Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend Read online

  “Do you know whodunit, Joe?” Sylvia asked.

  “What? The play or the murder of Reggie Grimshaw?”

  “Either? Both?”

  Joe took out his tobacco tin, and still keeping an eye on the developing drama on screen, said, “Yes. I know whodunit it in the play, and yes I know who’s favourite for bumping off Reggie Grimshaw.”

  He transferred his gaze to Kendrew’s back, then as the young man sensed it, he switched quickly back to the TV screen where Inspector O’Keefe was now answering questions from the audience.

  “Well don’t keep it to yourself, Murray,” Tanner said. “Who is it?”

  “Who killed Grimshaw? Oh I couldn’t tell you that, Les.”

  Tanner fumed. “Not Grimshaw. Who killed the colonel and his biographer?”

  Joe laughed. “I can’t tell you that, either, because I’m sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you what I’ve just seen.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “What do you make of Kerry Dolman’s window being open?”

  “Owen asked O’Keefe the same question, and O’Keefe said it was open when they entered the room.” Julia pointed to the TV screen where O’Keefe was answering Owen’s query. “We thought she might be a fresh air fiend.”

  “With a missing gun?” Joe asked. “And I’ve just seen one of the actors around the side of the building.” He sat back. “Work it out for yourself.”

  Satisfied with their puzzled features, he took out his tobacco tin and began to roll a cigarette.

  To this surprise, Robbie Kendrew leapt to his feet and rounded on him.

  “If you have anything to say, Murray, why not say it to my face?”

  Joe felt a rush of anger and anxiety. Kendrew was taller, fitter than him, and he was twenty years younger. “Calm down, son,” he advised. “No one was talking about you.”

  The younger man took a pace forward. Joe shrank into his seat.

  “Robbie, no,” Fliss barked.

  Kendrew backed off and his wife narrowed dagger eyes on Joe. “We’re not stupid, Mr Murray.”

  “No? You’re doing a passable impression.”

  Kendrew lost it, hurtled forward and grabbed Joe by the shirt. The tobacco tin fell to the carpet, spilling its contents.

  “Get off me, you idiot,” Joe protested.

  Tanner and Alec Staines leapt to their feet, two of the younger actors of the drama group moved to help, Fliss Kendrew joined them and dragged her husband back.

  “Robbie, this won’t help,” she cried.

  The younger man calmed down and released Joe. Tanner collected the tin and as much of the tobacco as he could gather.

  Fliss gazed defiantly round the room. “My husband has killed no one. I know you all think he’s guilty, but he’s not. Now why don’t you leave us alone?”

  His face flushed bright red, Kendrew, too, glared round the room, then marched out, quickly followed by his wife.

  Tanner shook his head at the door as it soughed softly shut. “I always knew your lip would get you into trouble, Murray.”

  “For speaking the truth?” Joe demanded, taking his tobacco back. “She was being stupid, and so was he.”

  Trying again to roll his cigarette, he noticed his hands were shaking. In a lifetime of speaking his mind, of blunt, often rude opinions, it was the closest he had ever come to physical violence, and it had unnerved him.

  Across the room, Melanie was signalling to him with her eyes. He crossed to join her, nodding a greeting to the members of her cast gathered around the table.

  “Are you all right, Joe?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just a bit shook up, that’s all. The guy on reception told me you were looking for me earlier.”

  “Hmm, yes. The, er, manuscript you left with me last night. Brilliant piece of detective work. I think we can do business. I wondered if we could find some time to talk. If not tonight, perhaps tomorrow.”

  “You think you can work on it?”

  “I’m sure we can.”

  Joe smiled. “That’s the first bit of good news I’ve had all day.”

  Chapter Nine

  Fliss squeezed her husband’s hand tightly. “It’ll be all right, Robbie. Believe me. No matter what these morons think of you, the police will realise you’re innocent.”

  “Billy and I tried to tell him earlier, old lass.”

  Fliss looked around and noticed, for the first time, Gerry Carlin sat on the bench by the entrance, smoking a cigarette.

  “Excuse me, Mr Carlin, but I’m trying to hold a private conversation with my husband.”

  Gerry crushed out his cigarette in a planter. “Pardon me for being so supportive.”

  Ignoring him, Fliss moved closer to her husband. “They weren’t talking about you, you know.”

  His face a picture of dejection, Kendrew raised his head, and looked over his wife, to the barren busy roads beyond the hotel. “Who?”

  “Murray and the other old fuddy-duddies. That irritating little man’s trouble is his mouth is too big.”

  “Why do you think I wanted to punch him in it?”

  She laughed, a tiny, soft chuckle. “I understand that, but it doesn’t make it right. All you would do is draw attention to yourself. Anyway, that’s not what I meant. When he was supposedly whispering to his pals, I could hear every word he said, and he wasn’t talking about you. He was trying to hint to them that the gun used in the play had been thrown out of the biographer’s bedroom window.”

  Gerry crushed out his cigarette and stood up. Sidling past Fliss, he said, “Do excuse me. I have people to entertain.”

  Fliss glowered at his departing back. “Another annoying fool.” She turned to Kendrew again. “Murray can’t tell his people directly because he has some agreement with that director woman, Melanie, so he could only drop hints. You heard her. There’s a bottle of champagne for the person who finds the gun.”

  Kendrew’s spirits appeared to lift slightly. “Oh, that’s easy. I saw him, that Carlin bloke, and his mate, the one playing the captain, out here earlier. Carlin wandered off along that side of the hotel.” With a nod of his head, he indicated to the right. “He’ll have hidden it in one of the planters.”

  Fliss, too, felt invigorated. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find it.”

  She hurried along the front with her husband close behind, and turned up the side of the hotel.

  Long tubs were sited at intervals along the bottom of the hotel walls, filled with shrubbery, the evergreen leaves looking decidedly drab in the poor winter light. Fliss looked up at the windows rising in straight lines above them.

  “If they’re going to pretend that the killer dropped it out of the window, the logical place to look for it would be directly under one, but we don’t know which room she was supposed to be in.”

  She began to poke and search through the nearest planter, while her husband prodded the foliage in the next one.

  Having no joy, they moved further along the side, and suddenly, Fliss spotted the dull glint of metal amongst the greenery. “It’s here.”

  Kendrew joined her and reached down into the shrubbery, feeling his way through the bare thorns and damp foliage until he grasped the pistol by the butt.

  Pulling it out, he broke the revolver and checked the chambers. “Empty. This is it all right.” For the first time in hours, he smiled. “Come on. Let’s claim that bottle of champagne.”

  They made their way back into the hotel and the Gibson Room, where they confronted the Markham Murder Mysteries players and Joe.

  “I owe you an apology, Murray,” Kendrew said. “My wife tells me you were not talking about me.”

  “You should always make sure of your facts, son,” Joe told him, “but there’s no harm done. Let’s forget it.” His eyes fell on the gun, and for a brief moment, Joe looked worried. “What’s that?”

  Kendrew smiled at Carlin. “Inspector O’Keefe, I’ve found your murder weapon.” Holding the pistol by the barrel, he offered it.

  Dropping easi
ly into part, Carlin dipped into his pocket and came out with a handkerchief. “Thank you, sir. Ms Markham will announce your reward at this afternoon’s session before dinner.” He dropped the revolver in his pocket.

  Joe tapped his hands together in a small round of applause. “Congratulations. Where did you find it?”

  “In the shrubbery on…” Fliss paused a moment to get her bearings, then pointed through the dining room door. “On that side of the hotel.”

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy your champagne,” Melanie said, “and I’m certain it won’t be long before the real police clear up this real mess.”

  ***

  While the Kendrews wandered away, Joe got to his feet. “Well, it’s nice rapping with you luvvy dahlings, but I’ve other things to think about. Melanie, we’ll talk later.”

  Having decided that the police had allowed Reggie Grimshaw’s murder to drift for long enough, and convinced that the Kendrews had just lied, he looked around the dining room, and his gaze lighted on Naomi Barton, sat alone, reading a paperback novel.

  Joe hovered over her. “Mind if I join you?”

  She closed the book, and Joe noticed it was a copy of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s A Woman of Substance. “I wondered when you’d get round to me. Well, I’ve nothing to say to you, Mr Murray. I already gave a statement to the police.”

  “I know you did. But there are other questions on my mind, and since Wendy Grimshaw is too shocked to answer them, and Robbie Kendrew thinks I have a downer on him, you’re the next best option.”

  Without waiting for Naomi to offer an invitation, Joe sat down, and picked up the book, skimming through its pages. “Role model?”

  “Who? Barbara Taylor Bradford, or Emma? Both, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m old enough to remember the TV series, you know.”

  Naomi took the book back. “So am I. Now what do you want?”

  “Grimshaw Kitchens,” he declared. “Now that Reggie is out of the picture, who gets to run the company?”

  The dark eyes became pinpoints of anger. “You’ve been talking to Kendrew.”

  “No. I’ve been listening to Kendrew. He insists you were using your, er, feminine wiles to get at Reggie to ensure that you were promoted when he retired.”

  “You mean he claims I was sleeping with Reggie.” She leaned forward, forearms on the table, heavy breasts resting on them. “Whether or not I was has bugger all to do with you or anyone else. And if I was, it had nothing to do with the prospects of promotion. Reggie didn’t work like that. The people he promoted were the best. Simple as that. He gave people who could turn in the business the chance to show how they could improve returns in others. I could have been laying Reggie until the cows come home, but he would never promote me to sales director unless my results as northern area sales manager prove I can handle the job. Satisfied?”

  Joe maintained an easy air. “I’ll take your word for it. But as I asked originally, what happens now that Reggie is no longer with us? Presumably the decision will fall on Wendy.”

  “Yes.” Naomi sat back and took a deep breath. When she spoke again the irritation had faded a little. “Wendy has never had anything to do with the business. What she knows about making or selling kitchens you could write on a postcard and still leave enough room to tell mum how good a time you were having. She’s about ten years younger than Reggie, and when he married her, she was a trophy wife. A glamour girl.” Some of Naomi’s cynicism returned. “An out of work actress if the truth be told. Thirty years or so with him, and she still doesn’t have a clue about Grimshaw Kitchens. My guess is she’ll probably sell to one of the big players in the market. Midland Kitchens put in a bid last year, so there’s an option for her to realise her assets and clear off to live in the South of France.”

  “My wife did that,” Joe said with a smile. “Tenerife, not the South of France, but you know what I mean.”

  “Well since we’re in the realms of telling it like it is, let me tell you about Reggie and Wendy. He was a prick, plain and simple. He bullied his employees relentlessly, and he bullied Wendy, but only in private. Outwardly, theirs was the perfect marriage, but he’s had more bits on the side than any dozen celebrities you could bring to a drugs party. And Wendy always forgave him. Know why?”

  “Because she had her bits on the side?” Joe asked.

  “She’s had one or two encounters, for sure,” Naomi agreed. “There was one last night, if the rumours are to be believed. But her real reason for standing by Reggie was much simpler and much more mercenary. Thanks to his bullying ways he was a millionaire a few times over, and Wendy was determined to stay home where she could raid the piggybank as often as she liked.”

  “Funny. I got exactly the same feeling about my ex-wife. Only the piggybank was better guarded and I’m not a millionaire. And I don’t bully my staff.” Joe chuckled. “If anything, they bully me.”

  “But once again, if the rumours flying round this hotel are anything to go by, you’re just as bad when it comes to bed hopping.”

  Joe let out a long sigh of resignation. “Looks like I’m never gonna live that down. And let me remind you, lady, there are a fair number of rumours about you making the rounds. Or did Reggie bully you into bed?”

  “No he did not,” she snapped. Heads at several tables around them turned their way. In deference to them, Naomi lowered her voice again. “I earn over fifty thousand a year, Mr Murray. If I slept with Reggie, and I stress, ‘if’, it was because I saw it as expedient, and not because he brought any undue pressure to bear.”

  “Expedient? That’s a new name for it.” Before Naomi could react to Joe’s calculated dig, he dragged them back on topic. “So, if Wendy decides to sell out and leave for the South of France, what happens to you and the rest of Grimshaw’s sales force?”

  She shrugged. “Lap of the gods. And it depends on who takes over. There are those companies who don’t approve of the high-pressure techniques we use. They won’t offer the kind of discounts we do for a spot decision. My team would need retraining in more up to date, softer selling techniques. Some companies may decide to keep some of us on, because we can bring contacts with us. Others would just retire the lot of us. For Kendrew and me, it’s even more complicated. Our potential buyers already have area and regional sales structures. If another company decided to keep us on, it would be as salespeople, not managers. That would mean a step down and a considerable kick in the bank balance for me, and for Robbie.”

  “And that would be a problem?”

  Naomi denied it. “Not for me. I live alone. I’m careful with my money. I have plenty saved and some good investments which would tide me over for a while. Kendrew is not in the same position, unfortunately.”

  “Oh?”

  “Big house out in the country, mortgaged to the hilt. The fifty grand a years he’s earning now wasn’t enough, so no way could he make ends meet on less money.”

  Joe gathered together his belongings. “Interesting.”

  “You think so?”

  “Hmm.” He stood up. “Doesn’t sound to me like a man who would want to see Reggie dead, unless he had some hold over Wendy that would persuade her to keep the company going.”

  ***

  Checking the time and surprised to learn that it was after four, Joe looked through the windows to confirm it. Beyond them the sky was dark.

  “Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun, Joe,” Cyril Peck commented as he passed.

  “I’ll let you know when I’m having some fun.”

  “Plenya pubs in the town,” a half drunk Mavis Barker said as she passed along with Cyril.

  Noticing that Gerry Carlin was making his way out of the room, Joe once again joined Melanie.

  “We’re back on again at six, Joe. Gerry and the crew are going off for something to eat and to freshen up a little before they turn it on. And it’ll be a late night, tonight. We all have to greet the New Year.”

  “As long as they don’t look at me f
or first footing,” Joe replied.

  “Why not? You’re dark haired.”

  “Yes, but I’m not tall enough.” Joe delivered his favourite, self-deprecating smile. “I’m away to my room to shower and shave for dinner. What time do you want to get into negotiations? Before or after midnight?”

  She laughed. “I’m not likely to be sober enough for business talk after midnight. Can I see you in the bar about nine-ish before the DJ begins his stint?”

  “Sure.”

  Wondering how he could ensure a repeat of the previous night’s pleasures, Joe left the dining room and called at reception for his key. As he made for the lift after collecting it, Gerry Carlin joined him.

  “I thought you guys were getting an early meal before your next stint.”

  “I’ll wait until after,” Carlin replied, leading the way into the lift and pressing the button for the first floor. “Just been for a quick smoke. You know how it is. Need the fix, old lad.”

  Joe pressed the button for the fourth floor and the doors closed. “I understand. You know, I own my place, a trucker’s café in Sanford, and I’m not even allowed to smoke on my premises.”

  “Health and safety, old son. Can’t beat them.”

  “Nanny State, you mean.”

  The doors opened again and with a nod, Carlin left and Joe continued to the fourth floor. Letting himself into his room, he suddenly felt very tired. He stood for a moment looking out from the window, over the twin towers of the cathedral, lit up against the night sky, and wondered what more the coming night would bring.

  Eventually, deciding that the shower and shave could wait, he set the alarm on his mobile phone, and lay on the bed. In minutes, he was asleep.

  ***

  “Are you jealous, Brenda?”

  Sitting before the dressing table mirror, carefully applying a pale lipstick, Brenda picked up Sheila’s reflection in the mirror. As usual, her best friend had opted for conservatism; an ankle length evening gown in dark chocolate, with a white, sleeveless wool top, which buttoned at the neck. Brenda had chosen a simple black skirt, and an opaque chiffon blouse in pink, decorated with roses.