Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

by David W Robinson

  Joe nodded. “I also thought it might explain why the curtains were open. I figured Wendy may have come back and opened them before realising that Reggie wasn’t asleep, but dead.”

  “Possibly,” Grant agreed, “but I don’t think that’s particularly important.” He rubbed a huge hand over his chin as if checking for stubble. “It would be interesting to know who Grimshaw was arguing with last night.”

  “Well, again, I don’t wanna lead you astray, but I talked to one or two of his people yesterday, and not everything in the Grimshaw Kitchens’ garden was as rosy as Reggie made out. One of his people, a man named Robbie Kendrew, was telling me some tale about Reggie and a woman named Naomi Barton. She and Kendrew are rivals for the top job when Reggie retires…” Joe caught himself with a sheepish grin. “When Reggie would have retired. Kendrew seems to think Naomi had the edge because she was doing the business with Reggie.”

  Idleman’s lip curled again. “Doing the business with him?”

  “What is it with you, Sergeant?” Joe demanded. “Were you trained at the school of politically correct terminology? Would you rather I’d said fornicating? Or sha…”

  “No.” She cut him off.

  “I was going to say sharing a bed,” Joe told her.

  “Involved in an affair would suffice,” Idleman retorted.

  “I come from Sanford, not Oxford. We don’t have affairs in Sanford; we do the business.” Still irritated, Joe turned to Grant once more. “I’m not saying Kendrew killed Grimshaw, but I distinctly heard Grimshaw refer to whoever he was arguing with as ‘old lad’. That’s pure Yorkshire and it tells me he was obviously talking to a man. Maybe Kendrew got mad and shot him. I don’t know. But there are other possibilities aren’t there? Maybe after arguing with Kendrew, Reggie called Naomi and told her she wouldn’t get the job. So maybe she killed him. Maybe it was another member of his party. Kendrew’s wife didn’t like Reggie. I heard her say so yesterday afternoon.”

  “I take your point, Joe,” Grant agreed. “The only person we can properly eliminate is Grimshaw’s wife.”

  “Assuming she really was with Gerry all night, and Billy wasn’t lying about it.”

  “Why would he lie?” Idleman asked.

  Joe shrugged. “He and Gerry are old pals. Maybe he was giving them a cover story. I don’t know why he would lie, but human nature makes us all liars sometimes.”

  The sergeant put down her pen. “You do realise that applies to you, too, Mr Murray. We have only your word that you spent the night with Ms Markham, and even if she backs up your story, it may be that you both colluded on it.”

  “True enough,” Joe agreed, “but hell, I’m used to being a suspect.”

  Idleman’s eyes almost popped. “You are?”

  Joe nodded. “People have been accusing me of putting dog meat in my steak and kidney pies for years.”

  Chapter Seven

  When Joe left the Scampton Room, it was with Sergeant Idleman alongside him, going to the dining room to collect Wendy Grimshaw for questioning.

  “It’s not compulsory to dislike me you know,” Joe told Idleman as they left the Scampton Room.

  “I don’t dislike you. I’m quite ambivalent towards you.”

  It was obvious to Joe that she was uncertain of the extent of his vocabulary, for she immediately translated.

  “I don’t have any feelings towards you one way or the other. It’s just that I believe there are certain matters which are not the province of the general public.”

  “Like investigating a murder?”

  “Correct.”

  Joe held the dining room door open for her and she passed in.

  Following her, he said, “There are advantages to being an ordinary citizen. I can ask questions you can’t. I don’t have a set of procedures to follow.”

  “You can also get your head bashed in, Mr Murray, and even I wouldn’t like to see that happen.”

  “I have a niece who’s the same rank as you,” Joe said. “Detective Sergeant Gemma Craddock of Sanford CID. She thinks I’m a pain in the backside, too, but it doesn’t stop her coming for advice when she’s stuck.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind.”

  Wendy Grimshaw was a little more responsive, willing to speak and answer questions, and after a few moments of gentle encouragement from Sergeant Idleman and Sheila, she allowed herself to be led from the room.

  Joining a short queue and helping himself to a cup of tea from the counter, Joe rejoined his companions.

  All around them, the large TV screens had been switched to Sky News, the volume turned down, the mutter of subdued, concerned conversation running through the air. From the ceiling hung the festive decorations, casting an air of good cheer which now seemed wholly inappropriate; almost in poor taste. The staff went about their business, clearing away crockery and cutlery, placing fresh cups, sachets of sugar and sweetener, individual portions of milk on the service counter, and chatting amongst themselves. Joe did not know where they took their breaks, but he knew there would be only one topic of discussion.

  With the arrival of the police, Gerry had ended his stand up routine and at the front table, the cast of Haliwell’s Heroes were as much in mufti as the rest of the room, talking amongst themselves. Melanie sat with them, her face urgent, determined, trying to make some point to them, while one or two members of her cast argued back.

  Every table was the same. People argued, debated, chattered, but few were smiling. At the table immediately behind Joe and his companions, Robbie and Fliss Kendrew and Naomi Barton were in the middle of what appeared to be a heated discussion, and Joe uncharitably assumed they were arguing on who would take over now that Reggie was dead.

  Even Sheila and Brenda had fallen into the same routine, talking about the killing, speculating on how it could have been done and whether it was a hotel guest, member of staff or someone who had come in from the outside, carried out the deed and then left.

  Speculation. Vital from some angles, but so wasteful when it was as generalised as this.

  In an effort to distract them, Joe asked, “How are you feeling, Sheila?”

  “I’m fine, thank you, Joe, and right now we have more important matters to consider, don’t we?”

  “No, we don’t. Not until we have more information.” Stirring his tea, Joe leaned forward on the table and kept his voice down. “Right now everyone in this room knows who did it or how it was done, and most of it is twaddle. I just heard you two speculating on whether someone from outside could have come in and killed him. It’s bloody nonsense. Whoever shot Reggie was inside the hotel all the time, and the likelihood is it’s someone from his own party.”

  “And you accuse us of speculating,” Brenda snorted.

  “It’s not speculation,” Joe argued. “It’s logic. How do you suppose anyone from outside could have got past reception or avoided the CCTV outside? Don’t you think Cliff Denshaw would have said something? Even if they managed to get in, how did they know what room Reggie was in and how did they know he was alone? No. This was someone inside, someone who knew Wendy was getting it on with Gerry Carlin, and that Reggie would be on his own. Now ask yourself, who knew Reggie and Wendy well enough to know that she was playing away? Alternatively, could it be that someone knew Reggie was alone because Reggie had asked to see him or her? Either way it was someone from inside the hotel, and the odds are on one of his salespeople.”

  “And you’re going to start questioning them?” Sheila asked.

  Joe shook his head and sipped his tea. “Not yet. I told Grant I’d help, and he doesn’t seem to mind.” He grinned. “But his sergeant doesn’t like me.”

  Brenda, too, smiled. “Now there’s a girl with some taste.”

  Ignoring her, Joe concluded, “When we have a better picture of what happened, then I might shove my nose in.”

  “Tell you what’s odd,” Brenda said. “He was shot. Just like the woman in the play.”

  “Coincidence,” Joe argued.r />
  “But you don’t believe in coincidences,” Sheila pointed out.

  It was true. Joe had spent most of his life arguing the point. When it came to crime, coincidences were often anything but coincidences.

  “All right,” he said after giving the matter some thought. “Let’s imagine this was premeditated…”

  “It could have been a spur of the moment thing,” Brenda interrupted.

  Joe fumed. “Brenda, you do not bring a gun to a do like this without giving the matter some thought.”

  “Oh. I never thought of that.”

  He shook his head and drank more tea. “Shooting Reggie actually brings other issues up, if you think about it. Most murders are by strangulation, like Ursula Kenney, or the traditional blunt instrument, like Jennifer Hardy. For someone to bring a pistol to this weekend, means they either intended to threaten or murder Reggie. And why a gun? Because this is a murder mystery weekend, and these plays usually involve a gun.”

  The women stared blankly at him.

  “Yes? And?” Sheila prompted.

  “The intention is to cast suspicion on the cast of Haliwell’s Heroes. Either that or to bring an air of confusion to the problem.”

  “Or it really is a member of the cast and they couldn’t think of any other way of doing it,” Brenda suggested.

  Joe glared at her. “A member of the cast? Why would any member of the cast want to shoot a man they met only twenty-four hours ago? Oh. I know. Reggie had already solved Haliwell’s murder so they shot him to stop him letting the cat out of the bag.”

  Brenda’s temper approached boiling point. “I was only putting ideas forward, you crabby old sod. And if you’d spent half the night at the hospital with your best friends instead of rogering that old sow, your brain might be in better working order.”

  “And talking of rogering, the only member of Markham Murder Mysteries who knew the Grimshaws was Carlin, and he was busy elsewhere; with Mrs Grimshaw.”

  Brenda pushed her cup and saucer away. “All right, so it’s one of Reggie’s salesmen...”

  “Or women,” Joe interrupted.

  “Women don’t use guns,” Brenda argued, and Sheila giggled.

  “Stop winding him up, Brenda. Of course women use guns.”

  “Correct,” Joe agreed. “Or don’t you read James Bond?”

  “Then how come no one heard the shot?” Brenda demanded. She stared pointedly at Joe. “Well, we know why you didn’t hear it. You were busy firing your own bullets into Melanie Markham.”

  Joe was about to protest, but Sheila beat him to it.

  “Guns don’t make as much noise as you may imagine. I remember Peter telling me about it after he’d been on a firearms training course. The report is not particularly loud, nor distinctive, especially when you’re dealing with a small calibre pistol. Someone in the next room, either side, or someone passing in the corridor may have heard it, but they wouldn’t necessarily equate the noise with a pistol shot.”

  “And there are ways of muffling the shot,” Joe added. “A pillow over Reggie’s face, a book, or something soft like that, pressed to the end of the barrel. In any case, it would depend what time he was shot. If it was in the really early hours, most of us would have been asleep.”

  Brenda’s lip curled. “Some of us weren’t. Some of us had just got back from Lincoln County Hospital.”

  “Some of us should have stayed at Lincoln County Hospital, and invested in a mood transplant.” Joe drummed his fingers on the table top, his mind wandering. He played with his cup and saucer, allowing free rein to his imagination, running the various scenarios, rerunning them, running them backwards. “There’s something I should be thinking of. Something that happened last night.”

  “Was it between the time you put a hand on her knee and the moment you pulled her knickers off?” Brenda asked, her finger pointing first at Joe, then Melanie.

  Keeping his voice to a low hiss, Joe snapped, “Will you, for God’s sake, shut up about me and Melanie. Are you just plain jealous or what?”

  “Yes,” Brenda replied. “Not because she got you, but because I didn’t get anything last night and you did.”

  Joe took out his tobacco tin and rolled a cigarette. “Like dealing with a bloody child.”

  Unwilling to release her grip on his irritation Brenda said to Sheila, “I wonder where he keeps the condoms hidden.”

  Joe almost dropped his rolling machine. “Now that is an interesting question.”

  Brenda stared, her face agleam with humour. “I was joking, Joe. I didn’t mean…”

  “No, not you and your stupid remarks,” he cut her off. “I mean our killer. Where did he hide the gun? See, we have the place crawling with cops, and at some stage they will narrow down their suspects and insist on searching them and their possessions. So what has he done with the pistol? He can’t afford to be caught with it, can he?”

  The two women lapsed into silence and Joe knew that, like he, they were pondering ways and means of getting rid of a gun in a busy hotel.

  “He could have walked out of the hotel and thrown it into the bins,” Sheila suggested.

  Joe shook his head. “CCTV. Remember? The grounds are covered. Even if he walked out pretending to have a smoke or something,” he held up the completed cigarette to emphasise his point, “he would still have been caught near the bins. No; he’d have to be more inventive than that.”

  “Do you remember The Godfather?” Brenda asked. “Al Pacino dropped the gun in the restaurant when he shot those baddies.”

  “In that case the cops should already have it,” Joe pointed out. “I never noticed it and Grant didn’t say anything.”

  The door opened, Les Tanner and Sylvia Goodson came back in, and Sheila and Brenda were called out. Shortly after, Alec and Julia Staines entered, George Robson and Owen Frickley were called. Two more officers entered, Naomi Barton and other guests, not members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club, were called out.

  Joe glanced around the room and guessed that there were still 80 or more people to interview. At this rate, it would be well into the afternoon before they could get out.

  Then Sergeant Idleman came back with Wendy Grimshaw.

  In contrast to her earlier disposition, Wendy was wide-eyed and furious, her face flushed with colour, eyes popping, looking around the room until they homed in on someone behind Joe.

  “You bastard,” she screamed and rushed towards Joe.

  Momentarily thinking he was the target, he cowered. He felt the rush of her movement past him. Looking up and round as Sergeant Idleman hurried in pursuit, he saw the woman launch herself at Robbie Kendrew.

  “Murderer,” she screamed. “You killed him. You killed my Reggie.”

  Sergeant Idleman grabbed her arms and dragged her off the startled young man.

  “Mrs Grimshaw, please,” Idleman begged as she wrestled with the distraught widow.

  “Get the crazy cow off me,” Kendrew shouted.

  Idleman echoed his sentiments. “Help me, someone.”

  Joe hovered. It would not be seemly to leap up and grab Wendy by the waist. While he dithered, Melanie Markham hurried across, Fliss Kendrew got to her feet and between them and the sergeant they managed to save Robbie Kendrew from Wendy’s fury.

  “I’ll kill you,” she screamed as the three women dragged her away. “I’ll see you fry in hell.”

  Melanie and Fliss sat her down away from Robbie. Idleman stood for a moment, getting control of her breathing, and then spoke to Robbie.

  “I’m sorry about that, sir. Is it Mr Kendrew?”

  He nodded. “Someone should lock that mad cow up.”

  “She’s just been widowed,” Joe pointed out.

  “And you can mind your own bloody business, too,” Kendrew retaliated.

  “Stop it,” Idleman ordered before Joe could pick up the argument. “Mr Kendrew, would you come with me, please? We need to ask you some questions.”

  Straightening his tie in an effort to
regain his aplomb, Kendrew glowered at the room, reserved a final glare for Joe, and followed the detective out.

  Joe got to his feet. “If anyone asks, I’m outside, having a smoke.”

  Busy trying to soothe the distressed woman, Melanie nodded, and Joe ambled out of the dining room, explained to the constable on duty where he was going, then passed through to reception where he paused at the desk to talk with Cliff Denshaw.

  “You have CCTV running day and night out in the car park, don’t you?”

  “We do, Mr Murray, but the police have already asked for the recordings.”

  Joe grunted and carried on out into the damp and misty morning.

  There was an ornate, metal bench just outside the entrance. In deference to the wet surface, Joe perched on the edge of, fished out his Zippo and lit his cigarette.

  Uniformed police officers wandered around the grounds peering into planters, checking the bushes around the perimeter. The trees opposite were barren, stripped of their summer foliage, and through them he could make out the East tower of the cathedral, its uppermost reaches lost to the fog. In just over twelve hours, the place would be packed with worshippers welcoming in another year. Traffic along the road was light, almost non-existent, but Joe could imagine, further down the hill, the town centre packed with shoppers even at this hour. New Year’s Eve was never as busy as Christmas Eve, but it was still a heavy trading day.

  Back home in Sanford, Lee, his nephew, and wife Cheryl, standing in for Joe, Sheila and Brenda, would be rushed off their feet in an effort to keep pace with the rush of shoppers, overspill from the nearby Sanford Retail Park.

  Normality. Joe loved it, and right now, in direct contrast to his feelings the night before, he would give anything to be up there with them, clad in his whites, listening to the chime of the cash register and the chink of change dropping into it, working to the hum and bubble of the tea urn boiling up the water, giving vent to his irritability and the background orchestration of the customers’ chatter.

  Instead, here he was, 80 miles from home wrapped up in another gruesome crime, his movements (and those of his friends) restricted by the initial investigation, a distressed, newly widowed woman letting out her fury on a man who had to be the prime suspect, and a thousand questions rattling round his head.