A Murder for Christmas

by David W Robinson

“I wasn’t thinking of interfering.” Joe backed off another step. “All I’m asking is you keep me informed of where you’re at, and I swear that if I come across anything, I will bring you up to speed on it. For instance, you must have taken pictures of the crime scene. What’s to say that I won’t see something you didn’t?”

  “Of course we have and I doubt very much that you will be able to spot anything I haven’t already seen. Those photographs may be introduced as evidence, and I will not, therefore, allow you to see them.” Dockerty, too, backed off on his hard line stance, but not as far as Joe. “We appreciate whatever help we can get, Mr Murray. I’d be grateful if you kept us informed of anything you may learn.”

  “You’re not easy to work with, are you? I mean, I already worked two things out, didn’t I?”

  “The photograph and what else, Mr Murray?”

  “If George had already had his oats, why would he kill the woman? He’s not married, she couldn’t blackmail him, so why?”

  “Maybe he wanted seconds,” Barrett said.

  Joe snorted. “Ike, at your age, I’ll bet George would have come back for seconds, possibly thirds, but he’s in his mid-fifties. He may still be a bit of a ram, but he’s no stallion. Not anymore.”

  “Mr Murray…”

  Joe went on before the Chief Inspector could get any further. “And that drawing. Did you show it to George?”

  “We did,” Dockerty agreed.

  “And what did he have to say about it?”

  “He said he couldn’t make head nor tail of it because he’s – I quote – ‘a gardener, not a blooming archaeologist’,” Barrett reported, reading from his pocketbook.

  “He’s also thick as a brick,” Joe ventured. “If you asked an archaeologist about those signs, he’d put completely the wrong interpretation on them.” He stared at the two police officers. “Just the way you have.”

  “And what do you mean by that?” Dockerty demanded.

  Joe pointed to the stick figure. “That is the astrological symbol for the planet Venus. Astronomers use it too. It’s also the internationally recognised symbol for a female.”

  “Which is exactly what I said.” Dockerty remained smugly triumphant.

  “I know you did. But it’s the other lines I’d query. See, I print my own little books.” Joe smiled modestly. “Details of my successful cases. Now, back in the days before the internet, when I first looked into the possibility, I was told I would need to learn about printer’s galley proofs and correction marks. Jennifer’s drawing isn’t strictly accurate, but those curves remind me of an author’s rough note on transposing words.”

  Both officers frowned. “Come again,” Barrett said.

  With an irritated cluck, Joe took the officer’s notebook and wrote his name, surname first, then drew curved arrows pointing in opposite directions above and below it.

  

  “You see, if someone had printed my name like that and I wanted it the right way round, that is how I would let the printer know, and that is exactly what the drawing found near Jennifer Hardy looks like to me.”

  “Well, I disagree,” Dockerty said. “There are probably dozens of different interpretations we could put on it, depending on your point of view. To me it indicates something to do with sex, and that points the finger straight at George Robson.”

  “If that spells sex to you, Dockerty, you should spend more time with your wife. Either that or find yourself a bit on the side.”

  Chapter Six

  “George? A killer? That’s absurd.”

  Joe nodded his agreement with Sheila’s assertion.

  “Bloody crazy is what it is,” Brenda growled. She bounced to her feet. “Well, I’ll put ’em right. They’ll let him go when I’m through with them.”

  Half an hour had passed since Joe’s interview with the police, and they had moved from the dining room to the lounge where many people sat in cliques. There was only one topic for discussion and as if to reinforce it, the police sat at half a dozen tables under the windows furthest from the bar, taking statements from individuals.

  Of his two friends, Brenda, as usual, had dressed more outrageously, wearing a bright red, knitted sweater, festooned with reindeer and Christmas tree motifs. It was also a size too small and stressed her finer points: both of them. Sheila, meantime, looked as demure as ever in a navy blue jumper and trousers.

  And it was Sheila who called a halt to Brenda’s bullheadedness. “What are you going to tell them?”

  Brenda maintained her defiance. “I’ll tell them George spent the night with me and can’t have done it.”

  “But that’s a lie. You were asleep in our room all night,” Sheila reminded her best friend.

  “So what?” Brenda challenged. “They can’t prove that.”

  “Sheila’s right, Brenda, so sit down and wait until you’re called,” Joe ordered. “And when they do call you, tell them the truth. You know nothing.”

  “So we leave poor George to suffer?”

  “No, we don’t,” Joe assured her. “What you do is listen to me. For a start off, George has already admitted he was with Jennifer Hardy, so there’s no point trying to lie him out of jail from that angle. We know George hasn’t killed her, but we only know it intellectually. We can’t prove it. We have to prove he’s innocent and based on the thin evidence the cops have gathered, that won’t be easy. Their interpretation of that drawing is the only thing they have on George, but trying to shake them is like trying to get a hungry Rottweiler away from your waste food bins.”

  “The simplest way is to find the real killer,” Sheila ventured. “Just like we did in Chester.”

  “It’s not the simple way,” Joe argued. “It’s the only way, and it won’t be easy. It happened in the early hours of the morning. Who was out and about? No one. Who saw anything? No one. The only real information the cops have is from Tom Patterson, in the next room, the guy what raised the alarm.”

  “So what can we do?”

  “We can get logical. Tom heard the bottle being smashed. Apparently, he said it sounded like it was smashed against a piece of furniture, but that’s exactly what anyone would think. What he actually heard was the bottle smashing against her head.”

  Brenda cringed. “Joe. Please.”

  “Hey,” he urged, “get real on this. Murder isn’t pleasant. No matter how the killer moves his victim to the next world, it’s nasty. But this method begs a few questions, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” Brenda asked.

  Sheila smiled. “I sense a Joe Murray analysis coming on, and I’m quite ready to pull it apart. Go on, Joe.”

  He sat forward, closing in on them so no one could overhear. “Brenda, you’re the expert on bed-hopping. Suppose –”

  “I beg your pardon.” Brenda’s interruption was loud enough to be heard across the room. Aware that she was suddenly the centre of everyone’s attention, including the police’s, she toned it down. “You make me sound like a tart.”

  Joe huffed out his breath. “All right. Let’s say you’re more experienced at relationships than Sheila and me. Suppose someone came knocking on your door carrying a bottle of wine? What would you think?”

  “That he was after bed-hopping with me.”

  Sheila laughed. “How very succinctly put, Brenda.” More soberly, she went on, “The problem is, Joe, that it’s exactly what the police will think George was up to.”

  “I know that. But even if you lose your temper, why hit the woman with the bottle? It’s noisy and messy. The wine won’t just have been all over the floor, but over the killer, too. See? If you’re going to lose it, you strangle the poor sow. It’s much quieter and less messy.”

  “If he’s angry, he won’t have been thinking straight, Joe,” Brenda objected.

  “All right, so maybe it was a spur of the moment thing, but what caused him to lose his temper?” Joe pressed on before they could try to answer. “I saw him and Jennifer Hardy walking out of the ballroom at one o�
�clock. The police have established the time of death at just after three thirty. What were she and George doing for that two and a half hours?”

  Brenda chuckled. “I’ve yet to meet a man who can make it last half an hour, never mind two and a half.”

  “My point precisely,” Joe agreed. “Yet the cops are working on the theory that he killed her because she turned him down. It doesn’t take two and a half hours to say no to someone. Even someone as persistent as George.”

  “This is all circumstantial, Joe,” Sheila argued. “It is entirely possible for George to have spent two and a half hours talking with Jennifer, and he may have made several attempts to seduce her. She may finally have said something like, ‘you can try all you like, George, but you’re not going to get what you want,’ at which point, he may have lost his temper and killed her.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Joe demanded.

  Sheila shrugged. “I’m simply stating facts. I don’t believe George killed her any more than you do, and I said so just a few moments ago.”

  Joe stared around the room, seeking inspiration. Tom Patterson had just entered and sat with some of his people. He looked tired and despondent.

  Joe returned to his two companions. “The killer still has to get the hell out of the room, and he has to lock the door. Dockerty told me the night manager had to use the pass key to let himself in.”

  Sheila shook her head. “Wrong again, Joe. The doors lock automatically from the outside when you close them.”

  “Do they?” Joe appeared startled. “Yeah. Course they do.” He dragged the discussion back where it should be. “No matter. He’s killed her. He’s covered in wine and possibly blood. Patterson has heard the fuss and he’s called the night manager. Our killer needs to get away. He legs it. But where to?”

  “His room, presumably,” Sheila said.

  Joe nodded. “Which is where?”

  “If it was George, it was on the third floor,” Brenda said.

  “Correct, and that is exactly why it isn’t George.” He could see the puzzlement in their eyes. “Think about it. He’s coming out of the room, he’s in a hell of a mess, soaked in wine and stuff, maybe even blood. At all costs, he dare not meet anyone else. He doesn’t know the night manager is on his way up, but it’s a risk he daren’t take anyway, so he goes straight to his room. He wouldn’t use the lift because he has no way of knowing whether there’s anyone in it until it stops and the doors open. He would have to use the stairs, but again, he doesn’t know if there’s anyone about and he can’t know until he reaches the next floor up. If no one, particularly the night crew, saw anyone, the simplest, most logical explanation is that the killer’s room was on the second floor, not the third.”

  “That’s an assumption, Joe, not an explanation,” Sheila told him. “And did any member of the night crew see anything or anyone?”

  “I dunno and Dockerty probably won’t tell me … but young Ike might.” He grinned wolfishly and took out his tobacco tin.

  “Oh, Joe, you can’t –”

  “If you’re gonna tell me I can’t smoke this in here, don’t bother.”

  Brenda fumed. “I wasn’t going to say anything about smoking. I was going to tell you, you can’t leave the hotel. The police won’t let you.”

  Joe rolled his cigarette with practised ease. “They’re letting the bible bashers go to church, so they can let me out the front door for a cigarette.”

  Sheila clucked. “Really, Joe. Bible bashers? They’re devout Christians.”

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with church,” he admitted, “except when they come round rattling the charity box.” He tucked the cigarette in his shirt pocket, and abruptly changed the subject. “And that drawing doesn’t make sense, either.”

  “You mean the police interpretation of it?”

  Joe shook his head. “No, I mean the whole thing, and that includes Dockerty’s interpretation of it.”

  “All right,” Sheila asked, “what is it that doesn’t make sense?”

  Joe fiddled with his Zippo lighter. “Put yourself in Jennifer Hardy’s position. Someone has just lamped her with a bottle of wine. She’s dazed, dying, in terrible pain. And the first thing she does is draw a crazy diagram that is wide open to several interpretations. Does that make sense? Why not scrawl out the killer’s name or even his initials?”

  “Maybe she didn’t know his name,” Brenda suggested.

  Joe snorted and Sheila giggled.

  “Brenda, this woman was well educated; a bit of class totty, not Sanford rough. She would have at least known with whom she was having the pleasure.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Brenda objected. “And if you call me a bit of Sanford rough again, I’ll be the next one arrested for murder.” She took a moment to calm down. “Someone may just have knocked on her door at random. There are plenty of nutters around who do that sort of thing.”

  Joe considered the possibility and dismissed it with a shake of the head. “No. She knew who it was, all right. She turned her back on him.”

  “How do you know?” Sheila asked.

  “Dockerty told me. She was hit on the back of the skull. That means she had turned away from the attacker, and you don’t turn your back on nutters. Besides, if she didn’t know him, what was the point of the drawing? No, this whole thing just doesn’t add up.” His eye roamed the lounge again and fell on Tom Patterson sat with a few of his members. Joe stood. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  He crossed the room, nodding to Les Tanner, Sylvia Goodson, and Alec and Julia Staines, all of whom were sitting together. Arriving at a group of chairs occupied by LHS members, he tapped Patterson on the shoulder.

  “Morning, Tom. I’m sorry to hear about Jennifer.”

  “So are we all, Joe. What a terrible thing to happen.”

  “One of your crowd was arrested, I believe,” said an elderly man wearing a pristine shirt and tie beneath a dinner jacket.

  Taking him to be an academic, Joe said, “Yeah, well, you know what we ex-miners are like. Thugs, the lot of us.” Leaving the other man gawping, he said to Patterson, “Could I have a word, Tom?”

  “Of course, Joe.”

  Patterson got to his feet and leaving the LHS assembly at the table, the two men ambled across to the shuttered bar.

  “This is a bad business,” Patterson said as they leaned on the polished oak counter. “And I’m sorry for you, too. To have one of your friends commit such an appalling act, is … I don’t know, it’s just…” He trailed off unable to find the words.

  “What makes it worse is the police have the wrong man,” Joe insisted.

  Patterson’s eyes widened. He looked around the room as if ensuring no one else was listening, but Joe knew better. He was trying to absorb the implications of what he had just heard. He swung his head back and looked into Joe’s earnest face.

  “The wrong man?”

  Joe nodded. “I know George Robson. Even if Jennifer turned him down, he wouldn’t have hurt her. It’s not his style. He wouldn’t even slap her about, let alone kill her. There are problems with the police theories, Tom, but that Dockerty is not going to listen to me, and the only way I can help George is to find the real killer.” He chuckled. “I can give them three other suspects without even thinking about it. Maybe even four or five.”

  “You can?”

  Joe nodded. “Dennis Wright, me … and you.”

  Patterson’s chunky features ran a gamut of emotions from surprise, through to amazement and then worry. “Dennis Wright? You? Me?”

  Joe nodded. “She had a blazing argument with Dennis Wright yesterday, and with me, and you admitted in the bar last night that you hit on her and she turned you down.”

  Patterson tried to smile. “Oh, but that was two years ago, Joe.”

  “Doesn’t matter. There are three men with reasons for … let’s say, attacking her, if not actually killing her, and all three of us had stronger motives than George Robson, because Geo
rge only wanted one thing; his legover. And if I know George, he had it, which in turn, means he had no reason to kill her. Over and above that, there’s that greasy little squirt, Oliver Quinton and the other guy; the beard. Warren Kirkland.”

  Patterson frowned. “I know Kirkland, but I’m not familiar with Oliver Quinton.”

  “Count yourself lucky,” Joe said. “Nasty piece of work. Short, fat, greasy hair; he was arguing with Wright at the bar and then he and Jennifer were having words on the dance floor.”

  “Oh, yes. I know whom you mean. I didn’t know his name.” Patterson chewed his lip agitatedly. “Have you told the police any of this?”

  “I tried, but they don’t wanna listen. I could have done with getting a look in Jennifer’s room, though, but they won’t even allow that.”

  The Chair of the LHS shuddered. “It wasn’t pretty, believe me. I was called in to identify her the moment the police got here. It was awful. Her handbag spilled all over the floor, the wine from the bottle mixed with her blood.” He shivered again. “A terrible sight.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet.” Joe allowed a diplomatic pause. “So what are they doing with her personal effects?”

  “Such as we’re allowed to take away, they’ve been handed to me so that I can pass them on to her children and ex-husband. They’ve kept some back. The contents of her handbag.” Patterson’s malleable features meandered into vague puzzlement. “I’ll tell you what’s odd, Joe. Her laptop is missing. I asked the police about it, but they say they haven’t found it, and I think they think she didn’t have it with her.”

  “And did she?” Joe asked.

  “Oh yes. Jennifer was a workaholic. Even over the Christmas period, she would find time to do a little work, even if it was only a spot of editing on her latest paper.” Patterson gave a wan smile. “We’re all the same, us historians. I ended up doing a little work this morning, myself, while I waited for the police to interview me. Jennifer never went anywhere without her laptop. She was a very clever woman, you know. Like all of us, she published the occasional title, but while most of us preferred to buy in illustrations, Jennifer did her own.”