Bedfordshire Clanger Calamity

by steve higgs

  He made it with time to spare, taking Rex in with him to save time. ‘Now listen, Rex,’ he made the dog look at him while he delivered a warning/request. ‘I would like to enjoy my breakfast in peace, okay? That means, no running across the room because you have spotted a crumb of toast. No flipping me off my chair because you’ve seen a squirrel outside the window, and no accidentally-on-purpose tripping the waiter when he brings me my food. I have ordered you some eggs which you will get if we make it to the end of my breakfast without incident. Is that a deal?’

  Rex only heard the part about there being eggs for him. The rest of what his human said was just background noise. He wagged his tail and looked about for the person with plates of food. There were two other couples in the room, all of whom had finished eating and were either chatting or reading a newspaper.

  The waiter arrived with the plates, a steady mist of steam rising from each as the man placed them on the table. ‘This one is yours,’ said Albert, tilting it slightly so Rex could see.

  Rex was on his feet and poised to eat. Drool dripped from his lower jaw in anticipation of the four fried eggs he was about to inhale. Until his human took them away and placed them in the middle of the table, that is. ‘You get them when I finish mine,’ chided Albert.

  Huffing with disappointment, Rex stared at the plate, focussing his thoughts, and concentrating hard. It refused to levitate. Irked at being outsmarted by his human, Rex harrumphed to the carpet and turned his back.

  At the table, Albert was also drooling, though less visibly than his dog. His breakfast had two thick bacon chops, each of which were presented with a crispy, yet still glistening, layer of fat running around the outside. It was like having crackling for breakfast. Complimented by black pudding, sausages, fried eggs, meaty portabella mushrooms – oven baked and served whole – plus fried bread, beans, and grilled tomato. He kept telling himself to order the kippers for a change, but the tempting plates of evil breakfast goodness suckered him in every time. Besides, Arbroath was on his list of places to visit and they had arguably the best kippers in the world. He would eat the fishy delicacy there.

  While he tucked into the sumptuous breakfast feast, he thought about what he needed to do next. The Joel Clement murder case was perplexing simply because there didn’t appear to be a thread to pull at. Kate could not present an alibi and the evidence against her was convincing enough to secure a conviction: his fresh blood in the kitchen of their home, no sign of forced entry, no witnesses to anyone approaching Joel which might throw some doubt on her guilt. If there were some question about where Kate had been at the time of Joel’s murder, or if there were a way to confirm she was home at the time of his disappearance, he might have a place to start. In theory, it might be possible to find someone who saw Joel after he left the pub, but to achieve that would either take a fat dollop of luck, or a massive number of manhours which he didn’t have.

  The police would have done that leg work if they were trying to find the killer. Officers would have been drafted in to support the local effort as they traced his last movements, but they hadn’t done that. They’d gone straight to Kate.

  Why?

  Albert had to remind himself to continue chewing his breakfast because the question of what made the police go directly for Kate made him pause. It needed an answer, but he already suspected he knew what it was.

  Rex popped up next to him, his tongue hanging over his bottom jaw as he panted with excitement. When Albert looked at him, the dog licked his lips and made solid eye contact.

  ‘Give me the plate of eggs,’ he commanded, doing his best to hypnotise his human. Much to his surprise, it worked, his human picking up the plate to place it on the floor in an absentminded way. The eggs didn’t make it to the floor, Rex licked them off the plate in mid-air.

  Satisfied that there was unlikely to be anything else until his human was finished with his breakfast, at which point Rex would highlight his extensive experience in cleaning plates, he laid back down to rest.

  Albert powered through the rest of his meal, polishing off ninety-five percent of it even though, much like his clanger yesterday, there was truly more food than he required. His brain was sparking; messages flashing up to suggest one scenario or another. Something had sent the police sniffing in Kate’s direction, but in Albert’s opinion, something was more likely to be someone and the pool of suspects was small.

  Pushing his plate away, much to Rex’s disgust, Albert stood up and patted his belly. Were his trousers tighter than they had been two weeks ago? He had to acknowledge that he was eating richer food than he might usually and drinking more alcohol. Well, it wasn’t like he was going to live forever, and he had no aspirations to enter a swimsuit competition, so with another pat on his gut, he clicked his mouth at Rex and set out on his day.

  His first stop was the pub’s small reception area where he knew there to be a public phone, for those who didn’t possess a mobile, he guessed, and an old-fashioned paper phone book which was what he wanted. How popular was the name Clement in this area? That was the first question to answer. Not very, it turned out, as there was only one entry. He couldn’t tell if it was the right one, but he was prepared to give it a whirl. He didn’t use the public phone in its cradle next to the phone book, nor his own mobile. He wanted to look into the person’s eyes.

  Hell Hath No Fury

  Albert wasn’t sure what to expect, but the big, lavish house seemed to fit the bill. In front of the double garage, a nearly new Mercedes convertible sat waiting to be used. The detached family home had a wrought iron fence running from left and right to a pedestrian gate in the middle. The area between it and the house was solidly block paved, but there were large, ornate tubs with clipped trees along the front edge and at the leading edge of the house. Whoever spaced them, did so using a tape measure.

  Going through the gate of Mrs Clement’s property, Albert wondered how she had taken the news of her husband’s death? He was here because someone had pointed the finger at Kate Harris. Eating his breakfast, his mind had flashed a case many years ago when, as a detective sergeant, he had wasted countless manhours pursuing a suspect and trying to make a conviction stick because of an anonymous tip off. They never did get to the bottom of who provided the tip, but it proved to be completely erroneous and he caught hell from the chief constable, a perfectionist who’d risen fast through the ranks and expected everyone to be able to match his record. Albert wracked his brain for a name, finally coming up with Quinn.

  Albert nodded to himself as he gave the face in his memory a name: Harry Quinn, although Albert remembered most of the cops had a different name for the chief which they used when he was not around to hear it. Remembering him brought another memory to the surface, one where his son Randall had spoken about another fellow called Quinn. Apparently, Harry’s grandson was making a name for himself in the Kent Police.

  Approaching the door to what he believed was Mrs Clement’s house, and planning to knock smartly on the door, Albert jumped when the door opened outwards. A trim, attractive woman in stretchy leggings and a figure-hugging top was equally startled to find a man on her doorstep.

  They both recoiled, the woman almost slamming the door in fright and well might have had the person outside not be a kindly-looking old man with a dog.

  ‘Mrs Clement?’ Albert asked when his breath came back under control.

  She raised one eyebrow. ‘Not anymore. I recently remarried. What can I do for you?’ Her instinct was to brush the man off; she was meeting friends at the gym and didn’t want to be late. If he had an armful of leaflets, he’d have gotten a rude response and cold shoulder. Since he didn’t, and didn’t appear to be trying to sell anything, he got a few seconds of her time.

  ‘My name is Albert Smith,’ he introduced himself. ‘And this is Rex.’

  Rex sniffed the air, leaning forward to get a good noseful of the air coming from her house as the female human stood in the open doorway. He wasn’t looking for anythi
ng in particular; truth was he didn’t know where they were or who the female human was. There were no familiar smells he decided. The scent of the two men he wanted to find was not present so they had either never been here, or their visit was so long ago that their scent had long since faded.

  ‘I’m investigating the circumstances of your husband, Joel’s, death,’ Albert explained.

  ‘Ex-husband,’ she reminded him. Albert chose to say husband on purpose, wondering how she might react. He was half expecting her to spit the words ‘Ex-husband,’ but she didn’t. Her voice was calm and rational. ‘You say investigating, yet, if you’ll not think me rude, you look a little old to be a policeman.’

  Albert chuckled. ‘I am a little old, you are quite correct. I’m a little old to be most things, but I used to be a police officer. I apologise for dropping in unannounced like this, you see the police have Kate Harris in custody, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who that is.’ He was prompting her to show her emotions. When he mentioned her ex-husband’s death, she barely even blinked. Kate stole her man, wrecking the home and taking away the father to her children. She had moved on emotionally; time allows a person to do that, and she hadn’t hung around in getting remarried. Surely though, the mention of Kate Harris would trigger a reaction.

  The former Mrs Clement stared at him for a moment. ‘Yes, I know who she is. I wasn’t aware they had arrested her though. When did that happen?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon,’ Albert supplied. ‘If you’ll pardon the observation, you appear very unmoved regarding your husband’s murder, and even more so about the incarceration of the woman he left you for.’

  Her eyes flared. ‘You think he left me?’ she faked a laugh. ‘I kicked him out, the tubby, sweaty ball of lard. Honestly, I only married him because he got me pregnant at sixteen. I needed my head tested to have stayed with him as long as I did. All he ever did was eat.’ She put her hands on her hips and pushed her shoulders back to accentuate her figure. ‘Does it look like I eat too much?’ Albert was struck dumb, unsure what answer he ought to give, but Mrs Clement wasn’t finished. ‘He never paid any attention to his own body but expected me to find him desirable. It was ridiculous.’

  The revelation was a surprising slap to the face. He’d failed completely in his early assessment of the case, leaping to a conclusion that was entirely false. April accused Kate of being a homewrecker and he accepted it without question.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I appear to have misjudged things. Someone pointed the finger at Kate Harris, I thought it might have been you.’

  Mrs Clement laughed again, a high-pitched tinkling noise that sounded false. ‘I have no quarrel with Kate Harris. I don’t know the girl. I’ve seen her once or twice; she’s rather plain looking, which makes her ideal for Joel. Or did, I should say. I can’t imagine her killing him – he wasn’t worth the effort.’

  Albert nodded his head, giving Rex’s lead a quick shake to make him get to his feet. ‘I’ll leave you to your day, Mrs … um’

  ‘Solomon,’ she provided. She stepped out of her house, pulling the door shut behind her and making sure it was locked. ‘I suppose I should wish you luck. I didn’t love Joel. I don’t think I ever did, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered. If Kate didn’t do it, then I hope you can clear her name.’ It was the first heartfelt thing she had said in the five minutes he’d been on her doorstep.

  By the time he made it back to the pavement beyond her property, her vehicle gate was sliding open and she pulled out and away without a glance in his direction. It felt like a wasted trip, but it wasn’t. He’d been questioning his motivation for continuing given how many bad marks were stacking up against Kate. But now he had to view her in a different light. If she wasn’t guilty of stealing a husband, what else wasn’t she guilty of?

  Accusation

  The sky was darkening again, Albert’s walk back through the town of Biggleswade one that was fraught with the danger of getting soaked to the bone if the heavens chose to open. He kept his pace as fast as he felt he could easily maintain and told his knees to stop creaking.

  Rex was loving the outdoors, there were so many new smells to sample. This was so much more fun than sitting around in his human’s house hoping for something interesting to happen. Before they came away, he would spend most of the day sleeping, and when he wasn’t sleeping or hanging around the kitchen in the hope his human might drop something, he was patrolling the garden for the squirrel mafia, keeping his borders safe and his standards high. He wasn’t going to be known as the dog in his village who couldn’t keep the squirrels out. These things were okay to pass the time but not as interesting as the last few days had proven to be. He had been allowed to chase and bite people which was the best part, but in addition there had been things to eat, bowls of the tasty black stuff to drink that made his head go a bit swimmy, and they were out for walks all the time. It was great.

  They were heading somewhere now, his human walking as if he had a purpose, but Rex couldn’t work out if they were trying to solve a crime this time or not. He thought they were, but he hadn’t smelled any blood, or … well anything his police handlers had taught him to alert for. He watched yesterday when a female human was taken away by the humans who wore uniforms and that was fine; he was used to that. It meant they’d found the person they were trying to find, the game was over, and he got to play with his ball. At least, that used to be what it meant. Of course, he hadn’t been the one to find this particular human, so he hadn’t earned the reward.

  His human was up to something though; trying to uncover something but Rex didn’t know what it was. He suspected the two men he’d smelled numerous times now were somehow involved in whatever it was; they were around and trying to stay out of sight. The concept made Rex chuckle; he loved that humans thought he couldn’t find them if they went around a corner or hid under something. It demonstrated just how dumb humans were. They might be nothing to do with whatever his human was up to, but Rex found their behaviour suspicious and was keeping his nose alert for them.

  Walking beside Rex, Albert was getting a niggling pain in his left hip. He rubbed at it with his hand but didn’t let it slow him down. The draw of the unknown was pulling him onwards. That and the belief that he’d figured a part of this out now.

  A church tower clock bonged to his right, a single clang of its giant bell. Albert was shocked that so much of the day had already slipped away. Visiting the police station, a late breakfast, and then walking everywhere had eaten through the morning. A quick check confirmed it was indeed one o’clock though either his watch was a little slow or the clock tower was a few minutes fast.

  He was close enough to see the Clanger Café, the light coming through the front windows showing just how dim the sky was. Turning his collar up against a cool breeze which he felt certain was being pushed by a storm front, Albert made it to the café and into the beckoning warmth.

  From under the door in the counter, Hans growled, ‘You again?’

  With his human making his way to the counter, Rex didn’t rise to the bait. Instead he asked, ‘Have the two humans been back in this morning? The ones we could smell following us.’

  Hans had to think about his answer but confirmed he hadn’t smelled them.

  Above them, Albert was talking to a young lady behind the counter. ‘Can I speak with Victor, please?’ he asked.

  The young woman, her age maybe eighteen or nineteen, Albert thought, showed surprise at the question. ‘Um, he’ll be in the kitchen,’ she replied, looking over her shoulder and through the window into the back rooms.

  A man in chef’s whites came through the door at that point carrying a tray of clangers. ‘More pork and cider,’ he announced as another member of staff moved to unload the clangers to the glass display cabinet. He spoke more loudly than was necessary and his reason for it was obvious: there was a heated discussion raging in the backrooms and the raised voices carried through the door with him.

  A doz
en customers’ heads lifted to see where the argument came from, and the man with the tray of clangers pulled an embarrassed face. ‘It’s about to go nuclear in there,’ he muttered to the two members of staff within earshot. Albert was close enough to hear what he said, and close enough to recognise that the argument was between Victor and April.

  ‘I’m here to see Victor,’ Albert announced. ‘It’s about his sister and I think he needs to hear what I have to say right now.’

  Albert thought the staff were going to argue for a moment, but the man sagged with relief. His tray empty, he placed it on a rack behind him and moved to the counter’s swing door. ‘Please,’ he beckoned Albert to come through. ‘Anything to shut those two up. They’ve been at it for an hour. Well, ever since April …’ the man waved his arm, searching for the right words, but gave up and said, ‘I’ll let you see for yourself.’

  Led through to the back office where Albert checked over the books yesterday evening, he could have found them just by following the noise. It was mostly Victor doing the shouting, April’s responses were, for the most part, delivered in a calm manner. Pausing just outside the door, Albert whispered his thanks to the chef and chose to listen rather than interrupt the fight going on inside. However, a quick glance around the doorframe to see the two persons inside, instantly revealed what had Victor so hot under the collar.

  April was wearing a suit. It was a skirt suit and looked brand new as if she had purposefully got it this morning or perhaps last night. They discovered Joel Clement had been killed three days ago, so however she came by it, she leapt on the opportunity before his body was even cold. The suit was a clear indication that she saw herself in the management role, but to chase away any ambiguity, on her left lapel she wore a badge which read April Saunders, Manager.

  ‘You have no position of authority!’ ranted Victor. Albert suspected he might have made that point several times already. ‘You cannot just declare yourself king and steal the throne. We work as a team here. Kate is the owner now, she will decide who runs the café, and I expect it will be her.’