Christmas Mourning (The Falconer Files Book 8) Read online

  He opened bleary eyes to their now familiar view of Mulligan’s thick neck, his muzzle drooling enthusiastically on to his head. This was the strangest bed-fellow he could ever have imagined, and wondered what other people would say if he said he’d met a right dog over Christmas, and they had shared a bed all over the festive period.

  Best not! Apart from it sounding too male chauvinist pig, Mulligan was male, and all sorts of thoughts shot through his mind. Would his colleagues think he’d picked up an old slapper? Would they think he was into bestiality? Would they think he batted for the other side, sleeping with a male for nights in a row; one that was probably the same weight as him, and was definitely taller on his hind legs?

  As he tried to banish such upsetting scenarios from his mind, he heard Carmichael’s voice calling up the stairs. ‘I’ve just had Chivers on the phone, and he wants you to call him back as soon as possible to explain why we seem to have gone AWOL over Christmas.’

  Superintendent ‘Jelly’ Chivers was their superior at the station, which he ruled with a rod of iron and a voice that could break glass at a hundred paces and cause dogs in neighbouring towns to howl in distress (or, at least, it certainly felt that way). He lived just outside Market Darley, and would have had no trouble getting into the station. His power and telephone had probably been restored long ago, and he was no doubt wondering why his DI and DS appeared to be skiving off.

  Pulling on some clothes as rapidly as he could, and just making a lightning trip to the bathroom to relieve his necessity, Falconer went down to the telephone, rang the station, and asked to be put through to Superintendent Chivers with a heavy heart. How was he going to explain away what had been going on, while they had been incommunicado?

  There were no polite greeting or seasonal wishes, and after announcing that they were investigating a double murder, Falconer held the phone away from his ear before his ear-drums exploded.

  ‘That’s right, sir. Two murders.’

  ‘^&&^%@%$’)(*@&&^^**@*!’ Chivers was not best pleased.

  ‘But we were completely snowed in, sir. There was no way we could communic –’

  ‘**@%$£$|*&^@%%$!’ Chivers never accepted excuses.

  ‘Now look here, sir; with the greatest respect, we’ve had no power, no telephone, no mobile service, no intern –’

  ‘@&%$%£*&@£%$&!’ Chivers expected miracles throughout the year, and not just at Christmas.

  ‘Well, it’s not my bloody fault! The snow ploughs simply couldn’t get out this far. We’ve been working our socks off interviewing anybody who might be involved, we’ve got the bodies in cool places, and we’ve filmed, photographed, and measured everything, as well as collecting what evidence we could. Carmichael has notes of everything we’ve done, and every interview we’ve conducted.’ (Pause.)

  ‘Yes, I should be very grateful if you would send out Dr Christmas and a couple of PCs to help. We’ll also need a vehicle to transport the bodies and I’d be obliged if you could be just a little more sympathe … Hello? Hello?’ But Chivers had hung up. Like all bullies, he didn’t like his word challenged, and had cut the call before it became too hot for him to handle.

  ‘What did he say, sir? – Hurray!’ crowed Carmichael: this last, because the electricity had just come back on, and the Christmas tree now blazed with colour. ‘I can put my notes on the computer now, if the server’s back up and the power back on.’

  ‘To answer your question, I think I just bawled out the super, and I just hope he doesn’t hold a grudge. I was just so furious at how hard we’d been working with no outside help or modern technology, and he just went off on one. So I did, too. I couldn’t help myself.’

  ‘Good for you, sir. Now for these case notes.’

  ‘You read the notes and I’ll type,’ offered the inspector who, being the sort of man he was – the sort that some may describe as having a stick up his bum – had done a course in touch typing and had reached an impressive speed that helped him no end with his office paperwork. ‘The server’s back up. Let’s get those dawgies rollin’, Sergeant,’ he instructed, already sat at the computer and ready to go.

  Not long after, Kerry brought them coffee, wincing as she set down the cups. ‘What’s up, love?’ asked Carmichael, noticing her expression of pain.

  ‘Just a bit of backache. I thought it’d go off if I went to bed early last night, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Never mind. I’m the size of a whale now: I shouldn’t expect to be perfectly comfortable.’

  The telephone rang and disturbed this little discussion and Kerry went to answer it. She was back in less than a minute, and looking utterly distraught. ‘I think something awful is happening up at The Beehive! That was Uncle Alan. He just managed to say, “Can you get Davey up here, because …”, then there was this awful yell and a load of thuds, and the line went dead. I think you’d better get up there as quickly as possible. I think someone must’ve broken in and is attacking them.’

  Carmichael ran to get his coat while Falconer complained, ‘How come Castle Farthing’s suddenly become the crime capital of the county?’ And how long had he, himself, got to live? he thought, now that he’d lost his rag with old Jelly?

  So effective had the overnight thaw been that it was just about safe to take the car. Falconer knew that anyone sent out to the village to assist them would go first to Jasmine Cottage, and Kerry would redirect them to their present destination. If Doc Christmas were to arrive, she could also tell him where the bodies were hidden!

  The Beehive was in complete darkness, in contrast to all the other properties they had passed, which had blazed with light, as it was such a dark, sullen day and the miracle of electricity had been restored. As they stood outside, knocking and ringing urgently at the front door, Carmichael leaned towards the obscured-glass panel in the top of it, and cupped his hands round his face, in an attempt to see in.

  ‘I’m sure there’s someone there, sir, but they’re not making any attempt to answer the door. ‘Alan! Marian!’ he shouted through the letter box, but still there was no reply; no attempt to open the door.

  ‘Round the back! Now!’ Falconer breathed in his ear. ‘If there’s someone in there who didn’t ought to be, perhaps we can get in round the back and surprise them. Come on, man!’ Putting his own mouth to the letterbox, he called, ‘We’ll come back later,’ a bizarre bit of play-acting that failed to convince even him.

  Signalling for Carmichael to follow him, he led the way as they began to ease their way round to the back of the house, in the hope that they could gain access via the back door. It was, of course, locked, and, after a brief and whispered discussion about what to do, Falconer decided that they had sufficient suspicions of the presence of an intruder to gain access by force: in this case, police force, and he ordered Carmichael to put his mighty shoulder to the door so that they could get in and find out what was going on.

  As the door gave way there was a huge clatter, and they saw that a large kitchen refuse bin had, for some reason, been the victim of this irruptive entry, and its contents were now scattered across the floor. At the sudden noise both of them froze, hardly daring to breathe in case someone was waiting for them. Falconer got his torch out of his pocket after Carmichael had tried the light switch and nothing had happened.

  Either the mains had tripped, or someone had turned the electricity off for their own nefarious devices. They couldn’t be sure which of these alternatives was the correct one, so they would have to proceed with extreme caution. Anyone could be waiting to ambush them in the silent and gloomy house.

  There had been the sound as of a glass container rolling across the floor when the bin had fallen, and in the torch’s beam was revealed, from the detritus now scattered everywhere, was an empty Amaretto di Saronno bottle, which gave them much pause for thought. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on here, Carmichael, but our first priority is the safety of the Warren-Brownes.’

  ‘I’ll have a look at the consumer unit,�
�� offered Carmichael. ‘Maybe it just tripped at the power outage.’

  ‘Well, go as quietly as you can. If there’s someone in here, we don’t want to be either tackled or attacked. Keep your torch at the ready: it makes a very handy improvised weapon. I’ll go through to the hall and see what it was you saw through the letterbox,’ Falconer volunteered, so they went their separate ways, Falconer with his torch now firmly clutched in one hand, but switched off. He didn’t want its light to advertise his presence, any more than he wanted his approach to, and he took extra care to walk very lightly.

  The presence of the bottle in the bin probably meant nothing. A lot of people liked amaretto, especially at Christmas. He’d put money on there being at least half a dozen bottles of the stuff in houses around the village at this time of year.

  In the hall he almost tripped over the prone figure of Alan Warren-Browne, head and shoulders on the hall floor, his body and legs lying pointing upwards on the bottom steps. He wasn’t moving, and after checking that he was still alive Falconer decided against his better judgment to put him into a more comfortable position; although he may have suffered a trauma, he was likely to freeze to death where he was.

  As he moved him, he heard a sighing breath, and knew that the man was only injured and unconscious, but he had no idea what whoever had done this would have done to Marian. He had to find her, given vulnerable she was at the moment. She could be lying injured or dead upstairs, and he had to locate such a vulnerable woman with as little delay as possible.

  Slowly he crept up the stairs, his hand on the torch now in his pocket: such a handy weapon should he find he had to defend himself from intruders. At the top of the stairs all was in gloom, and he was just wondering whether to go along the landing towards the back or the front of the house when several things seemed to happen simultaneously.

  The lights came back on with a glare that almost blinded him, he was aware of a screech of brakes from the road outside, and he heard Carmichael’s voice roar out one word, ‘Duck!’ His reaction was instinctive, and his body moved without his conscious brain having time to catch up with what was actually happening. A split-second later, something whooshed past his head, narrowly missing him, and he heard footsteps thundering up the stairs.

  Carmichael arrived on the landing and made a grab for something or somebody Falconer couldn’t see, and there were more footsteps heading up the staircase. ‘Got her, sir!’ exclaimed Carmichael with a note of triumph in his voice, and the inspector turned round to see his sergeant restraining Marian Warren-Browne by the simple but effective method of wrapping his arms round her from behind and clasping his hands in front of her body, thus not only confining her but keeping her arms captured as well.

  Other bodies arrived on the landing, making quite a crowd, and escorted Marian down the stairs and into the waiting police car outside, as Falconer fought to work out exactly what had happened in that whirlwind of time since he had reached the first floor of the house.

  Turning to the now free Carmichael, he said, ‘Thanks for the warning to duck. If you hadn’t called out, she’d have hit me.’

  ‘I wasn’t warning you, sir,’ Carmichael replied with a slight flush of embarrassment. ‘I just shouted out what she was holding. I saw it silhouetted in the light from outside. It was that plaster duck that always stands near the top of the stairs, and I knew it was heavy. There wasn’t time to shout, “Look out for the duck!” so I just shouted “Duck!”’

  ‘!’ Falconer was speechless, but nonetheless grateful that it hadn’t been a vase or a figurine. A yell of ‘vase’ or ‘figurine’ would have produced no reaction from him whatsoever, and he thanked God that Marian had picked up what she had, or he would at this very moment have been spark out, having measured his length on the floor after being brained with a miscellaneous decorative household item.

  ‘She must have thought you were the intruder, sir,’ explained Carmichael, as if to a five-year-old. ‘Anyway, I handed her over to Green and Starr, and they’re taking her to the hospital to be checked over. Alan’s being taken off in an ambulance. The paramedics don’t think he’ll be unconscious for long, so we can go and talk to him when they’ve got his injuries sorted out and got him settled.’

  ‘So, the whole team was alerted in the nick of time,’ sighed Falconer in relief, having worked out why the house had been so suddenly full of other people. ‘Good old Kerry. We were in a bit of a jam, weren’t we? But what the hell has been going on in this house?’

  ‘No idea at the moment,’ replied Carmichael. ‘Merv Green said a SOCO team was on its way, and so was Doc Christmas, so I suggest we follow the ambulance to the hospital and wait to find out how they are. We can go into the office later to debrief with Chivers. Come on: we’ll go in my car as that’s the one we’ve come up here in. You can come back and collect yours later.’

  ‘Oh my God! Chivers!’ moaned Falconer. ‘He’ll have my guts for garters after that bollocking I gave him this morning. He’ll have me right on the carpet for the way I spoke to him.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Carmichael comforted him. ‘It’ll make a change from Mulligan, won’t it?’

  PC John Proudfoot was on duty outside the front door, standing there in the cold with his usual phlegmatic stolidity. ‘Has anyone secured the back door?’ asked Falconer, as they left the house. ‘Only we had to break it to gain access, and I’d hate to think someone could just slip in and help themselves to anything they fancied while you were standing here guarding an open Aladdin’s cave.’

  ‘I’ll see to that right away, Inspector, sir. Nobody said nothin’ to me about an open back door.’

  ‘Best get on with it then, man. Chop chop!’

  Carmichael drove carefully to the hospital in Market Darley, while Falconer sat in the passenger seat and calmed down after nearly being assaulted by an elderly woman in the lawful pursuit of his duty.

  They asked first to speak to Marian, to see if she could remember exactly what had happened, although Falconer thought they had about as little chance of that as a snowflake’s chance in a microwave, and he proved to be right. All she seemed to be able to say was, ‘There was a man. There was a man. He was outside my room.’

  When she saw Falconer, she changed this slightly to, ‘Was it that man from the resident’s lounge? Did you see him too? I nearly got him, you know.’ Then she just relapsed back into ‘There was a man.’

  One of the duty doctors came and spoke to them, and informed them that they had summoned someone with psychiatric experience and, as there were rather complicated circumstances – whatever that may mean – they had called in Dr Dubois. Did Falconer, by any chance, know her?

  ‘!’ Speechless again.

  Alan Warren-Browne was being kept in overnight, just as a precaution because he had a head injury, but other than a fair amount of bruising where he had tumbled down the stairs he was not seriously injured, and they could see him now if they wanted to. They did. He at least may be able to explain what the dickens had been going on in that house when they arrived, and exactly why he had made his call for help in the first place.

  They found him lying against propped pillows in a general ward, and immediately drew the curtains round his bed so that he could speak to them without an audience. ‘What, in the name of all that’s holy, happened today at your place?’ asked Falconer, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, while Carmichael took the metal and plastic visitor’s chair so that he could take notes.

  ‘It was all Marian,’ he said.

  ‘Marian?’ chorused both detectives.

  ‘We thought you were in the process of being burgled,’ said Falconer with surprise.

  ‘We thought you’d been attacked when you surprised them, and that Marian was in danger – or even worse,’ added Carmichael, vocalising his original fears when they had broken in and found Alan unconscious.

  ‘No, it was just Marian. Just! – what a stupid word in the circumstances. I’ve tried to keep the lid on things until I
could get her to the doctor when the roads were cleared, but I just couldn’t cope any more. It was getting beyond me, and I was desperate for some professional help. Dear God! What have we done? What have I done?’

  ‘We don’t know, Alan. Why don’t you tell us, but start at the very beginning, please, so that we don’t get even more confused than we already are.’

  ‘Confused? There’s a word I never want to hear again.’

  ‘Take it slowly, and explain in your own time,’ Falconer advised, and sat back while the man gathered his thoughts together.

  After a monumental sigh, Alan began his long tale. ‘It all started before we left the post office,’ he said, with another sigh. ‘That’s why we gave it up, really. She was getting forgetful and muddled – only now and again, mind – and what with her headaches as well, it seemed best to get her as far away as possible from any source of stress, so we bought The Beehive, which was much quieter than being behind a post office counter and living in the middle of the village.

  ‘After we moved, she didn’t go out very much, and she was only occasionally getting muddled. She had Kerry and the boys round to visit at first, letting them play in the garden and the building that used to be a studio at the bottom of the garden. We did have some ideas and actually kitted that out as a playhouse for them so that they could stay over and feel that they were having an adventure.

  ‘Then she started asking me who those two little boys were after they’d gone home, and, a couple of times, when Kerry’s been round with them, she told me that she didn’t know who that young woman was either, but that she wished she could see her baby goddaughter, as she hadn’t seen her for ages.

  ‘I managed to get her to the doctor, and he diagnosed an early-onset type of dementia; maybe even some sort of damage caused by the prolonged nature and severity of her headaches. He gave her some tablets to take and, for a while, they seemed to help a bit. Then she started going downhill again, and by the time Christmas was approaching I didn’t know what she was going to do next.