A Murder for Christmas

by David W Robinson

  “I think most of that is nonsense, Brenda,” Sheila said. “People have been murdered in posh hotels before.”

  “Name one,” Brenda challenged.

  “I, er, well, off hand, I can’t, but I’m sure there must have been cases. However, Joe, Brenda does have a point on the matter of the computer. Anyone with sense would have broken it up.”

  Joe shook his head. “Not when it’s just as easy to drop it in the bins. I told you this earlier. The dork just forgot it was Christmas and the bins wouldn’t be emptied.”

  “And I say that, too, is nonsense.” Sheila gestured around the room festooned with decorations. “How can anyone forget it’s Christmas?”

  Joe drummed his fingers on the table and finished his coffee. “Unless they come from somewhere where the bins might be emptied on Christmas Day.”

  Brenda groaned and leaned her forearms on the table. “I feel bloody rotten.”

  “Well if you’re gonna be sick get it over with today,” Joe ordered. “I’ll want you both back at the hobs on Tuesday.”

  “Wednesday,” Sheila corrected. “Tuesday is a public holiday, remember. Even the Lazy Luncheonette is shut.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  Brenda straightened up. “I’d better go to the ladies.” With a flash of irritation, she stared at her sleeve where a paper serviette had attached itself. “Bloody things. Spill a drop of milk on them and they stick like glue.”

  A smile spread across Joe’s wrinkled features, and just as quickly died. His colour drained. Images flashed into his mind. Sheets of paper screwed up, thrown into the waste bin. The bag from the waste bin thrown into the larger receptacle by the lifts.

  He leapt to his feet. “Oh my God. I’ve thrown it away.”

  “What?” Sheila asked. “What have you thrown away?”

  “His wallet,” Brenda muttered.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Joe was already leaving. “When Dockerty gets here, tell him not to do anything until I’ve spoken to him.”

  “But … Joe …”

  “I know who did it,” Joe called over his shoulder as he hurried from the room.

  ***

  Getting permission to check the bins again proved tougher this time than it had the previous day. The same receptionist continued to batter at Joe’s defences every time he brought up an argument, and ultimately, he had to resort to the nuclear option.

  “One of those bags contains evidence that will convict a murderer, and if you let it go to the incinerator, the police are gonna be chasing your head on a block.”

  After a brief and irritated phone call, similar to the one the previous day, she eyed him sourly. “All right. You can go through. But you’d better get a move on. There’s so much rubbish accumulated, we’ve had to call a private contractor out to shift it, and he’s here now.”

  “Oh, no.” Joe hurried through the bar and out into the rear yard, where, as the receptionist promised, he found the refuse vehicle, alarms bleeping, lifting one of the huge containers up and tipping it over.

  “Stop,” he shouted. “You’re destroying evidence.”

  The driver cupped a hand to his ear. “Wassat, mate? Can’t hear you for this noisy bugger.” He waved at his truck.

  Slipping and slithering on the icy surface, Joe hurried to his side. “Stop it. Stop the machine. You’re carrying off evidence of a murder.”

  The driver grinned. “Too late, mate,” he said as the ram in the truck forced its way forward.

  “Is that last night’s rubbish?” Joe asked, his heart sinking.

  “How the hell should I know?” the driver demanded. “Christmas, yesterday, weren’t it? Got an urgent call first thing this morning and I have to clear this place twice today.”

  Joe shoulders slumped. “And I let him get away with it.”

  “Let who get away with what, sport?” the driver asked.

  Joe shook his head. “Never mind.”

  He trudged back to the bar entrance, casting his sullen gaze over the mounds of black bags, many of them covered in ice, others barely frosted over, certain that the bag he wanted would have been thrown on the top of the first bin. He would make the effort, of course, and try a few bags, but he was sure the evidence he needed was gone and he had thrown it away.

  As he neared the mound of bags, a cleaner came out through the bar exit carrying two more bags.

  Joe’s heart lifted. “Where are they from?”

  “Ground floor reception, mate,” said the man. “Always the last place we do of a morning.”

  Joe’s heart sank again. He watched the cleaner throw the bags onto the heap, their frost-free gloss contrasting with those left here for the last 48 hours. At least, he consoled himself, those were two bags he wouldn’t have to search…

  His thoughts tumbled to a halt. Frost-free. The bag he wanted had come from the hotel within the last hour. It would not have had time to freeze over.

  He whirled and took in the stack of bags. Six floors, two, three bags per floor, and there were many in front of him that had no covering of ice.

  Joe tore into them, dragging them down, opened them, checking their contents, feeling for the balls of screwed up paper he had dropped in his waste bin. He did not even bother to fasten the bags up again when he was through with them, but cast them to one side.

  His watch read 9:35, the driver of the refuse vehicle had already gone on his way, and the security officer was back in his little office, watching as he had done the previous day. After a couple of false alarms – Joe was not the only man making handwritten notes during the weekend – he finally found the bag. Frantically tearing it open, he dug into it, cast the screwed up sheets to one side, and finally, his face split into a broad grin, he found the tissue. He brought it up to his nose and breathed in. Yes! Definitely! A result!

  He headed for the bar entrance.

  “Hey,” shouted the security officer, hurtling out of his office. “Who’s gonna clear up this mess?”

  Joe scanned the bags strewn about the yard, some of the contents tipped out in his frenzied search. He beamed at the security man. “For all I care, you can.”

  Hurrying through reception, Joe bumped into Ike Barrett.

  “Ah, Mr Murray. We wanted a word with you. According to Mrs Riley…”

  “Tell your boss to scrounge a private room off the hotel,” Joe interrupted. “I need a shower and a change of clothes, and I’ll see you there in half an hour. I’ll need to speak to Dockerty, Tom Patterson, Dennis Wright, Warren Kirkland and Oliver Quinton. And you’d better tell Dockerty to think about releasing George Robson.”

  “Mr Murray…”

  Once again, Joe interrupted. “And while you’re at it, ask Tom Patterson to bring Jennifer’s personal effects. We’re gonna need ’em.”

  “Sir, I…”

  For the third time, Joe cut in. “I know who did it and why,” he said and headed for the lift.

  Back in his room, he changed his clothing again, relieved that he had brought plenty with him. Then he sat at the escritoire and enjoyed a cup of tea while he prepared everything.

  First he set up Jennifer’s netbook, called up misspnew and checked the document properties. “Gotcha!” His face split into a broad grin. The fatigue was gone, he felt refreshed, almost excited.

  He needed a printer. After a brief telephone conversation with reception, he bagged up Jennifer’s computer and the other bits he would need, carried his netbook and all his other evidence back to the ground floor and spent a few moments haggling with the same receptionist before the duty manager came out and confirmed that he had given Joe permission to use the hotel’s scanner and printer.

  Finally, fully prepared, with the time coming up to ten, he allowed a porter to show him along the ground floor to the conference room.

  On entering, he scanned the faces. Yes. He was here.

  The word rang round his head. Gotcha!

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hotel management had alread
y supplied carafes of water and cups of tea dispensed from large thermos jugs. Joe helped himself to a cup and took his seat next to Sheila, putting his belongings on the floor.

  “Where’s Brenda?” he asked.

  Sheila pulled a face. “Yukky. She’s gone back to bed to sleep it off.”

  “Best thing for her.” Joe looked around the table. Dockerty sat directly opposite him, with Ike to his right from Joe’s point of view. Next to Ike was Tom Patterson, next to him was Oliver Quinton, and opposite him, on Sheila’s right, Kirkland, Dennis Wright and immediately adjacent to Sheila, George. Dockerty had the case file before him, and Tom had two suitcases alongside his seat; Jennifer’s personal effects.

  “I’m sorry I’m a minute or two late,” Joe apologised. “I had to make sure I had everything.”

  “Well I hope you’re not going to keep us long, Mr Murray,” Dockerty complained. “Constable Barrett and I have enough to be getting on with as it is.”

  “Yeah, I know, and most of it is paddling up the wrong backwater.”

  Dockerty’s disgruntled features turned a shade darker. “Now look –”

  “You arrested George in a matter of an hour,” Joe cut in, “yet he was innocent. I told you he was innocent, I knew all along he was innocent, and some of the information you gave me confirmed my belief. You said Jennifer Hardy had had sex before she was murdered and that the preliminary DNA results indicated her partner was George, yet you still insisted that he killed her. Why? The only thing you could come up with was that she wouldn’t let him in again. What a lot of tosh. George is 55 years old, for God’s sake. He may be a charmer but he’s no superstud.”

  “Thanks Joe,” George grumbled.

  “I’m just telling it like it is, mate, and there is at least one member of the Sanford Third Age Club who can confirm that.” He glanced weakly at Sheila. “Unfortunately, Brenda is unwell this morning.”

  “We also later released Mr Robson, sir,” Barrett defended himself and his chief. “We recognised that our evidence against him was a little thin.”

  “You were too hasty,” Joe complained, reaching down into his carrier bag. He came out with his netbook and the sheets of A4 he had had printed by the hotel.

  “I’ve investigated a lot of crimes and mysteries in my time,” he said, “but I’ve never had one as puzzling as this. Now you’re an experienced detective, Dockerty. You know there are three elements to murder. Means, motive, opportunity. Means brooks no argument in this case, and neither does opportunity, but as usual motive is the hardest to prove. I insist that George had no motive, and the one you attributed to him is rubbish. He’d already had what he wanted from Jennifer and as far as I’m concerned, George is, and always was, innocent.”

  “Then let’s see you prove it,” the senior policeman challenged.

  “I’m going to,” Joe declared. “As I said, this case has been about motive, and if we eliminate George from the list of suspects, who are we left with?” He stared about the table. “Tom Patterson, a man rejected by Jennifer, Dennis Wright, a man hounded by Jennifer, Oliver Quinton and Warren Kirkland a pair of men used by Jennifer, and me, a man verbally abused by Jennifer…”

  The two coin collectors immediately protested but a warning glance from Dockerty signalled them to silence and Joe carried on.

  “I eliminated myself from the list because I know I didn’t do it, and of the four remaining men, who had the biggest motive for killing her? Well, we’ll see about that in a minute or two. First, let’s get some nonsense out of the way.”

  He spread his two sheets of paper on the table. Each had a diagram on it, a computer-generated representation of the drawing Jennifer Hardy had left behind.

  “Let’s look at this note Jennifer is supposed to have left,” Joe went on. “This, Dockerty, is the way you showed it to me. It’s a copy of the computer-generated image you prepared.”

  He indicated the first sheet on which was printed:

  

  “Two lines curling in opposite directions, and the international sign for Venus, the female. Your interpretation? A couple having sex and a woman. It indicated to you that the woman was a victim and that the killer was the man with whom she had had sex. I said at the time that it was a deduction made on the thinnest of pretexts. Why didn’t she indicate a man instead of a woman? That would have made more sense, and the sign for a man, the sign for Mars, isn’t much harder to draw than this.”

  “Give us your alternative again,” Dockerty invited.

  “All right,” Joe continued. “This is the way I see it.”

  He pointed to the second sheet with the drawing inverted along both axes.

  

  “You had the drawing upside down,” Joe insisted, “and it was this way when it was found near Jennifer’s dying hand. When you turn it this way, the correct way, it has an entirely different meaning.”

  “You’re right,” Barrett said. “It doesn’t mean anything, now. I know you told us about the church thing and how they’d been swapped, but with those two arrows added, it means nothing.”

  “To you, Ike, no,” Joe smiled, “but that’s because you’re young and you didn’t have the kind of education the rest of us did.” He swung his attention to the right. “Tom, your speciality is maps. That Venus symbol. Now that I’ve turned it upside down, what does it say to you?”

  “A church, and it’s been switched,” Patterson said.

  “Thank you,” Joe replied and smiled at Dockerty. “You see? Tom agrees with my interpretation.”

  “It still makes no sense,” Dockerty complained, “because swapped churches make no sense.”

  “Yet,” Joe responded. “Anyway, I was simply reinforcing my argument.” He addressed the whole table again. “There are other cartographers’ symbols for churches, but this is one of the oldest and it can still be found on some maps.”

  “The curves are different on your printout, Murray,” Dockerty objected.

  “That’s because on your original printout they looked less like the ones Jennifer Hardy drew. On the original drawing, each curl had a tiny blob at the end, as if she were trying to draw a tadpole … or an arrow. You thought it indicated sperm. It’s only when you look at the drawing this way up, that the meaning becomes clear and it has nothing to do with sex. It indicates that, as Tom has just said, a church, or churches have been transposed. Swapped.”

  An air of puzzlement pervaded the room. Dockerty summed it up. “It still makes no sense.”

  “I repeat, not yet, but it will soon,” Joe promised. “For now, let’s leave the meaning of the drawing and think about Jennifer’s dying moments when, according to you, she produced it.”

  “Do you believe she didn’t?” Dockerty challenged.

  “I know damn well she didn’t,” Joe insisted.

  Dockerty’s thin smile spread again. “Prove it.”

  Joe, too, smiled. “I will. Do you have the photographs of the crime scene? The ones you showed me?”

  Dockerty held up the case file. “Right here.”

  “Take out the photograph of the drawing close to Jennifer’s hand.”

  Frowning, the Chief Inspector did so. “Go on.”

  “Look at it closely,” Joe instructed, “and tell us what you see?”

  “Her hand, the drawing, some of the contents of her handbag, the bottom edge of a book.” Dockerty looked up from the photograph. “I see nothing special.”

  “No?” Joe asked. “Nothing like a mobile phone, for instance?”

  “Oh. Well that’s there, obviously,” Dockerty objected. “You know damn well it was there, but there’s nothing sinister about that, Murray. We all carry them. Even you.”

  “Correct,” Joe agreed. “I asked young Ike about the contents of her handbag, and he assured me there was no sign of a diary, address book or notebook. So the first question I ask is where did she get the scrap of paper to draw her cryptic message? Where did she get the pencil? Now you, Dockerty, told me that the ey
eliner pencil was out of the shot, close to her left hand, but although we can’t be a hundred percent certain, we don’t believe Jennifer was left handed. Am I right about that, Tom?”

  Patterson stirred as if surprised to hear his name. “What? Oh. Sorry, Joe. No. She wasn’t. I told you yesterday, I’m certain she was right handed.”

  “Which begs the question,” Joe picked up his thread, “why was the drawing near her right hand and the pencil near her left? They would only be that way round if she was a southpaw, which we’ve just heard, she wasn’t. I’ll tell you why they were laid the way they were. Because when he put them there, the killer was looking at her from her head, and her arms would have been reversed in his view. He was so hyped up at having just murdered her, that he made his first mistake.”

  “This is all supposition, Murray,” Dockerty protested.

  Joe shook his head. “It would be except for the phone. Now, I want you to picture this. Her killer has just smashed a bottle on the back of her head. She’s hurt; she’s dying; she may or may not have known that. And whether she knew it, was irrelevant. She was in a lot of pain.” Joe inflected sufficient incredulity into his next words to let everyone know his opinion. “And she takes a piece of paper she doesn’t have and draws a few figures on it?” He paused to let the message sink in. “Get real. If she was still alive, if she could move, she would have picked up her mobile phone and dialled 999.”

  A hush fell over the room as the implications of Joe’s words sank in.

  Sheila broke it. “So Jennifer never drew the pictogram?”

  Joe shook his head. “It was drawn earlier, maybe as she lay dying, maybe months before. It was planted there by her killer. And once you know that the drawing was part of a pre-planned killing, then it becomes obvious that George didn’t kill her because he didn’t meet her until Saturday evening.”