Inkier Than the Sword (The Falconer Files Book 3) Read online

  Tilly Gifford, of Foxes’ Run, one of the terrace of old cottages on the Market Darley Road, did not wander downstairs until ten o’clock that morning, and would have stayed in bed longer if she could have ignored Tommy’s pig-like snores. She was halfway down the stairs when she saw the envelope lying on the door mat under the letterbox, and her brow furrowed in puzzlement. Today was a Bank Holiday and surely there was no post, so who had pushed a letter through her letterbox?

  She could see it was a letter because, even from this distance, she could identify what was obviously an address. As she got closer she realised that the reason she could see it from such a distance was because it wasn’t handwritten, or even typed. It consisted of large letters and numbers, obviously cut from newspaper or magazine article headlines, and was addressed to her.

  Knowing that she was bolting the stable door after the horse had bolted, she nevertheless opened the front door and looked both right and left, pulling the folds of her fleecy dressing gown closer round her as she did so, to ward off the cold. No, not a soul in sight, as she’d thought. What exactly had she got here? She’d better keep it to herself and have a look at it later, when Tommy was obviously and noisily in the shower.

  Monica Raynor, next door at Badger’s Sett, had been up since quite early, and had heard the flap of the letter box as the envelope was pushed through it. Not even thinking that there would be no official post on a Bank Holiday, she nevertheless ambled out to see what it was that had landed on her doormat and, as soon as she had seen the crudely cut and pasted letters on the envelope, shot out through her front door, and looked sharply in both directions.

  But there was not a car in sight, let alone a pedestrian with a guilty expression, so she shoved the missive in her dressing-gown pocket, refusing to even look at it until she had at least two cups of hot, strong black coffee inside her. This didn’t look like a party invitation, and she wasn’t ready for something unpleasant so early in not only the morning, but in the year.

  Chapter One

  The Physical Aspect of The Occasion

  Friday 1st January

  Everything was pitch-black, and all Falconer could hear was someone groaning. Something covered his head, he was unable to move, and still the groaning went on. Every muscle in his body ached, and his head throbbed brutally, timing itself to the groans that seemed to be closing in on him. His throat was as dry as dust. What the hell had happened? What the hell was going on? Why was no one coming to his aid? Was he going to die?

  Detective Inspector Harry Falconer gradually became aware that the person groaning was himself, and that the reason he was unable to move was that he was wrapped tightly in his own bed linen, the three cats for which he was now responsible adding their weight to his state of immobility. One question, however, still remained. What the hell had happened?

  And then it came back: not all of it, but little glimpses, like trailers from a film about hell, glimpses that he knew would grow into great big, explosive, shame-filled, remembered activity, and he rather wished that he had been going to die, for he remembered that yesterday he had been best man at Carmichael’s wedding!

  His cry of, ‘Aaaaargh! Oh my God! Dear God, no, no, no, no, no! No! Anything but that! Please, God, I don’t want to remember!’ was as an unanswered prayer, as cats scattered willy nilly, and he fought his way out of the bedclothes to survey the state in which he had entered his slumber.

  New Year’s Eve had been the wedding date selected by his no longer acting, but actual, detective sergeant, Ralph ‘Davey’ Carmichael, and Carmichael’s sweetheart Kerry Long. A truly odd couple who had met during an investigation the previous summer in the village of Castle Farthing, they were as different as chalk and cheese.

  Kerry had been first married very young, and was separated from her husband and trying to make ends meet for her and her two sons, when old cow-poke Carmichael had come galloping on to the scene. Carmichael, all nearly six and a half feet of him (and as daft as a brush, in Falconer’s opinion), had fallen almost instantly for her, and they had planned their future with no loss of time.

  It was just before Christmas that Carmichael had issued his invitation for Falconer to be best man, and asked if he could inspect the contents of his boss’s wardrobe. Somewhat perplexed, but too polite to question the request as it involved his colleague’s wedding, Falconer had agreed, without demur, to wear the Indian jacket he had picked up on his travels many years before.

  The material of said jacket of exotic origins was of alternate threads of orange and brown in Shantung silk, giving a two-tone effect that was muted but eye-catching. It had no collar, but had a fine gold braid which was attached at cuff, neckline, down the front and round the bottom of the garment. Falconer had never had the nerve to actually wear it, but had agreed that if Carmichael wanted him to, he would give it its debut appearance at the Register Office.

  Of Carmichael’s actual motive for such a request, he was to have no idea until he turned up, half an hour early, as was his habit, for the civil ceremony, only to see the gathering of a clan of bizarrely clad people that he had to assume were members of the Carmichael clan. His outfit, in retrospect, had been a model of modesty and restraint. It was only with the arrival of the bride and groom that realisation of what exactly was happening, had dawned on him.

  It was as Cinderella and Prince Charming stepped down from a heavily decorated farm cart that he understood that what Carmichael had been planning was a wedding totally in keeping with the time of year. It was a pantomime wedding! And, as best man, he was going to figure in just about every photograph taken, and may God have mercy on his soul and on his reputation. Moving towards the happy (but surely mad?) couple, there was only time for a, ‘Giddy up, Aladdin. We’re on in two minutes,’ from Carmichael, before he was whisked into the thick of things, and now his life would never be quite the same again.

  The ceremony had, in fact, started ten minutes late, which had been enough time for Carmichael’s mother to whip a hip flask out of the many layers of her Widow Twankey costume and administer, almost against his will, a couple of hefty belts of brandy. They would have been even heftier if he had not physically moved away, for he didn’t think it would be very diplomatic of him to strike the mother of the groom on such an occasion, and therefore, allowed himself to be thus force-fed a couple of what were probably at least doubles.

  As the short ceremony ended, Falconer managed to catch sight of the bride’s godparents, Alan and Marian Warren-Browne, respectably dressed in matching kimonos and representing God knows what pantomime – possibly innocent bystanders caught up in Aladdin’s story – but before he could strike out in their direction, he was, literally, carried off in the bridal party to be transported to the reception, where the photographer was to be given free rein.

  How he had ended up in the second bridal car he had no idea, but he had found himself, once again, in the company of the lady now elevated to the position of Mrs Carmichael senior. Like a breast-feeding mother detecting a need for nourishment in her infant, she immediately stuck the neck of a wine bottle into his mouth. Rather than drown, or ruin his exquisite jacket, he drank, and knew that he was being fed by a mother who had had no need of a wet nurse to provide her charge with succour.

  By the time everyone was settled at the reception, Falconer knew three things and, if he thought hard enough, he might be able to remember all three. No, that wasn’t right! How many things was it he had to remember? The number three came to mind. Now, what had he been thinking about when he had been slightly more coherent? Oh yes, he had been lining things up. What things? And where? And why? Was it a game he was playing, or a competition he had entered?

  He really must pull himself together. Now, things in a line – how many was it? With a shake of his head, he took a brief trip back to near-sobriety, and remembered that he knew three things, and had been about to line them up and look at them, examining them as a group.

  Taking a mental breath, he considered the fi
rst thing he knew, which was that his jacket was still free from stains, creases, tears, burns or other damage.

  The second thing he knew, and at which he had to squint slightly to stop it slipping away, was that he had never found himself in a weirder situation, surrounded as he was by Ali Baba and his forty thieves, Wishy-Washy, Jack the Giant Killer, Buttons, Baron Hard-Up, the Ugly Sisters, and just about any other pantomime figure he could imagine.

  The third thing he knew, he knew positively and absolutely irrefutably, and this was, that he was drunk, and likely to become drunker as the affair went on. There was no escape for him from Carmichael’s lunatic family and friends, and he was just going to have to bite the bullet and let it happen. Even the SAS couldn’t rescue him from this benevolent but terrifying captivity.

  Yes, examining all three things in a group had been a good idea. Because he now knew for certain that he had been royally and irrefutably shafted by fate, and would have to let the whim of the wind of circumstance carry him where it would. He was powerless in its grasp, and would probably need a damned good tailor to sew his reputation back into one piece after today.

  His explosive propulsion from present, to past, and back to the present again, propelled him as far as the kitchen, where his three furry dependents waited, practically tapping their claws with impatience. He was well behind his usual time for feeding them, and they were hungry, after the distinctly meagre (in their opinion) scattering of crunchy food they had received for supper the night before. Their person (for cats are not owned , merely having all their needs catered for) was definitely not on form, for they were not used to such erratic attention and irresponsible behaviour.

  Falconer put on the kettle before attending to his furry charges, remembering the previous January, when it had just been him and Mycroft, his beloved Siamese. Since then, Carmichael had picked up a wife on that case in Castle Farthing last summer. He had picked up a broken heart and two more cats, Ruby and Tar Baby, on the case that followed in the early autumn.

  It looked like Carmichael had got the better deal, and he, Falconer, merely a heavier heart and a lighter wallet. Of such things is life made. One just had to get on with it and hope for the best. ‘Whye bollocks, man!’ he thought in a Geordie accent, pouring his coffee and pulling out a chair at the kitchen table, as he wondered what shit the New Year had in store for him.

  He was supposed to be on duty today, having surmised that though attendance at Carmichael’s wedding might take up a couple of hours of his time, he would be able to retire with a book at his usual bedtime. As things were, he called the station for a patrol car to pick him up in half an hour, as he was certainly not fit to drive, and had no intention whatsoever of losing his licence as well as his good name.

  He started to suffer the flashbacks as he dressed, and by the time the car arrived to pick him up, he was in a cold sweat, imagining that everyone at the station would have had photographs of his humiliation sent to them via mobile phones and the internet, but all was quiet when he arrived at the old redbrick police station in Market Darley, and no one so much as glanced at him as he made his way quietly – almost furtively – to his office.

  The criminal element under the jurisdiction of the Market Darley station was either more hungover than he was, or were diligently observing the Bank Holiday, for there were no calls at all on his time, and only a scant number of visitors to the front desk, most of them in search of cars that they had mislaid the night before, and wouldn’t mind some help from any officers on patrol in locating their vehicle. Bob Bryant – as usual – fielded them and made the necessary arrangements for any sightings. Truth to tell, Falconer was not aware of anyone else in the building but the two of them, and for this he was grateful – well, sort of, because it gave his mind nothing to occupy itself with, and he could put it into dorm mode.

  Sitting at his desk, however, vivid hallucinations – or were they? – troubled him. One was of three strapping lads, each dressed as the Genie of the Lamp, each holding a facsimile of said lamp, smiling benevolently at him. Another was of two strikingly similar Ugly Sisters making up a ghastly trio with Mrs Carmichael senior, all three waving coyly at him. He had a vague recollection that all three of the genies and the two ugly sisters were Carmichael’s siblings, but no names came to mind as he tried to banish the ghastly recollections.

  During the early afternoon he decided that enough was enough, told Bob Bryant to furnish any callers with the number for his work mobile, and slunk out of the building like a fugitive in search of sanctuary. Carmichael was not taking a honeymoon at such an inclement time of the year and was, instead, just spending the first day of the year – a Friday – and the ensuing weekend, with his new bride and her two sons. No doubt his recollection of the – Falconer was at a loss to know how to regard the events of the previous day – festivities, celebrations, bacchanalian revels – would be better than his own.

  He returned home, knowing that he would have a restless weekend until Carmichael could either put him out of his misery, or confirm his awful suppositions, on Monday morning. He should never have agreed to be the best man. He should have known that if left to Carmichael, any event – even his own wedding – would be an absolute shambles and completely bizarre. Who on earth else would arrange, let alone choose to have, a pantomime wedding? It would have been a pantomime even without the costumes, with his DS in charge.

  After a meagre snack that he did not really feel like eating, he dry-swallowed two paracetamol and headed for his rumpled bed at seven-thirty, thanking his lucky stars that it was the arse-hole of the year and therefore dark very early, so that he didn’t feel too much of a freak turning in at such an unheard-of hour, and grateful that he wasn’t rostered for duty again until Monday. It would take him a whole weekend to recover from feeling like this, which was worse than he’d ever felt before. What had he been drinking? Meths? Paraffin?

  Chapter Two

  The Aspirational Side of Things

  Monday, 4th January

  I

  Davey Carmichael was a very happy man. He had recently passed his sergeant’s exams and been awarded promotion to detective sergeant, and paired permanently with Inspector Harry Falconer, with whom he had already worked two murder cases as an acting detective sergeant.

  When they had first been partnered, Carmichael had lived in a somewhat higgledy-piggledy extension at the rear of the family council house, and was involved on a daily basis in the fight for clean clothes that not only fitted, but were intended for the right gender. He led a rather lonely life, as his outlook on things was not exactly normal, but his expectations were high, and he somehow knew that things would come good for him, if he just let life get on with sorting it out for him.

  On their very first case together, Carmichael had met and fallen in love with his future wife, and was delighted rather than dismayed, to discover that she had two sons from a previous marriage. In his eyes the boys were a bonus, not a hindrance.

  As his relationship with his superior began to take shape, he had proposed to the now Mrs Carmichael but, sticking by the morals and principles that he had been brought up with, but which were perhaps a little old-fashioned, he refused to live with her until they were married, and that was the real reason that the ceremony had been so promptly planned and executed. A couple of his siblings did ask if Kerry was in the Pudding Club, but he had glared balefully at them, and opined that he thought they knew him better than that.

  The awarding of his sergeant’s stripes (worn invisibly on plain clothes) had been the icing on the cake for him, only to be firmly stood on, on the top of the cake, by him and his bride on New Year’s Eve – a date impossible to forget, even for him.

  Although he had only taken two days’ leave from work – Thursday and Friday, to make sure he wasn’t rostered in on the first day of his married life – Carmichael had been busy in that time, making things just that little bit different in his new household. He had woken up on Monday 4th January knowing that,
for the first time in his life, he would not have to fight for what he wore today, as his clothes – or those that he could identify as having bought himself – were hanging in the wardrobe in the bedroom of the newly wed couple (that, physically, he was more like three-quarters than half of), waiting for him to take his pick.

  He had the wedding photos already downloaded on to a CD, and looked forward to showing them to his boss, and explaining who each member of his family was, as there had been little time for formal introductions on the day itself. It had been a fantastic wedding, in his opinion, and it had been a great idea of Kerry’s to have a theme for it. When he suggested pantomime, she had cheered out loud and asked what else they could possibly do at that time of year. It was absolutely perfect, and what’s more, he was a genius for thinking of it. What a lot could happen in the space of a few months, and he wondered idly where he would be and what he would be doing in a year’s time.

  II

  Buffy Sinden would not be returning to her work as a dental nurse in the practice on the Market Darley Road until the middle of January, as her employer was, at that very moment, halfway through enjoying his annual thirty nights on a Caribbean cruise. She made her way downstairs on Monday morning at a disgraceful eleven thirty-eight.

  Unusually for her, she had spent the night alone, whether as an unconscious sop to a New Year’s resolution she had not made, or because her age was beginning to show, and turn off the young men whom she found so attractive and irresistible. For whatever reason, for once, her face was washed clean of make-up, and her hair sensibly held back with a scrunchie, so she had no difficulty in seeing the envelope lying just inside the front door, as she descended the stairs – no mascara-gummed together eyelashes, no strands of ill-conditioned, bleached hair trailing across her field of vision.