A deep welt had opened in the back of her head, and the surrounding carpet lay covered in a mixture of blood and wine. Her upturned handbag lay slightly out of reach of her hand, and the contents were spread in the immediate vicinity. Lower down, her knee-length, black nightie had ridden up exposing her buttocks.

  “Morning, Doc,” the Chief Inspector greeted the fourth officer currently labelling sample bottles. “Can you tell me anything?”

  “Very little. I can confirm what the reports say. She died an hour or more ago as a result of a blow to the head. I’ll know more when I’ve done the post mortem.”

  “Today?”

  The doctor sighed. “It is Christmas, Dockerty.”

  “I’ll be sure and let the killer know that when I have him.” Dockerty’s eyes narrowed. “I want the post mortem result ASAP.” He looked down at the woman. “Tasty for her age. Had she had sex?”

  “I don’t know,” the doctor replied, and when Dockerty scowled, he said, “I haven’t been allowed to move her. We were waiting for the senior officer to arrive and see her in situ.”

  Dockerty ignored the irritation. “Well, the senior officer’s seen her now, so you can take her.” He aimed his next order at the forensic officer nearest Jennifer’s head. “You. Get those items photographed,” he gestured at the contents of Jennifer’s handbag, “then bag them up and give me that scrap of paper.” He turned to his assistant. “Have you checked the mobile?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Then do it, lad. I want to know who she’s spoken to in the last week or two, right up to her death.”

  “Yes, sir.” Barrett pulled on forensic gloves and made to pick up the phone.

  Dockerty stopped him. “After the photographer’s got all his snaps.” Barrett straightened up and Dockerty said, “Right, sonny Jim. Let’s talk to the management and find ourselves an office where we can interview this Patterson bloke, and the other one. Doc, as soon as you can tell me anything, you ring me. Come on, Barrett.”

  At 6:15, a bleary-eyed George Robson entered the manager’s office at the rear of reception accompanied by Detective Constable Barrett, and found himself confronted by the businesslike Dockerty.

  “Sit down, Mr Robson,” the Chief Inspector ordered after introducing himself.

  George did as he was told, and Barrett took a seat to his right, opened his pocketbook and poised his pen, ready to take notes. Dockerty sat opposite, with several evidence bags at his elbow.

  “Right, sir, I need to ask you some questions, and I would appreciate honest answers. May I ask where you were at three thirty this morning?”

  “In bed.”

  “Alone?”

  George nodded. “And asleep. What’s all this about?”

  “All in good time, sir. You were pretty friendly with a lady named Jennifer
Hardy in the bar last night.”

  George nodded. “That’s not a crime, is it? She’s over twenty-one, so am I, and we’re both unattached.”

  “Did you escort that lady back to her room?”

  “Yes. And I don’t think that’s a crime, either.”

  “It isn’t,” Dockerty assured him. “Did you and Mrs Hardy have sex?”

  George bristled. “Mind your own bloody business.”

  “We’ll establish whether or not it’s my business shortly, sir.” Dockerty consulted his notes. “According to Mr Thomas Patterson, Chair of the Leodensian Historical Society, you introduced yourself as the Director of Leisure Services for Sanford Borough Council. According to our inquiries, you are, in fact, a gardener for Sanford Borough Council.”

  George blushed and grinned. “Yeah, well, Jennifer asked me to play the part. See, she was taking the mick with two guys who’d been annoying her in the bar.”

  Barrett made hurried notes. “Which two, er, guys, Mr Robson?”

  George shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I dunno their names. One was a small, fat bloke with greasy hair, the other was well dressed and had a beard.”

  “And they’d been annoying her?” Dockerty asked.

  “Yep. I think they’d been hitting on her, y’know? She asked me to put on this big show so she could give ’em the brush off.”

  “And you didn’t mind?”

  “I was on a promise,” George replied. “What did I care?”

  Owlish stares greeted his reply and George went on the defensive.

  “It was a white lie, for God’s sake. She asked me to tell it and I agreed cos I was trying to get into her pants.”

  “And did you, sir?” Barrett asked.

  “I’ve told you once, that’s nowt to do with you.”

  Dockerty reached into a buff folder and withdrew a seal-easy evidence bag containing a single scrap of paper. “Have a look at that, Mr Robson, and tell me what you think it means.”

  George drew the bag towards him.

  It was a drawing like nothing he had ever seen in his life. Two horizontal lines, curved, one up, one down, and next to it a circle at the top of a cross. Done in heavy, black pencil, it was scrawly, ill-defined, as if the artist had been shaking while drawing it.

  

  George handed it back and shrugged.

  “You have nothing to say about it, Mr Robson?” Dockerty persisted.

  “What would you expect me to say?” George demanded. “I’m a gardener, not a blooming archaeologist.”

  Dockerty put the drawing to one side. “Jennifer Hardy drew that,” he said, “just before she died.”

  George’s heartbeat increased. He began to tremble and suddenly felt weak. “What?”

  “Mrs Hardy was murdered, Mr Robson, at three thirty this morning. Now I will ask you again, did you have sex with the lady last night.”

  George took a long time answering, as if the implications of the situation were just beginning to sink in. “Yes. Yes I did,” George snapped.

  Dockerty ignored him. “Or did she refuse and faced with her refusal, did you lose your temper and hit her on the head with a bottle of hotel wine?”

  George’s head spun. A vision of the carpet spinning up to meet him filled his head. Fighting it down, he yelled. “No. I didn’t hurt her. We went back to her room after the disco finished, about one this morning. We had a drink from her mini-bar, she took a photograph of me with the camera on her phone, and then we got it on. I left her at two, and she was fine then. I went back to my room and straight to bed.”

  Pulling on forensic gloves, Dockerty dug into the evidence bags at his elbow and came out with Jennifer’s mobile phone. It took a few moments for him to work his way through the menus, but when he turned it to face George, there was a photograph on the screen; a photograph of himself smiling into the lens. It was a half body portrait, from head to waist, his hands held forward , holding a CD case in his hands, just as Jennifer had asked him.

  “Is that the photograph you mean, Mr Robson?”

  George reached for the phone. Dockerty stopped him.

  “Don’t touch it, sir. We don’t want to get any more of your fingerprints on it than we may find already. Can you confirm that this is the photograph Jennifer Hardy took of you last night?”

  George nodded. “Yes. Yes it is.”

  “Did Mrs Hardy say why she wanted the photograph, sir?” the Chief Inspector asked.

  George’s heartbeat had settled a little. “Julio Iglesias,” he said, pointing to the CD. “He was one of her favourites, and all she said to me was, she wanted a picture of her two favourite men of the moment. She was gonna use it to wind those two men up. I thought, whatever turns you on, chicken, and I posed for her.” George took in their disbelieving eyes. “It was what she wanted. That’s all I know.”

  Dockerty switched the phone off and put it back in the evidence bag. And what happened after that, Mr Robson?”

  “I just told you. I did as Jennifer asked, and then we, er, you know, got down to it.

  “But we have only your word for that, Mr Robson, and based on the evidence of this drawing, I’m inclined not to believe you.”

  “For God’s sake, man –”

  “I think she asked you to leave,” Dockerty pressed on. “I think you pressured her, she insisted, and threatened to call the police. I think you picked up that CD and that is when she took the photograph. I think she then warned you to get out, but instead you took a bottle of the house wine the hotel had given to every guest, and hit her with it.”

  “This is nuts.”

  “George Robson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder. Constable Barrett will caution you, and you’ll be taken to the station for further questioning.”

  Chapter Five

  When Joe rose at eight, it was to the sound of church bells pealing into the still, quiet air. He rolled from his bed and crossed to the window, parted the vertical blinds a few inches and looked out on streets covered in a white shroud. The snow had stopped but it was Sunday, December 25th and in common with the rest of the Christian world, the gritter drivers had not yet turned out.

  The Christmas card scene, the town hall and art gallery festooned with decorations, augmented by the overnight snow, appealed to the child in him. It was as if the magic of Christmas, so long buried in a lifetime of business concerns and work, had suddenly reappeared. But when he tried to tell himself he was excited, his inner self did not marry up to the feeling.

  He had made his peace with Sheila and Brenda before the clock struck midnight, and at the appointed hour, he handed their gifts over, to receive a bottle of aftershave from Sheila, a shower kit from Brenda, and a kiss on the cheek from each of them.

  There was more celebration in the crowded lounge before the DJ ended his show at half past midnight, and even then there were many ‘season’s greetings’ to be exchanged with both STAC and LHS members and it was almost one before the room began to clear.

  Walking out with his two companions, Joe spotted Tom Patterson leaving with Dennis Wright, the latter dividing his attention between Patterson and the sight of Jennifer Hardy arm in arm with George Robson. Wright was not the only one interested in them, either. Approaching the exit from opposite ends and sides of the room, Kirkland and Quinton were both intent on her and George.

  Joe noticed that several people were carrying bags emblazoned with the hotel logo. Then he noticed that everyone had them and it stung.

  “So what happened to my goodies?” he growled.

  “I have them here,” Sheila said, handing over his carrier. “I think you’d gone to the little boys’ room when the staff handed them out. Either that or you were skulking outside with a cigarette.”

  “I do not skulk,” he reproved her. Peering into the bag, he found a 75cl bottle of house red and a small box of luxury chocolates. “Remind me to give them to you two tomorrow,” he said.

  “Ungrateful swine,” Brenda giggled.

 
“Joe doesn’t drink wine, do you, dear?” Sheila teased.

  “Wine is for toffs,” he grunted. “Give me brown ale every time. And who eats fancy chocolates like that?”

  “Brenda,” Sheila replied.

  “Me,” Brenda echoed.

  “Well you can have ’em. I’ll settle for a steak and kidney pie at the Lazy Luncheonette on Wednesday.”

  He escorted his lady friends back to their room, bid them both as fond a ‘goodnight’ as he could muster, and then retired to his own room where he switched on his netbook and wrote a brief account of the evening. Half an hour later, he settled into bed and switched off the lights.

  As usual, an evening of drinking had seen him out of bed several times during the night to visit the bathroom. On one such occasion, he thought he heard the sound of police sirens close by, but decided that there was nothing unusual about that in wintry conditions on a night of unrivalled revelry. “More likely an ambulance than the cops,” he muttered as he climbed back into bed.

  Coming down in the lift at 8:45, when it stopped at the second floor to pick up more passengers, Joe felt certain he had seen a uniformed police officer standing outside a room door further along the landing, but the doors closed, the lift carried on down to the ground floor, and he thought no more of it. If he had known any of the passengers in the lift, he may have asked, but they were all members of the LHS and he knew none of them.

  It was only when he made the dining room and found several uniformed officers in attendance that the matter began to coalesce in his mind. After helping himself to bacon, eggs and two slices of toast from the buffet, he took a seat between Brenda and Sheila, his mind filled with questions.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Brenda replied through a mouthful of corn flakes, “but it must be serious. When Sheila and I came down the stairs, there were plain clothes men all over the second floor, and I saw others coming in wearing white overalls.”

  “Scientific Support,” Sheila said. “Front line scene of crime officers, dressed so that they don’t contaminate any evidence.”