Brief Cases Box Set Page 8

  Chelsea Fairfield answered the door, her face a picture of panic and despair when she saw who was waiting for her. She’d been a great little actress up till now, but she realised the game was up.

  ‘I think you know why we’re here, don’t you, Miss Fairfield?’ Falconer asked, his voice thick with emotion at the waste of another young life.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, as if she cared what the neighbours would think!

  When Carmichael was alerted that they had gained entrance, he went next door to number ten and asked Mrs Jenkins to join them. She would be support for Chelsea in her hour of need, and she also made exceedingly good tea. If he was lucky, she might even bring some biscuits round with her. No matter how grave the circumstances, Carmichael was always hungry!

  But Ida Jenkins went one better, and appeared at the front door with a cake tin. ‘Just a little something I made yesterday,’ she announced. ‘Nothing like a bit of sugar to make you feel a bit stronger when times is trying, is there?’ she asked of no one in particular.

  She bustled around in the kitchen area in Chelsea’s, clattering crockery and boiling the kettle, while Falconer got on with what he had come here for.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked the young woman, who had not yet shed a tear at their discovery of her crime.

  ‘She told me about what Malcolm had done when she was about eleven,’ she said. ‘And I told her that she had to do something about it, but she said she couldn’t tell her mum. I used to go and stay there for a while, in the summer holidays, because we were both only children and they lived out of town. It didn’t matter about the age difference: she was like a little sister to me.

  ‘The next year, when I went back, I found out it was still going on and I was furious. Of course, by then, I wasn’t staying there for long in the summer. I was seventeen years old, and I’d discovered boys and parties and I wanted to be with people my own age. Young people can be so selfish,’ she finished, not noting the irony that she was still one of those young people. Maybe she’d had to grow up faster than most, though.

  ‘I didn’t want to get involved, but I asked her to show me where he lived, and I wrote him an anonymous letter telling him I’d castrate him if he ever laid a finger on her again, and it seemed that he did stop, but it was also me that told her parents she had something disturbing to tell them, and that they’d better get her to talk to them.

  ‘Time went by so fast that we hardly spoke again until just before she took her own life. I think she’d discovered boys, and found that what he’d done to her had changed her. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to have a boyfriend like normal girls do. It was all so sad. She’d lost so much weight. She used to be a chubby, laughing little child, but by the end, she looked like a skeleton. He did that to her!

  ‘For me, it was over when I sent that letter and he left her alone, but it had haunted her ever since. As soon as I heard what she’d done, I went over there to see Auntie Maureen and Uncle Brian, and that’s when I did it.’

  ‘Did what?’ Falconer asked her, his voice muted, his face careworn.

  ‘I took the tablets she hadn’t taken.’

  ‘So it wasn’t something you got from the pharmacy where you work?’ Falconer asked.

  ‘No. I took what was available at the time, and just hung on to them, because I decided there and then that I’d hunt that evil bastard down and somehow get even for her. And that’s exactly what I did. Of course, I had to get on with my own life. Then I had to find him, and strike up some sort of relationship with him. Perhaps now you’ll understand why I kept him waiting for you-know-what!

  ‘I can’t tell you how unbearable it felt, to have that creep slobbering all over me, and trying to get into my knickers for those three weeks.

  ‘There was no way I was ever going to go to bed with that evil little pervert, but I was going to deliver justice to him – a life for a life!’

  ‘Did you know what those tablets would do to him?’ Falconer interjected at this juncture.

  ‘I knew what they’d done to my cousin, and I just wanted the same thing to happen to him. I ground them up with my pestle and mortar, and dissolved them as best as I could before he arrived, then I split the suspension between two drinks, hurrying him through the first one so that I could get him to drink the second one before he lost consciousness.

  ‘Of course, when I saw the reality of what I’d done, and phoned the station, I really was hysterical. I couldn’t believe it! The seriousness of actually taking a life. But later, I remembered all that poor little Eileen had gone through, and I was glad.’

  Her voice trailed off into silence, and Mrs Jenkins erupted into that silence, carrying a tray, and carolling, ‘Tea and cake for everybody. Just the thing to lift the spirits, that’s what I always say.’

  THE END

  Battered to Death

  The third in a series of short stories covering the elapsed time between the books in The Falconer Files series. This story covers events that occur between the books Pascal Passion and Murder at the Manse.

  DI Falconer and DS Carmichael are both enjoying a well-earned rest day when they are summoned to a most distressing incident that has occurred at a chip shop on the parade of shops in Upper Darley. It was obviously murder, but was it something to do with the robust behaviour of the more aggressive customers from the night before – or was the motive somewhat closer to home?

  Chapter One

  Friday 16th April

  It was after ten o’clock on a mild evening, and the rather pathetically-named shop unit called Chish and Fips was doing its usual roaring trade for a Friday night. The shop was packed with customers being served and waiting to be served, with even one or two customers standing outside, waiting for the queue to get a little shorter, so that they could join it on the other side of the door.

  The heat in the little unit was furnace-like, the faces of the customers nearest to the counter a bright red as the fryers belched out heat and clouds of steam. From outside, the little unit was a beacon of smeared colours, like a work of abstract art, behind its condensation-clouded and dripping plate-glass window. The face behind the counter, trying to cope on its own, was of a similar hue to that of its closest customers, but with the features down-turned and cross. The owner, Frank Carrington, had promised to come in at half-past nine to give her a hand, and had still not shown up.

  ‘Who’s next?’ queried the cross-faced figure, Sylvia Beeton by name, trying to serve, wrap orders, rescue cooked food from the fryers, take money, give change, and put fresh food on to fry, all at the same time, and getting mighty fed-up with the gargantuan effort she was putting in for what was just a smidgen over the minimum wage.

  As a voice shouted out for two cod and chips, and to make it quick, she shouted back, without diverting her gaze in the voice’s direction, ‘You wait your turn like everyone else, Sanjeev Khan. Just because your dad’s on the council doesn’t give you priority over anyone else.’

  ‘Two cod and chips, one double battered sausage and chips, and one meat and potato pie and chips,’ the next customer called out, while she was still adding up two burgers and chips, two pickled onions, a pineapple fritter, and a portion of chicken with extra chips.

  ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can. I’ve only got one pair of hands, and I’ve not taken for this lot yet, she called out, handing over a bulging carrier bag and taking, in exchange, a high denomination note. ‘Haven’t you got anything smaller, sir?’ she asked. ‘Oh, well, can’t be helped.’ She sighed, then raised her voice to the rest of the gaggle in the shop, ‘Correct money if you can, or as near as possible. I’m not a bank, and I’ve nearly run out of change. If you can’t, I may have to refuse to serve you.’

  As she got on with serving the next order, throwing an extra load of chips into the fryer and pulling a dozen pieces of fish out of the batter tray and throwing them into another receptacle of boiling fat (for everything was fried in lard in this establishment, in the
old-fashioned way), there was a muttering amongst the customers, and some, who knew each other, got wallets out and rummaged around in pockets to see if they had the exact money, or could help out friends, who looked woebegone, when they flashed a twenty-pound note at them, and felt devastated at possibly having to forego their supper just because of lack of change.

  The queue shortened slowly, as the lull before ‘chucking-out’ time at the pubs arrived and from the flat upstairs there suddenly boomed an almighty racket of drum and bass music, shaking the fluorescent light fitting on the ceiling and causing some customers to cover their ears.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sylvia shouted. ‘I’ll just go up and give them a blasting. I can’t take orders with this racket going on,’ and with that, she was off, through a door at the back, and could be heard thumping up a flight of stairs to the first floor. There was then a roar that rose even above the music, the deafening racket was turned down to a reasonable volume, and Sylvia returned, a look of triumph on her face.

  ‘That’s sorted them out!’ she said, with satisfaction, rubbing her plump hands together with satisfaction. ‘Now, who’s next? Curry Khan, you put that can of drink back in the fridge where it belongs. If I know you, you’ll high-tail off with it before I get to your order. You can take one then, and not before.’

  ‘But I’m thirsty, Mrs Beeton.’

  ‘Then squeeze to the front and put the exact money on the counter, and I’ll let you take it now, and then you can wait for your order like everybody else here. But no pay, no drink. Got it?’

  ‘Got it, Ma,’ agreed Curry, the son of the owner of the local Indian restaurant, and leaned through and put a pound piece on the serving bar. ‘I’ll get my change when I order,’ he shouted to Sylvia, then removed his cold drink and began to gulp at the contents.

  ‘Who’s two haddock and chips?’ Sylvia shouted above the sizzling and bubbling of yet another load of fish fresh into the fryer, and a cloud of steam enveloped her for a second or two, making her invisible.

  ‘Over here! And I’ve got the right money,’ called a voice from the other side of the counter, and an arm extended, hand clasping a pile of change, and the paper wrapped packet was given in exchange.

  She had almost dealt with this deluge of customers, and there were only three people waiting to be served, when Frank Carrington strolled in. ‘I thought I’d come in and give you a hand during the rush,’ he announced, as if he were doing her a favour, rather than working in his own business to line his pocket, not hers.

  ‘You know damned well we have a rush at ten, then another one just after eleven. Where were you at ten o’clock? I was in here getting broiled and working my guts out, just so as you can go on a nice holiday in the summer then swank about how well your business is doing.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not up to it anymore, Sylvia …’ he said, and left the sentence hanging.

  ‘Don’t you threaten me! You wouldn’t get a fraction of the work out of a young ’un as you get out of me, and you know it. I’m more than value for money, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘Only pulling your leg, Sylv. Don’t get all hot and bothered about it.’

  ‘Don’t get all hot and bothered? Just look at the colour of my face, and my hair’s dripping under this hat. You wouldn’t know hot and bothered unless it had a sauna attached to it, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Look, I’m here now, so let’s not argue about it. The after-hours rush will be here any minute now, so make sure you’ve got enough chips ready, and plenty of batter. We can get on with some of the frying before they get here, so that at least we can serve the first dozen or so customers with what we pre-fry, then the next lot will be ready for the queue behind.’

  ‘Makes sense to me. Get your coat and hat on then, and we’ll get started for the first wave,’ replied Sylvia, scooping the last of the chips out of the fat and adding a new batch.

  The next wave arrived just a few minutes after eleven. and was the most difficult to deal with, because it consisted of those who had been in the pub just that little bit longer.

  The queue was, unsurprisingly, not so well-behaved with the new batch of customers, and there was a fair amount of shoving and barging for position, and quite a few angry words exchanged as they waited.

  Sylvia let fly. ‘Get yourselves into a proper queue and act like civilised human beings. I don’t care how much you’ve had to drink! If you want your chips from here, you can bloody well behave, or I’ll chuck you out myself!’

  She received some unexpected support from Frank Carrington, who raised his voice above the hubbub, and shouted, ‘You’d better to listen to our Sylvia, because she means it, and I’m here to re-enforce her decisions.’

  ‘Bloody little Hitler!’ came from the middle of the queue, and Sylvia was on to it immediately. ‘Dogger Ferguson, you get out of here this minute. I won’t have talk like that in this chip shop, and you’re barred.’

  ‘You can’t bar me! This is a chip shop, not a pub,’ he replied, not really bothered by her threat.

  ‘No, but I can!’ This was Frank Carrington’s voice, ‘and I’m barring you. Get out now, and go quietly, or I’ll call the police. I will not have insults like that bandied about in my chip shop. And if any of you think that’s unfair, you can go too!’

  ‘So where am I supposed to get my chips then,’ the youth shouted back, now not looking so sure of himself.

  ‘You’ll just have to go into the town centre, won’t you? Come back in six months, and I’ll see if you’ve learnt any manners. Until then, don’t come back!’ This was from Sylvia, who was usually the one to restore order, if trouble seemed to be about to break out.

  ‘Chalky White, you come back here this minute! Not only have you short-changed me, but one of the fifty pees is an old Irish one. You get back here, or I’ll tell your mother!’

  A dark-skinned youth wove his way back to the counter and corrected the transaction. ‘God, I’m glad you’re not my mother,’ he said, as he left the counter.

  ‘So am I!’ called back Sylvia, giving as good as she got, ‘Because if you were mine, I’d have drowned you at birth!’

  ‘Old bitch!’

  ‘I heard that!’

  The rest of the evening was unusually aggressive, and by the time they had cleared up, prepped for the next day which, being Saturday, was a busy one, both she and Frank were exhausted.

  ‘Where do they get it from? That’s what I want to know,’ said Sylvia, pulling on the old coat she always wore to work because she didn’t want to smell like the lady from the chip shop wherever she went. This way, she didn’t have to have any of her other coats sullied by the tell-tale smell of where she worked.

  ‘The telly?’ offered Frank. ‘School?’

  ‘More like the fact that their mums were only just out of school when they had ’em, and don’t know a thing about bringing up a child to have good manners,’ was Sylvia’s considered opinion, and on this thought, Frank locked up. Sylvia got her bike out of the back hall and made her way home, another Friday evening over and done with. And good riddance to it, too, she thought, puffing and blowing her way back.

  Chapter Two

  Saturday 17th April – morning

  Detective Inspector Harry Falconer of the Market Darley CID was having a well-earned day off. Apart from other crimes, he had already dealt with three murder cases since his explosive entry to the New Year, courtesy of Carmichael’s pantomime-themed wedding, and more booze than he’d ever indulged in in his life before, and that included his time in the army. He really needed a day away from the office and work, and had decided to indulge himself in one of his lazy days.

  He’d not risen until half-past eight, a veritable lie-in for him, then treated himself to a fried breakfast, sharing the last rasher of bacon between his three cats, Mycroft, Tar Baby, and Ruby, who had all begged very nicely to share his unaccustomed treat.

  After that, he’d spread the main body of his Saturday newspaper on the floor, laid down
at the bottom of it, and begun to read. He was usually much more grown-up about this activity, but occasionally indulged in this sort of lounge on the floor because he enjoyed it, and holding up the paper (which was a broadsheet) made his arms ache, and, folding it, his temper ache.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to stay in this position for long, because the cats so loved to play with the corners of the pages, stalking and pouncing on them, then chewing them a bit, and eventually, clawing them. He reckoned he had a good half an hour of shooing them off before he had to transfer the newspaper to the dining table. After that, he intended to watch an old black and white movie he had recorded weeks ago, and hadn’t yet had the time to look at. And after that? Who knows? He might even go for a walk, or take a trip to the local garden centre.

  In Castle Farthing, Detective Sergeant ‘Davey’ Carmichael was also enjoying a day off, and spending it with his wife, Kerry, and her two sons, Kyle and Dean. In his opinion, there was no better way to spend his leisure time than with these three dearest of people. They had also, recently, become the proud owners of two tiny dogs that the boys had named: a Chihuahua called Fang, and a miniature Yorkshire terrier called Mr Knuckles.

  After an enormous breakfast – for, if Carmichael were a car, he’d be a gas guzzler, given his size and fuel consumption – he suggested that they all go out on to the village green and throw a stick and a ball around for the dogs. They had managed to find a very small ball in the pet shop that the young dogs could get their jaws round, and a twig sufficed, in their case, as a stick.

  The boys were very enthusiastic, as were the dogs, for they loved getting out of the house and having a mad run around with the big man, and the green was so big to them. Kerry, however, pleaded household duties and, after closing the door on them gratefully, put on the washing machine, and sat down in her favourite armchair with a magazine and a cup of coffee. She already had a stew cooking away for their evening meal in the slow cooker, and felt that this was about as much as she wanted to do this morning.