Crime Short Story: M For Murder

CRIME SHORT STORY BY CHRISTINE SUTTON

Finding themselves involved in a murder mystery wasn’t part of Fran and Jim’s holiday plans!

“Look, it’s Warminster!” Jim exclaimed. “Isn’t that where ‘Dad’s Army’ was set?”

“That’s Walmington.” Fran sniffed, still peeved at his refusal to reveal their destination.

Catching sight of another road sign, she swivelled in her seat.

“You haven’t?” she cried, picturing the less than lovely caravan site where they’d spent their honeymoon decades ago.

“Haven’t what, peanut?” Jim asked innocently.

“Booked us a return visit to Mudflat-on-Sea?”

He chuckled.

“We must do that one day. Just not today.”

Before he could continue, the car jolted and swerved.

Fran jumped in her seat.

“What was that?”

“Feels like a puncture,” he said, unfazed as always.

Flicking the indicator, he pulled on to the verge.

“Be careful,” she warned, mindful of the passing traffic as he got out.

She lowered the window, craning her neck to see as he bent to examine the tyre.

“Well?” she asked.

“Flatter than the proverbial pancake,” he said. “I’ll need to change it.”

“Can I hold the nuts or something?” Fran asked, all annoyance forgotten.

“Once I get them off, yes,” Jim replied, rummaging in the boot. “For the moment, I want you up on the bank.”

Fran turned and trudged up the slope.

Jim quickly jacked up the car.

He’d tried to lighten Fran’s mood, chatting about the scenery and deliberately confusing the “Dad’s Army” setting, but to no avail.

Being made redundant from her job at Shop ’n’ Save had hit her hard.

Now it looked like his attempt to boost her spirits with a country house break was doomed to fail before it had even started.

One by one, he removed the wheel nuts, dropping them into the upturned hub cap.

The last was stubborn and he had to push down hard.

Suddenly, an arm shot across his eye line.

“Ow!” he cried as his hand slid off the wrench and on to the metal jack.

“Sorry,” Fran said, jerking back. “I was trying to help.”

“I thought I told you to wait up there,” he grumbled, inspecting the two-inch slice on his palm.

“You also told me I could hold the nuts,” she reminded him.

She took a hankie from her pocket and wrapped it around his hand.

“Look at your skirt,” Jim said, as blood splashes blossomed on the pale blue fabric.

“It’ll wash,” she replied.

He leaned back to let her unscrew the loosened nut and drop it in with the rest.

Finally, with the damaged tyre removed and a new one fitted, he helped her to her feet.

“On we go. I promise you, no grotty caravans this time.”

Thirty minutes later they were standing outside a 16th-century manor house with two stone lions guarding the entrance.

“Oh, Jim, this is lovely,” Fran gushed, gazing at a lake tinged pink by the setting sun.

“Better than last time, isn’t it?” Jim agreed, pushing open the studded oak door.

They stepped into a grand entrance hall.

Coming down an impressive staircase was a figure dressed in black.

Reaching the bottom, the woman groaned and toppled forward, revealing a large black-handled knife wedged between her shoulder blades.

Fran let out a scream and, moments later, a door to her left flew open and a knot of people spilled into the hall.

“She’s dead!” a female voice squealed.

“Mrs Wren’s dead. That woman killed her! There’s blood on her clothes.”

“Don’t be daft, Lynn,” a dismissive male voice said. “They’ve only just arrived. If she’d just stabbed her, Mrs Wren would be facing the other way.”

Jim stepped around Fran and gently lifted the curtain of dark hair covering the woman’s face.

To Fran’s astonishment, the “corpse” winked.

He straightened up.

“I’m afraid she’s a goner, Fran. We seem to have arrived in the middle of something dramatic.”

Fran nodded in relief, thankful this wasn’t real.

To her right, a door marked Manager’s Office was flung open and a short, flustered-looking man in an oversized tailcoat stepped out.

“Mr and Mrs Cooper?

“Welcome,” he said in a lilting Welsh accent. “I’m Ewen Jenkins, the hotel manager. This way, please.”

He crossed to the reception desk, the overlong coat tails flapping around his ankles.

Stepping – rather irreverently, Fran thought – over the “body”, Jim followed.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you catch us at rather an awkward moment,” Jenkins said. “Our housekeeper Mrs Wren has just met with an unfortunate accident.”

“Bit more than that, surely?” Jim replied affably.

Behind him, a sandy-haired man in tweed plus-fours detached himself from the group and strode across the hall.

“There’s something here,” he announced, peering at the knife. “It looks like a note under the handle.”

“A note, you say?” Jenkins cried portentously. “Then this is a matter for the police. Please step away from the body, Colonel Coleman. We must preserve the scene.”

“That’s right,” a squeaky voice agreed. “No-one must touch a thing!”

Fran bit her lip.

Clearly this was a murder mystery, but some of the acting was hammier than a hog roast.

Unable to resist the temptation to join in, she flung out a hand in Jim’s direction.

“But how fortuitous! My husband is a policeman. He’ll be happy to help.”

OK, so being a Special Constable in their sleepy village hardly put Jim up there with Poirot, but…

To her amusement, the Colonel and the manager exchanged looks of alarm, but Jim put up a conciliatory hand.

“No, Fran, we’re in Wales now. The procedures will be different. Let’s leave these good people to decide what to do, eh?”

“Thank you,” the possessor of the high-pitched voice replied.

He was a weasel-faced man in a frock coat.

Fran turned to the manager as Jim signed them in.

“Unfortunately, Mr Jenkins, we were delayed by a flat tyre. Have we missed dinner?”

“No, madam,” he answered, handing her a keycard. “Seven-thirty, if that would suit?”

“Seven-thirty will be fine.”

As they entered the dining-room, the chink of cutlery and mouth-watering smell of minestrone told them the others were on their starters.

Around a long central table sat a dozen diners, the actors distinguishable from the guests by their Twenties and Thirties-style costumes.

Beside a man in a shiny-with-wear dinner suit sat a Mia Farrow lookalike, wearing a tasselled dress and peacock feather headband.

The man caught Fran looking and winked.

She quickly averted her gaze.

On a far table, a fifty-something woman in a pin-tuck blouse was sitting alone.

Judging by her sour expression, she would not welcome company.

“Mr and Mrs Cooper?” A dark-haired girl in a frilly apron approached them. “I’m Bridget, your waitress for the evening.

“Mr Jenkins has asked me to apologise again for the unfortunate scene earlier.

“This is our first, um, stab at one of these, and we’re still ironing out the wrinkles.”

“Like having latecomers turning up in the middle of the murder, you mean?” Jim asked, deadpan.

“Exactly.” Bridget chuckled, the Welsh inflection strong.

“Mr Jenkins really is the manager, then?” Fran asked. “From the outfit, I wondered if he might be one of the cast.”

“Well,” Bridget began, “we were asked to look the part, you see, to pad out the number of suspects, so he bought a butler’s suit online.

“I think he must have ticked XL instead of XS! Quite eye-catching, isn’t it?”

“And then, just to add to the confusion, I arrive and start screeching like a banshee,” Fran pointed out.

Bridget shook her head.

“Not your fault. If Pamela – that’s Jennifer Wren in the play – hadn’t been doing a last rehearsal in the hallway, she wouldn’t have freaked you out like that.”

“So that’s why the actors were so slow to react,” Jim replied. “Their cues were all off.”

“They recovered well enough, though,” Fran added. “Most impressive.”

“Yes,” Bridget said, “and everyone’s so busy trying to work out who the murderer is now, it doesn’t matter where she was found.

“Colonel Coleman’s favourite at present, although Dennis in the snazzy green waistcoat has my name in the frame apparently!”

Bridget led them to a table and took their orders.

“I wish I knew what had gone on, Jim,” Fran said, as Bridget left to get their meals. “It’s like turning on halfway through an Agatha Christie film and not knowing the plot.”

“Then let’s find out,” Jim declared.

Leaning sideways, Jim tapped the shoulder of the young man Bridget had referred to as Dennis.

“Excuse me,” Jim said. “I wonder if you’d mind giving us a brief recap?”

“Of course,” he said.

He cleared his throat and recited in theatrical tones.

“We’re assembled here for the reading of Sir Henry Cash-Strapped’s will.”

He grinned and reverted to his normal voice.

“The housekeeper met us on arrival and told us to gather in the drawing-room at two p.m. to meet the family, by which she meant the suspects.”

“And by housekeeper, you mean the victim, Mrs Wren?” Fran clarified.

“That’s right,” he said. “On the way back down from our rooms, we heard noises coming from the kitchen.

“Bridget had dropped a tray and Mrs Wren was shouting about docking money from her wages to pay for the breakages.”

“So you think Bridget did it?” Fran asked.

“I did, but then I met his lordship’s doctor.” Dennis indicated the weasel-faced man in the frock coat sitting opposite.

The man glanced up, then back down at his soup.

“We won’t know who gets what until the will’s read, but Dr Death let slip to me that he expects to receive a sizeable sum, in recognition of his dedicated care and attention over many years.

“I’m thinking that at some point Mrs Wren might have seen him trying to speed things up with an extra dose of medication, so he had to kill her to keep her quiet.”

Fran leaned forward to see the man.

“He does have the look of the mad medic, I grant you. But wouldn’t he be more likely to kill her with a scalpel than a kitchen knife?”

“Not if he was trying to put us off the scent,” Dennis reasoned. “And why didn’t he go and examine the body? His only contribution when he saw her in the hall was to tell us not to touch anything.”

The weasel-faced man spoke up.

“The reason I didn’t approach the body, young man, is that I could see that nothing could be done. The only thing I could do for the poor lady was to ensure the evidence was preserved.”

He turned his attention back to his dinner.

Dennis jotted this new information in a notebook.

“Of course, we mustn’t discount Constance, Sir Henry’s goddaughter. She’s the flapper with the feather. There’s a glint of steel in those blue eyes.”

“And how about that other lady by the window – the one who looks like she’s swallowed a wasp?” Fran asked, beginning to enjoy herself.

Dennis followed her gaze.

“That’s Mildred DuBarry, a debutante back when they still had such things. She was briefly engaged to his lordship but the wedding didn’t happen. I’ve yet to find out why.”

“Well, thank you, Dennis,” Fran told him. “You’ve been most helpful.

“I’m Fran Cooper, by the way, and this is my husband Jim. I’d love to chat more after you’ve heard the will.”

She sat back in her chair to let Bridget set down their meals.

The girl reached into her apron and took out a leaflet.

“I thought you might like this, Mrs Cooper,” she said. “It tells you about the murder and the suspects.”

“The Play Away Drama Group presents ‘Who Killed Jenny Wren?’” Fran read.

“You won’t be able to enter the competition, I’m afraid, but you can still try to work out whodunnit,” Bridget replied.

“Competition?” Jim queried, cutting into a slice of mint-soaked lamb.

“Each guest is asked to fill in a questionnaire saying who they think did it,” Bridget explained. “The winner gets fifty pounds.

“Enjoy your meals.”

As Bridget went to clear the main table, Fran opened the leaflet and began to read.

“You’ve been invited to Sir Henry Cash-Strapped’s private island, Skulk, for the reading of his will.

“Overnight, a blizzard has swept in, cutting you off from the mainland.

“Jennifer Wren, Sir Henry’s loyal housekeeper, is overseeing the final get-together of the Cash-Strapped clan, before taking retirement in Bridlington.

“But someone has other ideas…”

“Maybe this Wren woman was a bit more to Sir Henry than just an employee,” Jim suggested. “If she stood to inherit the house, whoever’s next in line would have a good reason for bumping her off.”

“It’s a bit of a cliché.” Fran shrugged. “No disrespect, but she’s hardly your typical femme fatale. Maybe it’s a case of mistaken identity.”

Dennis swivelled in his seat.

“That’s what I wondered, Mrs C,” he said excitedly. “If the storm took out the electrics, maybe the killer stabbed the wrong person in the dark.”

“It’s possible,” Fran agreed.

“Do we know what the note on the knife said, Dennis?”

“It was bloodstained,” he replied, “but Colonel Coleman said he could just make out the words, ‘No more… on the tiles’.

“The middle word was stuck through with the blade, but it’s not too great a leap to imagine it was ‘nights’.”

“It makes her sound like a bit of a party girl,” Jim remarked thoughtfully.

Fran shook her head.

“I can’t see it, not in that Mrs Danvers get-up.

“She’s the creepy housekeeper in ‘Rebecca’,” she explained when Jim looked blank.

Dennis was leafing through his notebook.

“According to the Colonel, in the short time he knew Mrs Wren he found her to be a woman of ‘the highest moral standards’.

“The only tiles she associated with were the ones in the nightly game of Scrabble she played with his lordship.”

“Speaking of the Colonel, what’s his connection to this Cash-Strapped chappie?” Jim asked.

“Younger brother,” Fran supplied, reading from the leaflet. “They weren’t on speaking terms for years and the Colonel’s just arrived home from Burma to be told of his sibling’s demise.”

“Very timely.” Jim nodded with a wry smile.

“True, but I still can’t see how it puts him in the frame for the murder,” Dennis admitted.

“Maybe because even without any hanky-panky,” Fran began, “he could still be worried.

“Mrs Wren getting her feet under the Scrabble table meant she was set to bag the lot.”

Dennis brightened.

“Yes! That would make the note a cryptic clue! Thanks, Mrs C.”

Fran gave a little shiver and looked behind her at the chair back.

“What’s up, love?” Jim asked.

“I’m feeling a bit nippy,” she told him, “but I forgot to bring my shawl. I’ll just pop up and get it.”

“Let me,” he offered, half-rising. “You stay and have dessert.”

“No, I’ll only be two ticks. Order me a pavlova, would you?”

Fran hurried upstairs, thinking that the weekend was getting better by the minute.

Dear Jim, he could always be relied upon to blow away her cobwebs.

She was about to swipe her keycard when the door to the next room opened and a figure she recognised as the “body” from the foyer emerged.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I thought everyone had gone down to dinner.” The woman gasped.

Fran put up a hand.

“They have. I just popped back for something. It’s Pamela, isn’t it? I read your real name in the brochure.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let on that you’re not actually dead!”

Pamela grinned, completely transforming her rather severe features.

“Thanks. We’re not supposed to allow ourselves to be seen once we’ve been killed, so Stu insists I eat in my room.”

“Stu?” Fran repeated.

“Stuart Hoad, my former husband,” Pamela explained. “He’s playing Dr Death this time. He’s right, of course, that we should maintain the mystique.

“But I was getting bored sitting there alone, so I thought I’d sneak out and take a walk by the lake.”

“Only for me to turn up again,” Fran put in. “I seem to be making a habit of that where you’re concerned!”

“Yes, I’m so sorry about earlier. I hope you weren’t too spooked.”

“Only enough to cause a coronary,” Fran joked. “Actually, it was the best start to the weekend I could have wished for.

“I lost my job a few weeks ago and I’ve been a complete grump ever since.

“This break is my poor husband’s way of trying to shake me out of it.”

“Nothing like a juicy murder to lighten the mood.” Pamela smiled. “So who’s your money on?”

“Well, young Dennis says it’s your Dr Death,” Fran said, “but I’m not so sure.

“I’ve spotted two others – a miserable-looking woman in a pin-tuck blouse and a lounge lizard in a dinner suit. Where do they fit in?”

“Well, you’re right to discount the doc,” Pamela replied. “He’s far too cringing to stab anyone.

“Mildred and Freddie, though, both have motive. As a young debutante, Mildred was engaged to his lordship and looking forward to a big society wedding.

“Then the widow Wren – that’s me – came along and Henry decided he didn’t need a wife after all.

“It was a huge scandal, of course – breach of promise and all that.

“Thirty years on, Mildred remains unmarried – something for which she’s never forgiven me.”

“It’s hardly your fault,” Fran reasoned. “Still, a woman scorned and all that.

“And the other name you mentioned – Freddie, was it?”

“Yes,” Pamela confirmed. “Constance’s wastrel brother. A regular visitor to the gentleman’s clubs of London, where he plays the card tables till dawn.

“With his gambling debts mounting and his sister being Sir Henry’s much favoured goddaughter, he’s hoping to get his hands on half of what she inherits.”

“Well, thank you, Pamela,” Fran said. “That’s all very useful.

“Jim and I aren’t booked in for the murder mystery part, but I’d love to see Dennis win the cash.

“It’s good to have a spot of insider information to give him.

“I’m Francesca Cooper, by the way. Fran to my friends.”

“Pam Reynolds,” Pamela replied. “I reverted to my maiden name after the divorce.”

“Have you been doing these murder mystery weekends for long?” Fran asked.

“About three years now,” Pamela replied. “We all belong to the same am-dram group near Winchester.”

“But we’re just a short drive from there!” Fran exclaimed. “We’ll have to come and see your next production.”

“Better still, Fran, why not join us?” Pamela asked. “No-one earns a fortune, but the shows are fun to do.”

“OK, I’ll think about it.” Fran laughed.

“Please do.” Pamela smiled. “Meantime, if you want the clincher clue for Dennis, it’s this.”

Pam whispered a few words in Fran’s ear.

“Now, I’m off for that walk,” Pamela said finally. “Happy sleuthing.”

Back in the dining-room, Fran found Jim polishing off a slice of apple pie.

“I’ve just had a very interesting chat with a corpse,” she said, popping a forkful of pavlova into her mouth.

She explained about Pam’s suggestion that she join the group.

“Sounds interesting,” Jim replied. “You should give it a go.”

“Not just me, Jim. I think we both should. If the fates have decided that I’m to be a woman of leisure, then let’s make the most of it, eh?”

He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Welcome back, Fran,” he murmured.

She blew him a kiss, then leaned in to the main table.

“Dennis, dear,” she said quietly, “I just found out something interesting. It seems there was another clue on the corpse.

“After dinner, ask Dr Death what he found clutched in the victim’s hand.

“Add that to the message on the knife and…”

Dennis’s eyes widened.

“Right. Thanks, Mrs C.”

“I’m guessing there’s more,” Jim prompted, as Fran turned back to her dessert.

Fran leaned across the table.

“Pam also told me how his lordship died,” she whispered. “They were playing their nightly game of Scrabble when he got a triple word score on a seven-letter word.

“His poor old ticker couldn’t take it.”

Jim rolled his eyes.

“I know, I know.” She laughed. “So this evening she was sitting at the Scrabble board, thinking back to that final game.

“Then someone who’d held a grudge for many years crept up and stuck the knife in her back.