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  “You have a lot to cope with, emotionally, at the moment, but I must press you to tell us of your discovery of Miss Cater’s body,” said Falconer, feeling like a louse. The young man had postponed his wedding, and lost his fiancée, and all the while, his father was dying a slow and painful death. Life could be a fair cow at times, he thought.

  “I went into the flat, and stopped and listened. There was only silence, which I thought confirmed my first idea, that she was still asleep in bed, and that mine would be the first face she saw on Christmas Day, and I put my hand into my overcoat pocket, just to check that I hadn’t forgotten the necklace in my hurry to get over there.

  “I went into the bedroom, and she had her back to me, the covers all over the place, as usual. She was a very restless sleeper. That made me smile; how I would surprise her by waking her …” Again his voice trailed off, and he put his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, but this is really difficult,” he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes, as if there were grit in them.

  “I crept over to the bed, and put my hand on her shoulder, but it was unnaturally cold. That made me feel a bit anxious, so I gave a little pull at her, to make her turn over, and then I saw …”

  “That’s all right, Mr Cutler. We know what you saw. And you’re perfectly sure that there weren’t any peanuts in her apartment, in any shape or form, when you left it on Christmas Eve?”

  “I’m positive. Angela was paranoid about the things. Shopping with her was a nightmare. She had to read every label, to see what was in everything, and if it even said ‘may contain traces of nuts’ she avoided the product, even if it hadn’t specified ‘peanuts’, saying that she couldn’t be too careful, given the severity of her allergy.

  “She was due to have more hospital tests in the New Year, to ascertain whether her allergy also included other nuts, so she was extra vigilant in everything she bought, and we never ate out, just in case. In fact, we hardly went anywhere. She couldn’t go to pubs or bars because of other people eating peanuts, and she couldn’t trust the recipes in restaurants. In fact, the only places we’ve ever been together are the cinema and the theatre.

  “I think that’s all we need to know, for now, except, do you know if anyone else had a key to Miss Cater’s apartment?”

  “Except for me, only her parents, in case of emergency,” he answered, looking a little calmer.

  “And how long had you known Miss Cater?”

  “Only about three months. It was love at first sight, followed by a whirlwind romance – all those terrible clichés were true, for us.”

  “Oh, and would it be possible to speak to your parents, just to confirm the events on Christmas Eve?” Falconer slipped in at the last minute.

  “I’d rather you didn’t go to the house. My father’s in a bad way at the moment: in a lot of pain, and heavily sedated, but if you’d like to call back here tomorrow, about five o’clock, my mother is going to come over to see me, to discuss … arrangements. She doesn’t like to do that where Daddy or the nurse might possibly overhear – not even on the telephone – so she’ll be visiting me in the afternoon, and I can give her back the necklace, at the same time. There’s no use me hanging on to it, now that Angela’s dead,” Dominic explained.

  “That seems perfectly acceptable,” replied Falconer. “We just need corroboration of your story, for our records. I wonder if you’d let us have a look at the necklace, before we go.”

  “Of course. Here it is,” Cutler replied, pulling it out of a small drawer in a desk just behind him.

  It was a real beauty! Light sparked from it, in myriad rainbows of colour, which reflected on the walls and ceiling, and made moving patterns of light as Falconer turned it this way and that. “Thank you very much, sir,” he commented, handing it back. “It’s a lovely old piece. I’m sure Miss Cater would have loved and cherished it.”

  “So am I,” replied Cater, in a faltering voice. “I’ll just show you out.”

  STAVE FIVE

  A Christmas Gift of Pertinent Information

  27th December, 2009 – afternoon

  As they now had no need to visit Dominic Cutler’s parents, Falconer and Carmichael shared a companionable lunch in ‘The Shoulder of Mutton and Gherkins’. This was the first suspicious death that they had worked on that had actually taken place in Market Darley, and, for once, they had no need to dash about the countryside to some far-flung village. It all seemed terribly civilised.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t had the opportunity to ask you yet, but are you having a nice Christmas, Carmichael?” Falconer asked his sergeant, and was suddenly flooded with a perfect cataract of a narrative, about this ‘first of many’ Christmas and Boxing Days.

  “They’d waited for me, when I got back on Christmas morning. The boys hadn’t opened any of the presents from under the tree. They’d put it off until I got back, so that I could share in their excitement. Wasn’t that thoughtful of them all?

  “And Kerry’s Christmas dinner was easily as good as anything my ma’s ever cooked. We listened to the Queen, then the boys played with all their new toys. Oh, and the Christmas pud! It was the most delicious I’ve ever tasted – absolutely first rate, and made to one of Kerry’s godmother’s family recipes. You remember Alan and Marian Warren-Browne from the post office in Castle Farthing, don’t you?” he asked.

  Falconer was given only enough time to agree that he did, indeed, remember them, before the momentum of Carmichael’s narrative resumed. “We had a cracking tea, with fruit, jelly and ice-cream, Christmas cake, and mince pies and sausage rolls. It was all top-notch scoff.” Carmichael needed to consume a lot, to fuel a frame as large as his, so his mind was frequently preoccupied with food – what he had already eaten, and when and what he would eat in the future, given the opportunity.

  “The next day we did something that is a tradition in my family, and Kerry had never heard of before. My ma realised, a long time ago, how children ache for just one more present, on Boxing Day, after all the excitement of the day before, so she always used to wrap a little something for everyone, and hang the parcels from the Christmas tree. Then, when we came down on Boxing Day, after breakfast, we used to get to open what she referred to as ‘the tree presents’, and it was just a lovely little extra, to all the presents from the day before.

  “Anyway, we did this after breakfast on Boxing Day, and the boys loved it. Then, after lunch – oh, the lunch! Tons of cold meats, oodles of pickles, and the most buttery mashed potatoes you could imagine, sir. Kerry and the boys had a load of salad stuff, as well, but I couldn’t be bothered with that – there was too much other lovely stuff to get through.

  “Anyway, after that lot, I went up to get what I had hidden in Kerry’s wardrobe, when I originally arrived, and came downstairs with a little sack of presents, with numbers stuck on them – it’s another tradition in the Carmichael family, that there is a ‘lucky dip’, and I’d kept this as a surprise.

  “Everyone pulls a number out of a hat (ready and waiting, of course), and chooses the present with the matching number. There should be loads of little gifts: tiny, inexpensive things, like a comb or a lollipop, so that it doesn’t get too costly. It can, in fact it did, last all the afternoon.

  “We had an absolutely smashing time. What about you, sir?”

  The tirade suddenly stopped. The whirlwind ceased, and left Carmichael staring in enquiry at the inspector.

  “Very nice, thank you, Carmichael,” Falconer replied.

  Mr and Mrs Cater lived in a very large detached house, about a mile outside Market Darley, with about five acres of garden – or grounds. Falconer couldn’t decide exactly how he would describe the land they had.

  The door was opened by a housekeeper, who bade them enter, and showed them into the morning room, where they awaited the bereaved parents. Alan and Edith Cater joined them, a few minutes later, grief still marking their faces, their footsteps slow, as if nothing were of any importance any more.

  After the usual introdu
ctions, and expressions of sympathy for their loss, Falconer apologised for bothering them, and said he would keep their visit as short as possible, so that they could be left in peace, to come to terms with what had happened.

  “I’d like to ask you how well you knew your daughter’s fiancé. Did he come here a lot? Did you ever go to his home, or meet his parents?” Falconer began his questioning, as Carmichael, inevitably, prepared to do his version of shorthand.

  “He came here once, very briefly, just so that we could meet him, but they had to rush off somewhere – I can’t remember where, now – the theatre, or a cinema, or some such place. He seemed a nice enough young man, but we were a little concerned, at the speed at which their relationship was developing,” Alan Cater informed them.

  “Why was that?”

  “Because of the amount of money that Angela would in– would have inherited, should anything happen to us. We didn’t want her to get involved with a gold-digger. But he seemed a nice enough young man. We went to his apartment, once, for a drink before a function we were attending in Market Darley, and he seemed to be very comfortably off, so it set our minds at rest,” Edith Cater continued, on her husband’s behalf.

  “I suppose, with the tests she had booked for the New Year, they would have discovered something else she was allergic to, if she died of an allergic reaction.” Mrs Cater couldn’t go on, and her husband took over.

  “I presume that Cutler knew all about the peanut thing, and didn’t just make a mistake, did he?”

  “He certainly explained her condition to us, in some detail, and said that he always avoided peanuts, or anything that had them in it, for her sake,” Falconer informed them.

  “Well, I suppose the proof of that will be in what the post mortem discovers, won’t it?” Mr Cater asked, his face a white mask of disbelief and disgust. “Children aren’t supposed to die before their parents. It’s an obscenity, if you think about it. No one should ever be asked to bury their child,” he added, visibly trying to pull himself together.

  “We’ll leave you in peace now,” Falconer said, having decided that they’d got the information they’d come for, and would burden the bereaved parents no longer with their company.

  Back at the office, Dr Christmas rang Falconer, with some preliminary findings from the post mortem. “It was definitely a severe allergic reaction that killed her, Harry, but I can’t seem to determine what triggered it. I’ve been through the stomach contents with a fine-tooth comb – if you’ll pardon the ghastly phrasing – and I can’t find any trace of peanuts. In fact, I can’t find traces of any other sort of nut, either, in there. Her stomach was definitely a nut-free organ, and I don’t know what to make of that.

  “I’m going to have a look through some learned journals now, and then look on the internet, and consult a couple of colleagues, to see if I can come up with anything, but, frankly, I hardly know what to look for, let alone ask about,” he concluded, his voice sounding as puzzled as he felt.

  “The reaction must have been triggered by something, and I expect you to work your clinical little socks off, to find out what it was. We must know the reason for that reaction having been triggered. Anything less will leave the lot of us looking like a bunch of rank amateurs,” was Falconer’s reply.

  “I’ll carry on for now, and give you a ring in the morning. I hope I’ll know more by then. Bye for now.” And the doctor was gone, no doubt, back to his own detective work, to explain the demise of his current ‘customer’.

  STAVE SIX

  The Third of the Spirits – The Spirit of Justice

  28th December, 2009 – morning

  About ten o’clock on the morning of the twenty-eighth, Falconer received another phone call from Dr Christmas, this time with some very interesting information, which he promised to e-mail to CID, so that it could be recorded in the official file, and which confirmed that Angela Cater did have a nut allergy that was more far-ranging than just peanuts. One final quirky fact made up Falconer’s mind for him.

  Doc Christmas had located the site of the allergen, and declared he had never come across anything like it in his whole professional life, before. The inspector would be going to see that young man again, this afternoon, but he’d go prepared for what he intended to do, and he’d face Cutler with what he’d just been told.

  Carmichael’s mouth dropped open in disbelief, when Falconer related the contents of the call from Dr Christmas to him, and it took some while for him to believe that Falconer wasn’t just pulling his leg, to see how gullible he was.

  “I promise you, Carmichael, that’s the God’s honest truth. I’ve checked it out myself, for much the same reason as you suspected me of: of having you on, but it’s true. I’d never have guessed it was possible, but apparently it is, and we’ve just got to accept it, and what it implies.”

  “But she hadn’t eaten any nuts?”

  “None whatsoever, Carmichael. Her stomach was as clean as the proverbial whistle of traces of any nuts of any sort.”

  “I’ve done a couple of other checks on various things that we’ve been told, and I think I’m as prepared as I can be for this afternoon’s visit.”

  28th December, 2009 – afternoon

  When they reached the apartment block that Cutler had given as his address, Falconer noticed for the first time that the name in the little holder by the intercom was written on a tatty piece of paper, by hand, and not printed on card, like the others above and below it.

  Why had he not noticed that before? Probably because he couldn’t have imagined the bizarre turn that events were about to take, and had accepted everything at face value – a very dangerous and unprofessional thing for a detective to do.

  A resident on the way out passed the open door to them so there was no need to ring the doorbell. This was just as well, as it would give their arrival the element of surprise that having to ring would not have done.

  The door was opened, with only a wait of thirty seconds or so, during which, voices could be heard from within, and then Mr Cutler was there, in the doorway, inviting them inside, to meet his mother. There was definitely a familial resemblance between him and the woman who rose from a sofa to greet them, but, with the information he now possessed, Falconer was able to discern easily that there was something not quite right about the way she was dressed.

  “Your arrival has just reminded me that I promised to return that necklace to my mother today,” commented Cutler, moving to the desk, whence he had extracted it previously to show to Falconer.

  “I’d be grateful if you’d pass that to me, if you don’t mind, sir,” Falconer requested, noting a little frown of anxiety cross Cutler’s face.

  “Of course. No problem. Is there something wrong, Inspector?”

  “There most definitely is, Mr Cutler, but fortunately I’ve been able to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, and see the whole picture, and not just the part of it that you wanted me to see.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

  “Oh, I think you do, sir, as does your mother. I am arresting you for the wilful murder of Angela Rebecca Cater on 24th December, 2009 …” the official caution followed, then Falconer turned his attention to Mrs Cutler.

  “Mrs Rita Lesley Cutler, I am arresting you, for withholding of evidence, in a case of murder – oh, and probably some other things as well, when I can get round to working out what they are. You don’t live in some big house in the country with a dying husband, do you? You live in a council house on the Wild Birds Estate, on the outskirts of Market Darley, and your husband did a runner, years ago. I’ve got a patrol car, which should now be waiting outside for us, so I’m asking you to come quietly, or I’ll have to call the occupants of said patrol car up here, to help you to cooperate.”

  “I told her I’d love her to death, Inspector,” Cutler shouted, as he was escorted out of the flat. “After a while, she used to beg me, when we were having sex ‘Oh, love
me to death, Dom. Love me to death,’ she’d moan, so on Christmas Eve, I did.”

  “Come on, sir, give! There’re lots of pieces to this particular jigsaw puzzle that I don’t know about, so spill the beans, or I’ll have to get PC Green to frighten the truth out of you.”

  They were back in the office now, and Carmichael, who had not been party to much of the digging that Falconer had done, was waiting with baited breath to hear the whole story.

  “Apparently it had all started when Dominic, in his usual guise of an habitual layabout, in scruffy clothes and with wild, unkempt hair, had gone into the council offices to report a blocked drain. He was living at home with his mother, both of them on benefits, in one of the local authority houses out in ‘the wilds’ of the Wild Birds Estate, and on that particular visit to the local authority, it was Angela who took the details from him.

  “I don’t know how he found out things about her, but he obviously did, and became obsessed with her, as well as her wealth, and he thought he could do himself a bit of good, if he got to know her. Anyway, he spruced himself up a bit and got a decent haircut, then he had a stroke of luck that he could not have foreseen.

  “An old school-friend of his, who had prospered, was going away, on a six-month contract, to Dubai. They had always been particular friends at school. This friend knew how Dominic was fixed, still living at home with his mother, and, very generously in my opinion, asked him if he’d like to move into his apartment while he was away, to keep an eye on it, otherwise it would be standing empty – a magnet for anyone with evil intentions, who could manage to get inside it.

  “Of course, Cutler jumped at the chance. Now, he could engineer a meeting with Angela Cater, and not only look the part, but have the right address, to go with the manufactured background he was going to feed to her.