A Theatrical Murder Read online

  Her brow furrowed. “Queenan? The chief planning officer?”

  “The very same. He’s a government officer, and supposedly impartial, but if you dig into the minutes of the council meetings on the subject, you’ll find he was very vocal on seeing Britannia Parade knocked down and this glass shoebox put up in its place.”

  “And you think he was taking bribes from Gleason Holdings?”

  “I do, but I’m not allowed to say so or his lawyers will join the queue behind Vaughan’s.”

  The scrape of several chairs told Joe another crowd of draymen were leaving. He turned to acknowledge them while Denise considered his last remark.

  When he turned back, she said, “Those are very serious allegations, Mr Murray. Have you spoken to the police?”

  Joe half turned in his seat and pointed over his shoulder. “Take a look on my back. Do you see the words ‘gormless dipstick’ written there?” He faced her once more. “Of course I spoke to the police. Check with Detective Sergeant Gemma Craddock. All right, so she’s my niece, but she never takes sides. She looked into it, but couldn’t find any evidence, so the matter was dropped. Come to think, the entire case was dropped. It’s still open of course. Deliberate firing, so they can’t close it, but they have no suspects.”

  “That’s why the insurance company have asked me to investigate.” Denise stared out at the New Year rain. Turning sharply back, she said, “You are aware that cooking oil was used as an accelerant?”

  It was more of a statement than a question, but Joe nodded. “I am. According to Brad Kilburn, the Fire Service Watch Manager that night, the seat of the fire was in the empty minimarket next door, and the torch used unleaded petrol to start the blaze. He – or she – had knocked out a few bricks in the wall between the minimarket and The Lazy Luncheonette. He then broke into the café to spread cooking oil all over the floor. One match in the minimarket and the fire spread like, er, fire, I suppose.” Joe checked his watch again. “I have to go.” He drank his tea. “I don’t know what this has to do with me, but if I can help in any way, let me know. For now, I’m due on a bus to Skegness.”

  Denise, too, drank off her tea, and then reached into her purse from which she took a business card and handed it to him. “You’re back, when? Monday you said?”

  Joe nodded. “It’s the day before Tuesday according to my diary, but I’m warning you, at this time of day, we’ll be busy as hell. In the meantime, hassle Vaughan and Queenan. Gemma and Brad, too, if you think it’ll get you anywhere, but I don’t see you making much progress.”

  Chapter Two

  A ragged cheer went up as Joe finally boarded the coach outside the Miner’s Arms.

  As he lowered the jump seat across the aisle from the driver, Sheila Riley, sat behind him, asked, “Where have you been?”

  Seated alongside Sheila, Brenda Jump joined in the criticism. “We nearly left without you.”

  Joe and the two women had been friends since school, and they had worked for him for a good few years. Ever since both of them became widows in the space of a few months. They were solid and dependable, and they made his life slightly more hellish, but much more fun than he would ever admit.

  He fastened his seatbelt as the bus pulled off the car park and into the busy, mid-Friday morning traffic. “Pauline was late, wasn’t she? And then as I was about to leave, I got waylaid by a woman.”

  Brenda sniffed. “You should be so lucky.”

  Sheila giggled, and then getting hold of her humour, asked, “Who was she and what did she want?”

  “Denise Latham—”

  “Never heard of her,” Brenda cut in.”

  “— and she was from the insurance company. Wanted to know if I’d burned down The Lazy Luncheonette,” Joe concluded.

  The two women groaned.

  “Not again,” Brenda complained.

  “When will they realise it had nothing to do with you, Joe, or any of us?” Sheila clucked. “She’s about the third, isn’t she?”

  “Fourth or fifth according to my reckoning. I told her to hassle Vaughan and Queenan, and if she needs to speak to me, she can come back next week when we’re home. For now, it’s a weekend off, and I intend enjoying it.”

  Brenda laughed. “You? Enjoy a weekend away? That’ll be a first.”

  Ignoring her and turning back to face forward, Joe glanced across at Keith Lowry, the club’s regular driver, whose features were concentrated as he negotiated the heavy traffic towards the motorway.

  “How long, Keith?”

  The driver did not take his eyes off the road. “Any other time, I’d have said two hours, but in this weather, the Friday after New Year, and everyone still on holiday. Let’s call it three for safety. It’s bad now. God knows what we’ll meet on the way down, and the road to Skeggy isn’t the best.”

  “You’re staying with us?”

  “Nah. The old man wants me back for a special tomorrow. Pantomime in Skipton. Then I have to come back to Skegness and pick you lot up mid-afternoon on Sunday.” Keith paused, slid open his window and shouted abuse at a van driver trying to cut in on him. Slamming the window shut again, he said, “What a berk. Not fit to push a supermarket trolley, never mind drive a bloody van.” He risked a glance at Joe. “See what I mean? A few more nutters like him and it could be the middle of the night before we get to Skegness.”

  Joe said nothing. Like Keith, he kept an eye on the traffic and waited until, five minutes later, they were heading east on the motorway, before releasing his seat belt, standing and turning round and unclipping the PA mike from above Sheila’s head, and greeting his fellow members.

  “Well, morning everyone. Apologies for being a bit late, but at least we’re on our way. According to Keith it’s gonna take about three hours to get to Skegness. Once there, we need to check into our hotel, which, for those of you too drunk to remember, is the Metropole. It stands back off the sea front and it’s within stone’s throw of the town centre. Sheila and Brenda have the theatre tickets and they’ll be handing them out as we go along. If you’re with someone and want tickets together, say so. If you don’t you might end up sitting next to Mort or his wife—”

  “I heard that,” Mort Norris complained from part way down the right hand side.

  “At least I know the microphone’s working then,” Joe riposted. “The performance starts at eight, the doors will be open from seven. It’s up to you whether you attend, but remember, you’ve already paid for the tickets and the money is not refundable.”

  From the rear of the bus, George Robson called out, “Nothing’s ever refundable with you, is it, Joe?”

  “The day I get a refund on my council tax to pay for your laziness, George, is the day I start giving discounts on steak and kidney pudding.” Joe allowed a moment for a ragged laugh to settle. “Just to remind you that Sylvia’s granddaughter, Teri Goodson, is in this production.” He pointed out Sylvia Goodson half way down the bus, who blushed accordingly. “Teri is Sanford born and bred, and we should be out there supporting her tonight. Okay. That’s it. Sit back and enjoy the sights on the way to Skeggy.”

  “What sights?” Cyril Peck demanded from across the aisle behind Keith.

  “Well there’s the steelworks at Scunthorpe,” Keith declared.

  “And the fish dock in Grimsby,” Joe added.

  Keith shook his head. “We turn off before we get to Grimsby. It’s the steelworks or nowt.”

  “Just go to sleep, Cyril,” Joe suggested with a nod at Mavis Barker, sat next to Cyril, who was already nodding off.

  Joe replaced the mike and sat down.

  Sheila leaned forward to speak to him. “Joe, it’s my birthday in a fortnight. Do you have any plans?”

  “Like Maddy?” Brenda inquired.

  “No, I have no plans with Maddy. You know, Brenda—”

  “I mean you’re going away again with her, aren’t you?”

  “Oh. Right. Well, yes, but that’s not until after the club trip to Tenerife in
March.” Feeling he owed Sheila and Brenda more of an explanation, Joe went on, “Her son and daughter turned up on Christmas Eve and they’re staying until the end of next week. Maddy’s back at work from Monday, so it’ll be the weekend after next before I get over there to see her.”

  “Well, why not come to mine on my birthday, then?” Sheila suggested. “If she’s free, you can bring Maddy. Brenda will be there, so will Les and Sylvia.”

  Joe thought about the potential battles with Les Tanner. “I’ll think about it.”

  He turned, facing front again, opened up his newspaper and, pen in hand, turned to the cryptic crossword.

  Beyond the A1, the motorway dipped down a short, steep hill onto the flat plain of East Yorkshire and Humberside. From the brow of the hill, there were views as distant as the massed cooling towers of Eggborough and Drax power stations, all sitting under the same, leaden sky. To the south, the panorama extended beyond Doncaster into South Humberside and Lincolnshire. It seemed to Joe that the openness reflected his life. The horizon was so distant he couldn’t see where he was going, if indeed he was going anywhere.

  He would never describe himself as lonely. He had too many friends for that. And yet, it was at times like Christmas and New Year that he felt the distance of those friends as much as he felt the distance of the towns and cities beyond the motorway.

  Sheila and Brenda, he realised, felt it too. Both had lost their husbands. Les Tanner had lost his wife, Sylvia Goodson had lost her husband. Four people come together through a bond of shared, sad experience. Joe had not lost his wife; she had upped sticks and left him, and yet, even putting it so baldly, Joe recognised his own culpability in the fifty-fifty divorce.

  Sheila’s suggestion that he come to her modest and subdued birthday party, he knew, had nothing to do with pity, but was a warm invitation to join four others who had only extended family in their lives. His response had been cold, churlish, almost childish.

  As Keith pulled off the M62 and onto the M18, heading south for Doncaster and Scunthorpe, Joe half turned in his seat again.

  “Sheila, I’d be happy to come along for your birthday… if the invitation still holds.”

  “Of course it does.”

  “Sheila could have said, ‘of course it does, you grumpy old sod’.” Brenda grinned. “I would.”

  ***

  The journey dragged on with no major hold ups, although Keith did get irritated when a number of his middle-aged passengers demanded a tea and toilet break in Louth.

  “We’ve only twenty-five miles to go,” the driver complained as he approached the roundabout for the turn off into the town.

  “Well, I hope you brought a mop and a bucket,” Brenda commented. “I don’t know how much longer some of the stronger bladders can go, never mind the weaker ones.”

  Keith parked up in the town and insisted, “Half an hour. Not one minute longer. If you’re not back by then, we leave without you.”

  Typically, it was a full hour before everyone had returned and he could be on his way again, as a result of which it was turned one o’clock by the time he pulled up outside the Metropole Hotel on North Parade, almost opposite Skegness pier.

  A large building, three floors high, sporting a mock-Tudor front, it was the only place in Skegness which could accommodate the members at such short notice in the middle of the Christmas/New Year break, and the club had taken most of it fifty-five rooms. Thanks to Joe’s negotiating skills, honed to a fine art through years of dealing with many and varied suppliers for his café, they had secured the place at advantageous rates which included breakfast and dinner (lunch on Sunday).

  “The owner’s a businessman” Joe had said. “He could see the sense of letting us have the room at a discount; at least they’re occupied, and he’s guaranteed the income. He’s also letting us into the cabaret for nothing.”

  “We won’t be seeing much of the cabaret the first night,” Brenda had pointed out. “Not after watching Hamlet.”

  Still in a grim mood, Keith helped the club members unload their luggage, then promising to be back for half past two on Sunday afternoon, climbed into the driving seat and drove off.

  At two o’clock, having unpacked, Joe joined Sheila and Brenda in reception, noting that the Sanford 3rd Age Club had already taken over the hotel bar.

  Securing a half of bitter for himself, a gin and tonic for Sheila and a Campari and soda for Brenda, Joe joined his companions at a corner table, where they were talking with Les Tanner and Sylvia Goodson.

  “Malcolm Sedgwick, the director and, I might add, the star, is a theatrical genius,” Sylvia was saying. “He’s known for his vision.”

  “Twenty-twenty?” Joe asked, and grinned to show he was only joking. The joke fell flat, and all he received were blank stares in return. “All right, Sylvia, so what’s his vision of Hamlet?”

  “I’m not sure, Joe,” Sylvia replied. “Teri wasn’t entirely forthcoming when I asked her.”

  “Fact is, Murray,” Les Tanner explained, “Teri didn’t want to give the game away. All she would say was that Sedgwick had modernised the play. It’s set in the here and now rather than Denmark in the Middle Ages.”

  “I’ve seen this done with Shakespeare’s work before,” Sheila said. She hurried on, but it seemed to Joe that she did so to ensure there was no misunderstanding. “Not that I particularly disapprove, but they usually change the title of the play, don’t they?”

  Sylvia gave her a blank smile. “I’m not keen on Shakespeare. I’d rather have a good old British farce, but I think it’s important to support the efforts of your grandchildren, isn’t it?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Sheila agreed, “And Teri has worked hard, hasn’t she?”

  “She never wanted to be anything other than an actress.” Sylvia sighed. “Acting is such an insecure life, too. I remember trying to persuade her to train for office work. If you remember, I was an administrator for Broadbent’s practically the whole of my working life. Secure work, with a good pension at the end of it.” She sighed again. “But there was no convincing Teri.”

  “And this is her first major role?” Joe asked.

  “She’s had bit parts on a number of TV programmes,” Les Tanner said, “but nothing that led anywhere. And yet, her boyfriend says she has star quality.”

  Sylvia laughed. “I haven’t met the boyfriend.”

  Joe’s memories of Teri, an attractive young woman, led him to conclude that the boyfriend in question probably had ideas other than the stage when he said Teri had ‘star quality’. He refrained from passing the comment, and took a swallow of beer. To distract his thinking from lusty young men and women, he said, “Sylvia, when I checked up on this tour, it was in Scarborough a few weeks back, and then Hull. Why ask us to book Skegness?”

  Sylvia smiled shyly. “That was selfishness, really, Joe. The Yorkshire coast isn’t good for my arthritis at this time of year.”

  With the private thought that most of Sylvia’s ailments had more to do with her mind than her body, Joe looked out at the pouring rain. “I don’t know that Skegness is gonna be any kinder.” He drank off his beer in one large gulp. “Right, Sheila, Brenda, are we gonna risk the rain and take a stroll, or sit here all afternoon and get drunk?”

  “Shopping or drinking?” Brenda smiled wickedly. “Which is the lesser of two evils? On the whole we think…” She raised her eyebrows at Sheila. “Shopping?”

  Sheila nodded.

  Brenda downed her Campari. “Ah, that hit the spot. Shopping it is, then. We’ll see you at dinner, Sylvia, Les.”

  Wrapped in heavy clothing, hoods up, the three companions stepped out of their hotel and made their way towards the famed Skegness Clock Tower, which stood proud and isolated on a traffic island a quarter of a mile away.

  Under a turgid sky, the sea, foaming and frothing angrily at the shore, had the same, dull, grey sheen. A biting wind coming from the northeast drove the rain at the seafront, and it was hard to tell how much was rain and
how much was sea spray whipped up by the gales. Even at this early hour of the afternoon, the lights from amusement arcades, shops and bars were working to dispel the winter gloom. Tempting aromas from bars, cafes, sweetshops and fish & chip shops, moderated by the taste of salt on their lips, assaulted their olfactory nerves, and the repetitive chiming of musical snatches from the amusement arcades invaded their ears.

  Given a choice, Joe would have preferred the warmth and glow of The Lazy Luncheonette augmented by the tempting aroma of Lee’s cooking. When he thought about it, he found it hard to believe he was here, at the seaside, just a few days after New Year.

  “No one in his right mind goes to the seaside in January.”

  “Unless you live there,” Sheila added.

  “Even then, I’m sure most of them would prefer to get away.”

  He glanced across the road, beyond the vast green now a dirty scrub of listless, winter grass, the tarmac car parking area and the sandy beach, to the sea where, a mile or two out, a wind farm stood idle.

  “What is the point in that?” Brenda asked, following his gaze. “I mean, they cost millions to build, and now that there’s plenty of wind to drive them, they’re switched off.”

  “Wind is probably too strong.” Joe said. “I read somewhere that they can only handle the wind up to a certain speed. Beyond that, there’s a danger of the turbines burning out, so they switch them off.”

  “And instead of functional, they become an eyesore.”

  Sheila was obviously fuming, and Joe assumed it had more to do with the foul weather than the siting of a wind farm off the coast at one of the country’s more popular resorts. He felt the same way himself, and it caused him to wonder what it was about the British that brought them out when the elements were so obviously against them.