Shiver Page 11

  This elderly vehicle was not only rotting, and in a shocking stage of repair, but was also disgustingly dirty, and suffered from a small but constant oil-leak, which left little clusters of black kisses wherever its owner decided to park it. This, due to availability of parking space at the time, meant that quite an area of kerbside road was splattered with small black marks.

  Leslie Ingram unconsciously ground his teeth together. The man could at least wash the poor old heap, and mend the oil leak. No one would think of forcing him to buy a newer car, as he was unemployed, and assumed to be short of money – although he seemed to be able to put a plentiful supply of cash across the counter at the local off licence. It was the attitude of complete ‘don’t care’ that really gripped Leslie’s shit. How much bother was it to get a bucket of water and wield a sponge? If the man could be bothered to do that, he’d mend the oil leak himself for him: after all, he had offered, even if his offer had been rebuffed. He was fed up to the back teeth with going out into the road to pour cat litter onto the spillage to soak it up, knowing that the person responsible wouldn’t even notice what he’d done.

  Leslie moved his hand away from the filmy material of the curtain and began to pace up and down his living room like a caged animal, remembering the one time he had complained about the state of the car and the damage it was doing to the road surface, and the trio of raw eggs that were smashed on the bonnet of his own immaculate vehicle during that night. He wasn’t sure why he felt so tense tonight. Maybe it was the memories, or just the atmosphere of the date getting to him.

  Lying back apparently relaxed in a reclining armchair in the lounge of number four Chestnut Close, Peter Sage watched his wife Deborah carefully, as she got her regular fix of a long-running soap opera. The episode was almost over and she had already begun to fidget. Well, she could forget sneaking off out to meet that bastard Jordan for one of their filthy little assignations. He was on to them now, and while he was home, at least, there would be no more behaviour of that sort.

  Unfortunately he was only home at weekends, finances forcing him to work away from home during the week, to do a job that paid enough to cover the household bills and his wife’s somewhat reckless spending on clothes and make-up. Add that to a new three-piece suite every twelve to eighteen months, and complete redecoration of the lounge on an annual basis, and it began to become obvious why he couldn’t just take a less well-paid job locally, and sleep in his own bed every night, like other, normal, men.

  Life, in its many everyday variations, went on in Chestnut Close behind closed doors, and events, having a schedule to keep to, wended on their inevitable way towards what would be the climax of this Halloween evening in the vicinity.

  Life also went on in Castle Farthing, which was a very attractive village with most of its housing clustered around a central green which had, at its centre, a pond and benches on which to rest weary limbs on warm days. It had its own church, and was the possessor of a pretty, thatched public house, ‘The Fisherman’s Flies’. It also had a village store and, just outside its centre, the ruins of the Castle from which its name derived. The Carmichael family lived in the amalgamation of the two dwellings that had been named individually, Jasmine Cottage and Crab Apple Cottage.

  At this very moment, DS Davey Carmichael was mustering his stepsons for their series of house-calls round the green of that village centre. Kerry was just finishing helping them into their costumes as ghosts – not too challenging on the sewing front for a busy mother who had a dearth of spare time but a surfeit of white sheets.

  ‘Can you give me a hand with the bolt in my neck, and make sure the top of my head’s fixed on properly?’ her husband asked her, as she stepped away to look at her sons in their simple disguises.

  ‘Bend down a bit, then, so’s I can reach your top bits,’ she urged him, being only of average height herself, and not blessed with a multitude of inches (or centimetres, she supposed, nowadays) like her husband. She thought how odd it was, in a metric society, that men’s heights were never expressed in anything but feet and inches, and supposed that some things would never change. Mothercare had taken care of everyone thinking of babies’ lengths and children’s heights in centimetres, but no one could alter how society expressed the height of its male warriors.

  As she gratefully closed the front door on the trio of giggling conspirators a few minutes later, her husband’s face glowed with anticipation and excitement behind his disguise. She had been right to call him Peter Pan, for he still derived a huge amount of pleasure from childish pastimes, and revelled in the company of Dean and Kyle, her sons from her first, ill-fated marriage.

  The appearance, not so much of two white-sheeted faux ghosts, but of a fairly convincing and huge representation of Frankenstein’s monster on the doorstep drew little squeaks of astonishment and surprise from most of their neighbours, and the boys’ goodie bags soon began to look less empty. Unbelievably, so did Carmichael’s!

  The only neighbour who was not taken in was a similarly outsized Great Dane rejoicing in the name of Mulligan, who had been an occasional houseguest at the Carmichael’s house. He recognised the spooky visitors immediately and began to caper around them, making happy snuffling noises and surprisingly high-pitched squeaks of pleasure for such a large dog.

  His owners, using only their eyes, were not so astute, and Mulligan’s mistress uttered a perfect horror film squeal of alarm, and his master threw his forearms across his face, at the surprise at finding such a monster at large in the village in which he lived. He had been perfectly prepared to open the door to little witches and vampires tonight, but the sight of a huge creature with a bolt through its neck had been unexpectedly unnerving.

  ‘Ee, Davey,’ he muttered, recovering, ‘You’ve taken six months off my life with that get-up. You should carry a written warning.’

  ‘Sorry about that. It must look so much more realistic in low lighting. Anyway, happy Halloween! The boys wanted to see Mulligan.’

  ‘And Mulligan looks very pleased to see all three of you,’ replied the Great Dane’s owner, a nebulous plot beginning to hatch in the man’s mind. He and his wife were getting on a bit, and they’d never expected their pet to grow quite so large. He could be a real handful at times, and needed so much exercise, as he was in the prime of his life. He could really do with a younger owner. He tucked the thought away for future discussion with his wife, a wistful smile now on his face, as he handed out confectionary with the good grace of the occasion.

  After loading various sweet treats into their gradually filling bags, the boys immediately wanted to know when Mulligan could come to stay again, and were mentally guided, by logic and memory, to their next question: was Uncle Harry – their step-father’s boss – coming to their Halloween party? For Falconer had been in such awe of Mulligan when they had met previously … The inspector had, surprisingly, not proved very confident in the company of canines – not even that of such tiny specimens as Mistress Fang and Mr Knuckles, the Chihuahua and Yorkshire terrier that Carmichael had chosen to augment their household.

  ‘Sorry, boys, he’s working,’ replied Frankenstein’s monster, using their step-father’s voice and, at their groans of disappointment, explained that if Uncle Harry hadn’t worked tonight, he would have had to go on duty. And Mummy would have been useless going trick-or-treating with them, wouldn’t she? At their wholehearted agreement at this distracting thought, he managed to get them away from the Great Dane, and back on track to finish their round of visits within the hour.

  DC Roberts parked outside 86 Oak Drive, and rang the doorbell of the house of John Masters, the householder whom he was to re-interview, and whose rear garden backed on to the rear access alleyway shared by the back gardens of the houses in the end semi-circle in Chestnut Close.

  The door was opened promptly by Mr Masters, clutching a large plastic bowl of assorted confectionary, and who looked thoroughly flustered to find himself staring up into the face of an adult, and not the ea
ger expressions of a group of children.

  ‘DC Roberts, Mr Masters,’ his visitor offered. ‘I’m here about the attempted break-in, as arranged, if you could spare me a few minutes.’

  ‘Of course,’ John Masters replied, catching up mentally with events. ‘Do come in. Would you like a candy bar?’ He might as well offer, as he was holding so many of them and he didn’t want to appear mean.

  DC Roberts, being the possessor of a notorious sweet tooth, helped himself to a white chocolate bar with a smile, and stepped over the threshold to commence his questioning.

  No sooner had they got settled in the comfort of the living room, however, than the detective pointed out towards the back garden, through the window across which the curtain was not yet drawn, and asked, ‘Is that your dog out there?’ Masters rose to his feet with the denial,

  ‘I don’t have a dog.’

  Roberts followed him through the French windows into the night, where they both became aware of the most peculiar sound on the air. They could hear a moaning sound that seemed to be muffled or smothered in some way, and it appeared to be coming from the direction of a garden shed which lay just the other side of the rear access alleyway, in the garden of one of the houses in Chestnut Close.

  ‘That’s Larry Jordan’s shed,’ declared John Masters. ‘It’s usually drunken yells and singing you get from there, or heavy rock music.’

  Roberts had already started to move in the appropriate direction to investigate, and had just exited the garden via the little gate that gave on to the alleyway, and allowed access to the properties for the weekly visit of the refuse collectors, when there was a sound that could only be described as ‘whump’. The shed divided itself into several pieces, one of which felled DC Roberts, and flames licked the air.

  DI Falconer had just licked the last of the lardy cake’s delicious stickiness from his fingers, when the switchboard connected him with the incoherent ravings of John Masters, and he settled himself in his chair more comfortably, to learn what was afoot, this dark and spooky night.

  ‘It just went up,’ a slightly breathless voice informed him. ‘We went out there, and it just went up, and he went down like a sack of spuds,’ rambled John Masters, in confusion.

  ‘I am Detective Inspector Falconer of the Market Darley CID, sir. How may I help you?’ the DI intoned in a reassuring tone of voice, hoping to introduce a little sanity to the conversation, for nothing had made sense so far.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I’m making a right dog’s breakfast of this,’ replied Masters, already feeling a little steadier, at the confidence at the voice that had replied to him. ‘My name is John Masters, and one of your men came out to interview me again about an attempted break-in at my house, earlier this evening.’

  This was more like it. Falconer could cope with narrative like this. ‘And has he done this to your satisfaction, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not that. It’s the shed blowing up like that. He’s out cold on the pathway, and the ambulance hasn’t got here yet.’

  ‘What shed, sir? And why is my officer apparently unconscious?’ This was sounding rather worrying, although he had to say, it was rather typical of Roberts to end up hors de combat when sent out on some mission of his own. It was certainly not the first time that this had happened, and it was something he was proving to be rather good at.

  ‘He saw this stray dog in my back garden, and when we went out to shoo it away, we heard this weird noise, like a sort of moaning. And it was coming from the direction of next door’s shed.’

  ‘I’m with you so far, Mr Masters. So what happened next?’

  ‘Your man went across to the gate in the fence opposite the shed and, before I could make a move to join him, there was this sort of other weird noise, a bit like a cross between a bang and a whoosh, and the shed blew up. Bits went everywhere. One of them hit your man on the head, and he went down, and the flames went up, as all the neighbours came outside to see what was going on.

  ‘That’s when I left them to see to him and drag the other fella out of what remained of the shed – I rather think he was a goner – and got on the blower to do the “three nines” bit. As I said, the ambulance is on its way and the fire engine was just drawing up in Chestnut Close when I was put through to you. Oh, did I mention that I’m phoning from Carsfold?’

  ‘I’ll be with you, sir, as soon as I can. Don’t be surprised if uniformed officers turn up before me. I’m on my way, right away.’

  Staying only to dispatch PC Merv Green to secure the scene ahead of the arrival of the SOCO boys, and ring Castle Farthing to alert Kerry Carmichael that he had urgent need of her husband in Carsfold, he left the station.

  In Castle Farthing, Kerry Carmichael made a note of the Carsfold address, grabbed her coat, shoved her baby daughter Harriet into the blankets of her pushchair, and went out into the night to dispatch her husband and bring back her boys. They could hardly moan at having their playtime cut short; they’d had enough time on their rounds to have visited just about every dwelling in the village centre. At least the timing was such that they hadn’t missed out on the activity altogether, for which she was grateful, after all the effort she had put in to kit out the three of them for the occasion.

  She found the little group at the front door of Brigadier Malpas-Graves’ substantial property, gathered round the lady of the household, who was sitting on a stool, while her husband, in monstrous guise, flapped a towel before her face, and advised everyone to ‘stand back and give the lady sufficient air’.

  ‘Whatever’s happened, Davey?’ she asked in some concern, as she reached her gathered family.

  ‘I’m afraid I was a little too realistic for her,’ he explained, shamefacedly. ‘I should have spoken sooner, so that she could have recognised my voice.’

  ‘No matter, lad. No matter,’ soothed the brigadier. ‘All part of the fun. Joyce is no spoilsport, are you, dear?’

  ‘Not at all. Very realistic costume, my dear. Ten out of ten for effort.’ These remarks she addressed to Kerry, realising who was responsible for the success of the masquerade.

  ‘You’ve got to go, Davey,’ announced the DC’s wife abruptly, ‘Inspector Harry needs you down in Carsfold right away. There’s a case for you,’ she informed her husband, without giving away any sensitive information. ‘You need to get down there immediately. Come along, boys. Let’s get home and get ready for all your friends to arrive for the party.’

  This last, took any sting of disappointment out of her arriving to end their evening’s activity, out and about in their home village, and the two small figures began to walk behind her, happy still to have their party ahead of them.

  Their father passed the hand towel to the brigadier, gave an apologetic smile at this unexpected call of duty, and set off down the road towards the green and his car, at a considerably faster pace than he would normally walk.

  PC Merv Green stood in the Jordans’ back garden and looked around him at the mess. The area, which was normally an untidy sea of weeds, now had considerably more to make it look disreputable. He had arrived to secure the area before any SOCO officers arrived, but it looked like any efforts on his part to do this would be a waste of time.

  The rear garden was full of neighbours, taking full advantage of the opportunity to have a good nosy around at what had happened there. PC Linda Starr, (Green’s fiancée, incidentally), who was on duty with him that evening, immediately began to make a note of the names of those present, and request that they return forthwith to their own homes, so that the police could get on with their job.

  Merv took off his helmet and scratched his shaved-bald head. The fire brigade seemed to have had a merry old time extinguishing the blaze that had been trying to consume the boards of what had once been a garden shed, and sodden, blackened pieces of wood adorned the furthermost area of the garden. The contents of the erstwhile structure were also strewn around the desolate patch of ground, making it look even more unloved and uncared for than usual.
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  Towards the other side of the narrow strip of land lay what remained of its tenant: a burnt and singed figure, but still recognisably human, as the fire had not had much of a chance to take a hold, due to the ineptitude of whoever had applied the incendiary device to the wooden building. His body was not too badly disfigured, and it was obvious that fire had not been the medium which had done for him.

  The PC’s eyes were drawn, as if magnetically, to the figure’s head, over which had been forced a large pumpkin, evidently hollowed out to get it over the bulk, and it was now blackened and charred on its skin, where it had started to cook in the heat. ‘What the…?’ he exclaimed in incomprehension, as he approached the unlikely apparition.

  ‘We think someone shoved it over his head and suffocated him, then shoved in something explosive to make sure he was finished off,’ sounded the voice of John Masters, the householder whom DC Roberts had been visiting when his accident had befallen him.

  ‘And your bloke went over to investigate, and got a lump of wood blown into his head for his trouble.’

  ‘Yes, where is he?’ asked Merv, suddenly remembering that DC Roberts had been rumoured to have been on the scene before the incident occurred.

  ‘Taken off in an ambulance about ten minutes before you got here. There’s a small ambulance station in Carsfold, so they didn’t have so far to come as you have now, since they bundled all the little stations together, up in Market Darley. Should never have done it, in my opinion, but then, whenever did they listen to a member of the public?’

  Ignoring this rhetorical question, Merv and his partner set about having a word with the dead man’s neighbours in advance of the arrival of the CID officers, still brooding on the bizarre act a man being suffocated inside a hollowed-out pumpkin. Even if it was Halloween.

  Falconer, on his arrival, announced, as always, that he would tackle things in a logical manner. After an initial inspection of the crime scene, he decided to start his questioning at number one Chestnut Close, advising Merv and Linda to tape off the relevant area now that it was free of rubberneckers. The commencement of his interviews was delayed, however, by the timely arrival of Dr Philip Christmas, the forensic medical examiner for the force.