“Well, frankly, Joe, you’re a well-known detective, and you’re likely to see through our little mystery long before anyone else.”
“And you’re worried that I’ll walk off with a voucher for a couple of free nights in an Accomplus hotel and bottle of cheap champagne, meaning no one else will get a look in?”
Melanie smiled, shyly. “You see. That’s a measure of your perceptiveness. It’s not so much that, but you may crack this thing before we’re even a third of the way through. Tell me, have you ever been to a murder mystery dinner or weekend?”
“No,” he confessed. “But I’ve read up on them and I understand the principle. We all sit down to dinner and halfway through, someone gets murdered. It could even be the person sitting next to you. Then everyone starts to ask questions of everyone else until the cops arrive on Sunday morning and explain it all to us.”
Melanie’s slender fingers played around her glass, wiping off the condensation. “Most companies work like that, but Markham Murder Mysteries is different. The way you describe it is great fun, but it can be haphazard and for a hotel like the Twin Spires, it can be annoying for those guests who didn’t come along for the murder mystery. You understand?”
“Perfectly. It’s a bit like coming to my place and ordering a steak entrecote, and a bottle of house red, then finding yourself sitting with a bunch of truckers working their way through greasy full English breakfasts.”
“I, er, yes, well, I suppose so.”
“Relax, Melanie. I’m only teasing.” Joe began to roll a cigarette. “The Lazy Luncheonette doesn’t have a drinks licence.” Spreading a thin line of tobacco along the innards of his little rolling machine, he asked, “So if Markham Murder Mysteries doesn’t work like that, how do they do it?”
“We’re a small company of professional actors. I’m the writer, director and producer.” Her words brimmed with pride as she delivered them. “To begin with, we sit apart from the diners, at the front of the dining room, so no one is in any doubt who are the actors and who are the guests. We perform a series of little scenes, vignettes, each carrying the story that bit further forward. Each scene will give you clues as to the killer and the motive. Characters are there to be questioned after the scenes, and in some circumstances, particularly those involving our fictitious police officer, we have a formal question and answer session. We pride ourselves on the difficulty of solving our mysteries, which is why we offer prizes rather than souvenir certificates.”
Joe hung on her every word, as if she were one of Reggie Grimshaw’s super salespeople. “This sounds like a good weekend’s entertainment, but you’re obviously worried that I could throw a spanner in the works.”
“I’d ask you to consider that we’re not real criminals, but a bunch of actors.” Melanie picked up the leaflet Joe had been reading, and held it up. “We put this production together ourselves and for someone with your powers of observation, our plot probably has holes in it large enough to drive a bus through. The guests, those who are here for the murder mystery drama, and that includes you, have paid a lot of money for the weekend and I wouldn’t like it to be, er, spoiled by someone cracking the case too early, if you understand what I mean.”
“Perfectly,” Joe replied. “Are you married, Melanie?”
She shook her head. “Only to my work.”
“In that case, let’s you and I make a bet. If I get to within five percent of your solution before breakfast on Sunday, you let me buy you dinner on Sunday evening before we set off back to Sanford. If I don’t, you hold me up to ridicule in front of everyone. Here’s how Haliwell’s Heroes beat Joe Murray.” He grinned. “How does that sound?”
Her eyes widened but Joe could see the pleasure in them. “I, er, I’m not sure. You’ll be going home to Sanford on Sunday afternoon, won’t you? If your bus leaves and you have to buy me dinner, how will you get back to Sanford?”
“That’s not a problem,” Joe told her. “We actually don’t go home until Monday morning. Come on, Melanie. This is a win, win situation for you. If I solve your little play, I keep my mouth shut and I treat you to dinner at any restaurant in Lincoln. Do we have a deal?”
Melanie smiled broadly. “Very well.”
They shook hands on it.
“Good. Now I’ll tell you that the offer probably won’t cost me a bean. See, when people like you write these things, you’re a damn sight more devious than real criminals are. They may not leave clues lying around the likes of which you think up. Instead they leave tons of scientific evidence for the law to find.” It was obvious from Melanie’s face that he was not winning the argument. “Tell you what, though. I will distance myself from the prize. How’s that? And even if I work it out tonight, I promise I’ll still keep my mouth shut until Sunday.”
“And you won’t be helping any of your friends to the answer?” Melanie asked.
“You have my word on that.” A thought occurred to Joe. “Here’s a thing. How do you know that some members of the audience haven’t seen this before? I meanersay, if they’ve seen it before, they’ll have all the answers, won’t they?”
“We do get return visitors,” Melanie admitted. She put down the leaflet and fiddled with her spectacles. “For most performances, we have more than one winner, so we put the names in a hat and ask a member of the cast to draw the winner. If we get someone whose answer is almost perfect, we guess that they’ve seen it before, and that person’s name doesn’t go into the hat.”
The door swung open and Sheila and Brenda stepped in. Brenda looked over Joe and Melanie, and her face split into a broad grin. “Hey up, you’re not letting the grass grow under your feet, Joe.”
Joe grimaced at her. “Melanie, may I introduce my two friends, Sheila Riley and Brenda Jump. I say friends, they’re actually my employees and at least one of them can be a proper pain in the posterior when she tries. Girls, this is Melanie Markham, director and producer of this weekend’s entertainment.”
The three women shook hands.
“I shouldn’t take too much notice of Joe,” Sheila said. “When he says we’re his employees, what he really means is he couldn’t run his business without us.”
“I’m sure you’re all the very best of friends. If you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my people. We’re agreed then, Joe?”
He nodded and Melanie drifted off, leaving Brenda to stare at Joe in amused amazement. “I’m sorry, Joe. I didn’t realise you’d scored.”
He tutted. “Must you persist in behaving like a teenager?”
Brenda chuckled. “Someone told me if you haven’t grown up by the time you’re fifty, you don’t have to.”
“And you never bothered?”
“I’ll let you know when I turn fifty.”
Sheila raised amused eyes to the ceiling. “I’ll get some drinks.” She ambled across to the bar and Brenda sat alongside Joe.
“If anyone did that to me, Joe, I’d be furious.”
Joe had one eye on the bar where Reggie Grimshaw and his wife were talking to Melanie and one of her older actors. Brenda’s announcement brought a grimace of irritability. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You and the Oscar nominee, just now. If I was coming on to some bloke and someone interrupted, I’d slice them into strips and serve them as dog meat.”
“I was not coming on to her.”
“I know you weren’t,” Brenda replied, “but she was certainly coming on to you.”
The announcement forced Joe to call on his memory of the exchange with Melanie. He dug into his gilet, took out his tobacco tin and extracted his recently rolled cigarette.
A passing member of the staff spotted him. “Excuse me, sir, but you can’t smoke that in here.”
“I know, I know.”
“Only it’s against the law, you see.”
Joe eyed his nametag. “Cliff Denshaw?”
“I’m the duty manager, sir.”
“Right, Mr Denshaw, let me ask you a question. You see
all these people?” Joe waved at the room. “Do you think any of them will be carrying cigarettes?”
“Probably.”
“Then what’s the difference between others carrying packs of cigarettes and me carrying a hand-rolled one? I know I can’t smoke it in here, and I wasn’t going to.”
Brenda smiled up at Denshaw. “You’ll have to excuse him. He was on a promise and I butted in.”
The manager gave them a bleak smile and left.
Joe tucked the cigarette in his shirt pocket. “She was not coming on to me. She was just concerned that I might blow the entire weekend by cracking her little murder mystery.”
Brenda took his hand. “What am I going to do with you, Joe? You never were the brightest spark when it came to dealing with women. One of these days, I’ll have to do more than hold your hand. You need lessons in the ways of the world.”
“Not until I’ve locked my wallet in the safe.” He downed the rest of his lager as Sheila made her way back to them with fresh drinks.
Looking beyond her, he noticed the actor next to Wendy Grimshaw slide his hand from her shoulder down to waist level. He waited to see how Wendy Grimshaw would react and when she did not even pull away, he said, “Now there’s a come on, or I’ve never seen one.”
Brenda was momentarily distracted taking glasses from Sheila’s tray. By the time she had put a glass of lager in front of Joe, a small sherry for Sheila, and taken possession of a Campari and soda, then looked to the bar, there was nothing to see.
“What’s a come on?” Brenda asked.
Joe checked the couple again. They were now a respectable eighteen inches apart. “Never mind.” He drank from his fresh glass. “Quarter past twelve. So what do you want to do with the rest of the day? And don’t tell me shopping.”
Brenda appeared to give the matter some thought. “Hmm… I think… shopping.”
Sheila laughed. “I shop, therefore I am.” She, too, sipped from a small sherry. “What would you like to do, Joe?”
“I dunno. Just have a wander round the city.”
“And shop,” suggested Brenda.
Putting down her glass, digging into her bag, Sheila took out a street plan of Lincoln. Perching reading glasses on her nose, she pored over it. “How about a museum first, and then moving on to the shopping centres?”
“What’s in the museum?” Brenda asked.
“Old things,” Joe replied.
“You’d fit in well, then.”
Never one to let an opportunity pass, Joe asked, “You know how you said you’d let me know when you get to fifty, were you talking retrospectively?”
“Ha, ha, very funny.”
Cutting in on the repartee, Sheila announced, “There’s the Usher Gallery and the collection not far from here. Just down the hill from the Minster. We can walk it in about ten minutes. It has exhibits on the history and prehistory of Lincoln. And after we’re done there, it’s only about another few hundred yards to the High Street.”
“Sounds good to me,” Joe agreed.
“And me. Bottoms up.” Brenda downed her Campari in one gulp and let out a satisfied “Aaah. That hit the spot.”
***
Joe could never understand why women always had to visit the toilet before setting out anywhere.
Standing outside, under the shelter of the main entrance, smoking his cigarette, he was eager to be moving on, away from the watchful eye of Cliff Denshaw spying on him from behind the reception counter, but both Brenda and Sheila had insisted upon visiting the Ladies to effect makeup repairs… “And other, essentials,” Brenda had concluded.
Rain continued to fall from the grey skies, fogging out the upper spires of the cathedral, cladding the city in a depressing air of damp and cold, but when he asked himself whether he would be happier back home in Sanford, the answer was an unequivocal, ‘no’. All he had back there were business worries, exacerbated by the extended Christmas holidays, and a self-imposed solitary confinement broken only by the days of running the Lazy Luncheonette, and the couple of evenings a week he spent in the company of the Sanford 3rd Age Club.
The automatic doors swished open. Joe turned to greet his companions, but it was not them. Instead, it was a couple in their thirties, he tall, dark haired, athletic looking, but too smart in his dark suit and pristine collar and tie, his brunette partner dressed in a dark skirt and white top, augmented by a navy blue coat which she buttoned up against the weather. Joe figured them for lawyers, or similar professionals.
“I can’t stand that man, and I don’t like the way you suck up to him,” she grumbled.
He put up an umbrella. “Reggie Grimshaw won’t always be there, Fliss,” her man said.
Not lawyers, Joe thought. Subjects of the Grimshaw empire.
“And when he calls it a day, Wendy will need someone to run the sales division,” the man went on.
“And you’ve no chance, Robbie. It will be Naomi Barton.”
Robbie growled as they stepped out into the rain. “No way. Reggie is screwing her and I’m sure Wendy knows. If she doesn’t know it now, she will when I tell her.”
Joe considered again the tiny incident in the bar where one of the actors had put an arm around Wendy Grimshaw. His agile mind worked through many angles and caused him to wonder what it was about men and women that made them so fickle.
“Not a problem you have, Joe,” Sheila reminded him when he told the tale. “Nor me.” She eyed Brenda. “Nor Brenda, really.”
“That was very diplomatic, Sheila,” Brenda commented.
Joe reminded himself that the two women were the very best of friends, but they could not be more different. Both were widowed but where Sheila steered clear of relationships, Brenda wandered from one to another transient affair, thumbing her nose at the rest of the world and what it thought of her.
Matters were different for Joe. His ex-wife had moved to the Canary Islands and he had no regrets on the marriage or the divorce, sublimating his need for company in work and the Sanford 3rd Age Club. Only at this time of year, traditionally geared to the family, did he feel any pangs of self-pity, and the club outings usually took care of it.
Walking down the steep hill past the cathedral, and through narrow backstreets of aged, stone-built houses, he said as much.
“Work has always got in the way of relationships, and relationships get in the way of work.”
“I dunno, Joe,” said Brenda. “Some of these big money men seem to do all right on both fronts.”
“No, see, when I talk about work, I mean real work. Graft. Not like that couple back there. Sitting on their backsides high-pressuring housewives into buying kitchens they don’t need and can’t afford. I mean proper work.”
“Like getting Lee to take the pies off the top rack of the ovens?” Sheila asked. “Is that what you mean, dear?”
“Correct,” Joe agreed, “and whipping you two into shape when the orders need delivering.”
Brenda smacked her lips. “Don’t talk about whips, Joe. If you gave me half a chance…”
Joe cut her off. “So where’s this museum, Sheila?”
She consulted her map. “At the bottom of this street… I think.”
***
“One of these days, you’ll bully them once too often, Reggie,” Wendy said, kicking off her shoes and lying on the bed.
Reggie sat at the escritoire and stared through the first floor window at the twin towers of Lincoln Minster. “When I was their age, me ducks, I was knocking cabinets together on building sites. No bloody company cars, no expense accounts, no collar and tie. A pair of overalls and bag of tools. I learned how to work before I could take it easy. Robbie Kendrew is a smug little bugger. Never done a hard day’s work in his life.”
“Naomi Barton is no better. She started by selling cosmetics in a department store.”
“Good enough,” Reggie countered. “I don’t expect women to work with their hands.”
“Oh, grow up and move into the twenty-firs
t century, will you. They’re professional salespeople. They probably left school and mopped the floors in a burger bar for the first two years of their working lives.”
It was as if Wendy had not said a word. “That little chap, the trucker’s caterer; Murray. He knows what I’m talking about. Solid graft. And I’ll bet you won’t find him sat behind a desk at his caff. He’ll be out there, working with his crew.”
“Which is more than can be said for you,” Wendy retorted. “You spend all day every day sat on your fat backside doing nothing but scream at your staff to bring in more business.” Wendy glowered at him. “When you’re not kneeling between Naomi’s legs.”
Reggie glared back. “Shut it. Right? Just shut it or I might be tempted to look at my will again.”
***
The museum was not at the bottom of the hill, as they discovered when they came out on the broad, dual carriageway of the A15 where it became the eastern ring road, at which point, Joe took charge of the map while they all sheltered under Sheila’s umbrella.
Wandering a hundred yards down, towards the city centre, the fumes of Friday afternoon traffic subdued by the downpour, they found the Usher Gallery, the redbrick pillars supporting open gates, spacious lawns reminding them of summer in Sanford. Following Joe’s map reading, they ambled along a curving, tarmac path, past the imposing main building, and out through a side gate, onto a narrow, cobbled street opposite the museum.
“It doesn’t look a bit like I expected,” Joe said.
Instead of a fusty, old building of brick and stone, it was a spanking new, low-level construction, gleaming white even in the dull daylight, with an array of anti-glare windows along one side.
Admission was free. “My kinda price,” Joe commented as they passed into the cool interior.
Once inside, they spent an hour and a half going through the various rooms and exhibits. Sheila and Brenda were enthralled by the displays of Roman, Viking and Saxon coins and other treasures, Joe was more impressed by the natural history section, although he puzzled at the plesiosaur on display near the main entrance.
Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend Page 3
