He tucked into his seat as Carmichael closed his show to generous applause.
“Excellent entertainment,” Tanner declared.
“Amateur,” Joe decided. “Trite and hackneyed.”
“Joe, where have you been?” Sheila wanted to know.
“You missed every minute of that act,” Brenda grumbled.
“I’ve been trying to find a killer,” Joe replied.
“And have you?” Sylvia asked.
“No,” Joe admitted, “but if it helped me miss every minute of that clown’s so-called act, it was worth it.”
Chapter Thirteen
There was a lull in the proceedings, while Nate Immacyoulate set up his equipment, allowing guests to refresh their drinks. Tanner, Sylvia and the Staines wandered off and Joe took the opportunity to give his friends a rundown on his investigations so far.
“I believe it was either Dennis Wright, Warren Kirkland or Oliver Quinton who killed Jennifer, and they took advantage of you, George, sleeping with her to pin it on you,” he concluded.
“It seems likely,” Sheila agreed, “but which one?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Joe admitted. “It seems to me that there was something going on in the background, some kinda plan, and they chose George as the patsy. I think it had something to do with the Middleton Penny.” He shrugged. “Whatever it was, it went wrong and Jennifer ended up dead instead of whatever they had planned.”
“I don’t understand, Joe,” Sheila complained. “What kind of scheme could they be hatching?”
Again, he shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Wright had Quinton or Kirkland, or both, down as a mark … a mug. They were going to hand him a fake penny, take his money and run. But they needed a clown like you, George, so that the other would have someone to come back on when they rumbled the scam. You told me, George, that Jennifer said, ‘you can have what you want, but I need you to do me a favour and pretend to be a big wheel art collector’.” He raised his eyebrows for confirmation.
“Not really, Joe,” George disagreed. “She asked me to pose as a businessman, not an art collector.”
“You haven’t seen that doctored photograph,” Joe muttered and before they could ask, he went on, “Maybe Quinton or Kirkland rumbled it, waited for you to leave then went back and got into an argument with Jennifer and killed her.”
“An interesting idea,” Sheila ruminated.
“It would also explain why Wright is so moody,” Brenda ventured. “Not only has his scam gone to pot, but he’s lost his girlfriend, too, and he can’t own up about it because he would be exposed as a potential crook.”
“What’s your next move, maestro?” Sheila wanted to know.
Joe shook his head. “I’m not sure. I need to speak to Quinton again. And I need to crack the whole thing before Dockerty gets back tomorrow morning, because I’ll have to hand over both the computer and the diary by then.” He frowned. “I still get the feeling I’m missing something. It’s trivial, but important.”
“That’s you all over, Joe,” Brenda ribbed him, “trivial, but important; especially when it comes to paying our wages.”
Joe scowled. “Overpaying you, you mean.” He scanned the room again, seeking Quinton, and spotted him by the windows exchanging words with Mavis Barker. “I’d better go rescue him,” he muttered and picked up his glass.
A blast of music from the wall speakers made Joe cringe. It was followed by a thudding, background beat, and the booming voice of the deejay.
“Good evening, ladies and gennelmen, welcome to the Regency partay here on Christmas Day. This is your resident deejay, Nate Immacyoulate, taking you through to the small hours, so let it all hang out and boogie the night away. We’re gonna track back to 1979 and get the show under way with Blondie and Heart of Glass.”
While the music began and people began to move to the dance floor, Joe manoeuvred himself in the opposite direction until he stood alongside Mavis Barker who was giving Quinton both barrels.
“What’s wrong, Mavis?” Joe asked.
“This ignorant little twerp. I went to the bar for a drink and he pinched my seat. And when I complained, do you know what he said to me?”
“Well, not everyone learned proper manners,” Joe said. “Why don’t you go collar Brenda? She was looking for someone to dance with, and George isn’t feeling up to it.”
With a final scowl at Quinton, Mavis wandered off and Joe sat down.
“Whatever you want, Murray, forget it. I’ve nothing more to say to you.”
“I think you have,” Joe replied. “If only an apology for bad-mouthing one of my members like that.”
“She’s a –”
“She’s a smashing woman, if a bit eccentric,” Joe interrupted, “and even if you didn’t pinch her seat, there’s no call for bad language.”
“Bad language? Me? You should have heard the way she spoke to me. Like a bloody trooper.” Quinton swirled red wine around his glass. “So, what do you want? Come to accuse me of Jennifer’s murder again?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Tell me again what Jennifer said to you on the dance floor last night. When she lost the plot.”
“Any reason why I should?” Quinton asked.
“Because I’ve just heard a different version,” Joe replied, “and if you don’t tell me, then I may accuse you of her murder.”
Quinton sighed. “I spoke to Wright. He sent me away with a flea in my ear. So I decided to have it out with Jennifer and she did the same. Told me she never wanted to see me again, and I had to get out of her life. That’s it.”
Joe sipped at his ale and Quinton took a mouthful of wine.
“That doesn’t quite square with what I’ve just been told,” Joe said, putting his glass on the table.
“Then whoever told you is lying.” Quinton, too, put his glass down, and sat forward. “For the umpteenth time, Murray, I did not kill her.”
“And I may or may not believe you,” Joe retorted, “but my information tells me you had a powerful motive.”
“Not getting my hands on the Middleton Penny may be a disappointment, but still no reason for killing her.”
“I’m not talking about the Middleton Penny. I’m talking about you learning just how much Jennifer Hardy used you.” Joe forced a cynical laugh, almost buried under the noise of Debbie Harry. “She led you on a proper dance, didn’t she? Strung you along for months with the hope of landing the Middleton Penny, when what she was really doing was researching a novel. And when she learned last night that Dennis Wright wasn’t interested in a novel set around the Middleton Penny, she took it out on you when you confronted her.”
While he spoke, Joe watched the millionaire’s features darken, and then settle into a mask of absolute fury, and he knew he had it right.
Like Wright earlier, Quinton took a long time to answer and Joe was prompted to goad him further.
“How did that make you feel, Quinton? Even smaller and more ridiculous than you really are? Blazing mad, like you are right now? Mad enough to go for the throat?”
“Yes,” Quinton admitted with a hiss. “You’re right. That is exactly how I felt. If I’d had a gun in my hand, I would have shot her where she stood and enjoyed watching her die. But I don’t own a gun. Instead, I walked out, snapped at a few of the staff and went back to my room to fume in private. And I didn’t leave it again until seven thirty this morning. Now for pity’s sake, get off my back, will you?”
“Not until I’m persuaded that you’re innocent,” Joe warned. “There are a few suspects for this murder, but right now, you and Wright stand out from the pack, and I’m sure one of you did it.” Joe chewed his lip as the music faded out.
“Blondie there with Heart of Glass.” Nate Immacyoulate’s voice burst from the speakers. “We’re taking your requests for the karaoke right now, so if you wanna get up and do your thing to entertain your fellow party peeps, come up and book your slot. Right now though, it’s seventy-nine again and for Sad Café, Ev
ery Day Hurts.”
“This guy needs to go further back before he can interest me,” Joe muttered as the music began. Concentrating on Quinton again, he said, “You followed Jennifer and Dennis Wright round Leeds yesterday.”
“I most certainly did not,” Quinton retorted.
Joe shook his head. “More lies. I spoke to Kirkland earlier because I’d seen him in Debenhams, and he admitted he’d followed them. You’ve just denied it, yet there’s a photograph of them together. It was taken in Leeds yesterday at about 12:30. It’s on Jennifer’s computer. They looked quite, er, chummy, and anyone could mistake them for a couple in love. The street’s crowded, but you’re plain enough to see, stood in the background, staring straight at them, and if looks were daggers, you’d have skewered the pair of them.”
Blind anger suffused Quinton’s features again. “What is this? Big Brother? A man can’t go Christmas shopping without being questioned?”
Joe refused to be diverted. “I don’t care where you shop, Quinton, and I’m not interested in what you buy. I’m interested in why you followed Jennifer and Wright. And if you won’t tell me, we’ll see how interested Dockerty is when he turns up tomorrow.”
Another frustrated hiss escaped Quinton. “All right, so I followed them. When she left here at about half past ten yesterday morning, I knew she’d be going to meet Wright. He was the only one who hadn’t shown up at that time. I wondered whether they might lead me to the Middleton Penny. She stopped some clown and asked him to take the picture for them.”
“Which clown?”
“I don’t know,” Quinton protested. “Just some dork in the street. There was a bit of a debate over it, like Wright was reluctant, but she must have persuaded him eventually. He put his arm round her, she hung onto him, and the passer-by took their picture.”
“Made you pretty mad, though, didn’t it?” Joe pressed. “Were you worried that she’d jump Wright instead of you?”
“No,” Quinton yelped, causing one or two on nearby tables to look their way. “Mind your own damned business,” he snapped at them.
“Do you ever stop to wonder why people don’t like you?” Joe demanded.
“I know why they don’t like me and I don’t care.”
Joe let the matter drop. “What persuaded you that they might lead you to the Middleton Penny?”
“I wasn’t persuaded of it,” Quinton argued. “I just hoped they might. Slide your mind into gear, Murray, and think about it. It’s Christmas Eve and they’re wandering round the shops in Leeds. Now suppose they suddenly diverted and went into a dingy little backstreet nowhere place. As a coin collector, what would you think?”
“I’m not a coin collector, but I take your point. And did they?”
“Did they what?” Quinton asked.
“Did they visit a dingy little backstreet nowhere place?”
“No. They were in Waterstone’s for ages.” Quinton’s features clouded again. “Wright’s book is taking up half the window there. That aside, they just wandered from shop to shop, and that’s why I was bloody annoyed, Murray. I wasted an entire morning following them for nothing.”
It was close to the account Kirkland had given him, and Joe charitably accepted it. “You lied about something else, too,” he pressed. “You told me that you’d learned from a member of the Regency staff that the LHS, Jennifer and Wright would be here this weekend, which is why you turned up. But that wasn’t true. I found an email on her computer telling you that turning up would be to your advantage.”
Quinton had the look about him of a man refusing to be intimidated. “I didn’t see what concern it would be of yours. You were so busy getting your friend off the hook that you’d pick up on anything, so I laid low.”
Joe let the matter drop and to the backing of Sad Café, mulled over his thoughts. An idea occurred to him. “Did you meet George at all, yesterday, before the incident on the dance floor?”
Quinton shook his head. “No. Has someone told you that I did?”
“No. It’s a theory, that’s all.” Before Quinton could demand details, Joe asked, “How did Jennifer introduce George?”
“Word for word?” Quinton asked and Joe nodded. “She said, ‘this is George Robson. He’s the Leisure Services Director for Sanford Borough Council. He does real work’.”
Joe chuckled. “Who told you he was a gardener?”
“Can’t remember,” Quinton said, “but it was all over the hotel by lunchtime.” He stared. “It might have been you.”
Joe recalled that Dennis Wright had mentioned George’s occupation and he accepted Quinton’s explanation. “Tell me something. As honestly as you can. Would you describe yourself as gullible?”
“No,” Quinton replied, the anger coming back to his face. “Forget about my money for a minute. I spent my working life in a bank, dealing with pains in the backside on the other side of the window. Near on twenty years I was there. I’ve heard every excuse, every scam in the book. I can smell ’em a mile off. So no, I am not gullible.”
“That’s work.” Joe pointed out. “How about coins? I don’t mean can you recognise a fake. I’m talking a sting here.”
Quinton’s clear brow creased into a deep frown. “Come again.”
“All right, let me spell it out. You want the Middleton Penny. How much would you be prepared to pay for it? According to Wright, the market value is estimated at a hundred and fifty thousand US Dollars. Call that a hundred thousand pounds, which squares with what I’ve been told about its British value. Now if Jennifer, for example, said she could get it for you, but the transaction was, er, shall we say, black market, what would you be willing to go to?”
The other man shrugged and drank more wine. “Subject to negotiation, about seventy thousand. You have to understand, Murray, this is stolen property. If, and I stress if, I were to get hold of it, the transaction would be illegal. I could be jailed for it and so could the seller, and any intermediaries. The penny, therefore, won’t go for its legitimate value. It would be a knock down sale.”
“And your position in the negotiations? Upper hand or underdog?”
“Upper hand,” Quinton replied. “The owner must be a collector or he wouldn’t have it, and the only way a collector would let it go is if he needed the money. That gives me the upper hand. Although I’d be willing to go to seventy, I’d expect to get it for a lot less. Maybe fifty.”
Joe took the information in and sifted it. Swallowing the remainder of his beer, he stared Quinton in the eye. “So if Jennifer Hardy said to you, ‘come to my room. I have the penny, but we can’t conduct business in the open’, would you have gone?”
Quinton nodded. “Naturally.”
“You wouldn’t suspect a trap or a rip off?”
“I knew her,” Quinton reminded Joe. “I’d slept with her a good few times. I trusted her.” He, too, drained his glass. “What is all this, Murray. Is it another theory? Because what you’re talking about didn’t happen.”
“No, I know it didn’t,” Joe muttered. “I’m simply wondering whether it was supposed to have happened, and if so, why didn’t it?”
Sad Café faded out and Joe turned in his seat to look across to the dance floor. Mavis Barker was on the podium bending Nate Immacyoulate’s ear and the deejay was nodding his head as she spoke.
“So you still believe I killed her?”
Quinton’s question forced Joe to turn back to the discussion. “What? Oh. I dunno. Did you know Kirkland would be here?”
Quinton shook his head. “Not until I arrived.”
“How did that make you feel? Mad?”
“Very annoyed,” he admitted, “but still not annoyed enough to murder her.”
Somewhere in the background, his brain registered Abba coming through the speakers singing Knowing Me Knowing You, and he silently congratulated Mavis. Only her pestering of the deejay would lead to Abba.
He recalled his final challenge to Wright less than half an hour previously. Was he really
willing to put himself in the firing line to save George Robson? It wouldn’t be the first time, he decided.
“I don’t know if you killed her or you didn’t,” he said, “but I’ll be passing all this information on to Chief Inspector Dockerty in the morning, so if there’s anything you haven’t told me that you think you should, you can find me in 306.”
Joe ambled back to his table, his turbulent thoughts mulling over the information he had come by.
With Sheila and Brenda taking turns to hit the dance floor, and occasionally taking it on together, and then Mavis Barker trying to drag him up, Joe found concentration on the multi-strand puzzle almost impossible. Matters were not helped when all three women took the karaoke microphones and belted out Abba’s Mamma Mia in voices that he later described as fit only to call in the pigs.
At just after 11 he noticed Kirkland in the far corner, the one opposite Quinton, and made his way over.
“I’ve nothing to talk about, Murray,” Kirkland said before Joe could open his mouth.
“Oh, but you have, “Joe replied, ignoring the rebuff in Kirkland’s tone. “I want to know how you felt when you got here and found Quinton in residence. Angry enough to consider it an act of betrayal and kill Jennifer?”
Kirkland shook his head. “Haven’t you learned anything about me? Don’t you know I don’t get angry? I manage, Murray. I manage people, I manage situations, and I do that by keeping my cool, not losing it. Killing her would not get me the Middleton Penny, and no matter that she had invited that fool to the negotiations, I would not lose my temper.”
“I accept that,” Joe said over the noise of a pair from the LHS singing I Got You Babe. “Killing Jennifer, however, was not a random act. It was calculated to throw suspicion on George Robson. No man who lost his rag could plan so carefully.”
A Murder for Christmas Page 19
