The Chocolate Egg Murders Read online

  “He does have a point, Brenda. Joe, have you ever considered the possibility that, erm…”

  “Yes?” He prompted Sheila.

  “It’s none of your damned business.”

  Joe took the frothy head off his beer. “I was only commenting.”

  At the bar, Hazel had a quiet word with Freddie, he concluded his conversation with Ginny, giving her a warm smile, and she turned away, holding a glass of what looked like vodka in her hands. Her gaze traversed the room, passed Joe and his companions, then tracked back to them. She left the bar and crossed the room to join them with a smile.

  “Here I am,” she announced cheerfully. “Ready to buy you that drink.”

  Joe laughed, and reaching to the next table, drew up a chair for her. “No, no. I was only kidding. Anyone buys the drinks round here, it’s me.”

  “But your jacket.”

  “There was no harm done, Ginny,” Brenda said. “We cleaned him up when we got back here.”

  “I feel so terrible about it, too. That bitch.” Her features darkened.

  “The bitch in question being the redhead?” Joe asked. “What was her name again?”

  Ginny shook her head. “I have several names for her, but I’m not gonna tell you who she is. All I will say is, if you see her, keep your distance. She’s bad news, that one. I was just telling Freddie about it.”

  Brenda gave Joe a look which said, ‘you see’.

  “Yeah, I noticed you talking to him. I tried to attract your attention, but you were deep into the tale and didn’t notice.”

  “Sorry.” She smiled. “We go way back, me and Freddie and Hazel, and you know how it is when you haven’t seen someone for a while. We were busy catching up.”

  Joe doubted it, but elected not to say so.

  Ginny swallowed a mouthful of her drink. “So, what you folks doing down here? Easter holiday is it?”

  Joe spent several minutes explaining the principle of the Sanford 3rd Age Club and their respective roles in it. At the end of his little lecture, Ginny was suitably impressed.

  “I think that’s damn nice of you, looking after a load of crumblies.”

  “Crumblies?” Joe was so astonished, he almost dropped his glass. He waved at the room with his free hand. “Lemme tell you something, Ginny. You’re surrounded by the biggest set of born again teenagers, sex and beer mad thugs, you’re likely to meet this side of a Hell’s Angels’ convention.”

  “Crumbling they are not,” Brenda agreed.

  Sheila tittered. “Except for Sylvia Goodson.”

  “And Alma Norris.”

  The two women collapsed into fits of giggles.

  “You’ll have to excuse ’em, Ginny. They’re in the early stages of senility.”

  “Well, if they’re all as fit as you reckon, maybe they should be out on the Great Egg Hunt in Clifftop Park, tomorrow.”

  “We will be there,” Sheila assured her. “And so will Joe, but we had to twist his arm—”

  “And his wallet,” Brenda interrupted. “He’s too tired and too tight, y’see.”

  Ginny laughed. “Well, I hope you score plenty of eggs. But I’m warning you, they won’t be easy to find.”

  “And how would you know that?” Joe asked.

  “Because I’m supplying them,” she replied. “My bit for charity, you know. More than that, I have to be in Clifftop Park at half past eight tomorrow morning to hide them.”

  ***

  Joe arrived promptly for breakfast at 8.00am, only to learn that it was not served until 8.30.

  “Sorry, mate, but the sign is up on the wall,” Freddie said as he trucked a stack of boxed Easter eggs in through the front door.

  “Not your fault,” Joe confessed. “Mind you, I thought it was quiet up on the landing. I know my lot. There’s no holding ’em back at feeding time.” Joe rolled a cigarette and eyed the Easter eggs. He glanced outside where a lorry stood at the kerbside, the driver stacking more Easter eggs up at its rear. “So what’s with all the chocolate?”

  “For you lot, innit?” Freddie replied, stretching across his barrow to open the dining room door.

  Joe hurried across to hold it open for him. “We’re third agers, Freddie, not kids. We don’t need Easter eggs.”

  Freddie pushed past him into the dining room where staff were laying out the tables. He paused to face Joe, his large face split into a smile. “A deal’s a deal, my old chum. When we put the package together, we aimed it at families, and Hazel decided that we’d throw in a small Easter egg for every guest at Sunday lunch. Mind you, you’re not the only crowd we’ve got in this weekend. We have families, too. In fact, a few more are due in today. You’re all getting an Easter egg whether you want one or not. If you don’t want it, give it to the charity do at the Winter Gardens.” He smiled again. “Sorry, Joe, I’d like to stay and chat, but I gotta another eight dozen to get off the lorry, and I need to get these into the cold room.”

  Joe tucked his tobacco tin back in his pocket. “Let me give you a hand. I’m used to it.”

  “I dunno, mate. Health and safety, you know…”

  “Gar. Don’t be so soft, man. I’ve been doing it forty years.”

  “All right.”

  Joe followed Freddie through the dining room, into the kitchen, where, to the angry complaints of the deputy head chef, the staff were busy preparing the one hundred and something breakfasts.

  “Give ’em some,” Joe encouraged the chef. “I like to see a man who knows how to run a kitchen.”

  “Like a busman’s holiday for you, then,” the chef replied.

  Joe grinned. “You need a hand kicking their backsides, let me know.”

  Ahead of him, Freddie opened the walk-in cold room and trucked the Easter eggs through.

  Right behind him, Joe pointed out, “You don’t need to keep the chocolate chilled, you know.”

  “I know, but we ain’t got nowhere else to store ’em.”

  Freddie ranged himself alongside the barrow, Joe stood by the shelves, and as Freddie tossed them to him in pairs, he stacked them in rows just above his head. As he placed the last pair, Freddie backed out of the cold room and the lorry driver entered with another truckload.

  As fast as he packed away one load, another appeared, and it was not until the job was done, while Freddie checked the delivery note and signed for it, that Joe had time to look around.

  Aside from the chocolate eggs, it was a sight so familiar to him that he could have been transported back to the Lazy Luncheonette. Around the cramped area were stacked large cartons which he recognised as catering sized cans of baked beans and processed peas, boxes of pre-packed bacon and ranges of eggs. When he checked the chest freezer, he found pork, beef, lamb, and a full range of frozen vegetables. On the shelves were boxes he recognised and containing individual portions of butter, vegetable spread, jam and marmalade, and in one corner was a giant Easter egg, its ruffled gold foil wrapping glinting irregularly in the interior light.

  “Home from home?” Freddie asked.

  The question snapped Joe out of his reverie. “Hmm. What? My cold store isn’t as big as this, but I reckon as a truckers’ caff, I turn my stock over faster than you do.” He pointed at the large Easter egg. “Which lucky kid gets that?”

  Freddie frowned. “Dunno. That’s my bit for charity.”

  Freddie ushered him out of the cold room, switched off the light and closed the door behind them.

  “So what is this charity thing?” Joe asked as they made their way back through the dining room. “You mean that thing up at Clifftop Park?”

  “Nah, mate. The great egg hunt is only one event.”

  They made their way outside and lit cigarettes.

  “There’s the Easter Bonnet Parade, too,” Freddie went on. “That’s on Sunday.”

  “The girls are going in for it,” Joe told him.

  “Yeah? Well good luck to ’em. As part of the appeal, the organisers are collecting chocolate, sweets, soft toys a
nd stuff, for distribution to orphanages and kid’s hospitals. That’s today and tomorrow. Then after the Easter Bonnet Parade on Sunday afternoon, the whole lot will be shipped off to hospitals and orphanages. The kids are supposed to get it all on Easter Monday.”

  “Well let’s hope Sanford gets some of it. Keep the thieving little swine outta my place for a day or two.”

  Freddie laughed. “Get a lot of hassle from ’em, do you?”

  “Only when my back’s turned.” Joe drew in a lungful of smoke and expelled it in a hiss. He gazed sourly at the rain. “It can’t always be like this here.”

  “Great this place when the sun shines, Joe,” Freddie told him. “Best move I ever made coming down here.”

  Joe was surprised. “You’re not a local then?”

  “Nah, mate. I’m from Gloucester originally. Came down here about five, six years ago. Good move, you know. I’ve always worked in bars, landed a job here when Hazel was on her own. She needed a bar and cellarman. We worked together for a good while, then we sort of got it together. Married three years ago.”

  “It turned out well on all fronts for you, then.”

  Freddie watched the traffic passing in the rain, but the glazed look in his eyes told Joe he wasn’t concentrating on the view. “She’s the boss, Joe, but I have to say she’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Keeps me in check, keeps me well fed and well looked after.” His face split into a broad grin. “And she bought me my four by four. She’s a good girl. The best.”

  Joe had his doubts. He knew how sour relationships could turn when a couple not only lived together but worked together, too. “Good on you, Freddie,” he encouraged. “Now. Tell me how we get to this Clifftop Park.”

  Freddie pointed to the right. “You follow the headland round, and then turn inland. It’s not far, but take my tip and book a taxi. There’s a steep hill from the seafront that’s like trying to climb Everest.”

  Chapter Three

  Clifftop Park sat, appropriately, on the north cliff. A designated country park, densely wooded with footpaths running in all directions through it, when the taxi ran along the access road, Sheila speculated that it would be a wonderful place to pass a relaxing summer’s afternoon.

  “Not so nice on a wet Good Friday morning,” Joe grumbled.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Joe,” Sheila berated him. “Just think of the good we’re doing. All over the country, thousands of people like us are about to set off on the Great Egg Hunt.”

  “Yeah. Hard to imagine there could be that many idiots in the country, isn’t it?”

  It was the only thing Joe had found to complain about since his arrival. The previous evening’s entertainment and relaxed ambience had been augmented by a superb breakfast at the Leeward before they called the taxi for the ten-minute journey to the park. It seemed to him that Weston-super-Mare was determined to tackle and beat his inherent skill at griping, and silently, he was happy to be here, happy to be with his friends, more than content to be away from the hectic world of the Lazy Luncheonette.

  The only downer was the weather. The rain had not abated overnight, and with the church clocks reading 9.45, the sky remained dull, leaden, overcast, delivering constant, if light rain.

  The taxi dropped them at the main gate, where the car parking spaces were already filled. A security man, wearing a navy blue coat and high-visibility vest over his chocolate brown uniform, took their tickets and let them through for the short walk into the park and its large, wooden pavilion.

  Painted white with dark green edging, it was a long, low building, surrounded by woods on three sides, fifty metres or so from the pavilion, and between the building and the trees was an open area of finely mown grass, sodden underfoot, squelching audibly as they made their way to the pavilion.

  “Ideal for summer picnics,” Brenda said.

  “Another one,” Joe complained. “Do I need to remind you it’s not summer. It’s early spring and pi—”

  “Language,” Brenda interrupted.

  “I was going to say piddling down.”

  A crowd had gathered before the pavilion, a hundred or so people most clad in wet-weather clothing, many sporting umbrellas, all focussed on the raised deck of the building, where local dignitaries, one of them the Mayor judging by his chain of office, were gathered. To one side of them was a trestle table stacked with small, wicker baskets.

  Other people followed them in, everyone crowding to hear the official announcements. With the time at 9.55, one of the officials took centre stage.

  Sheltering under an umbrella, a microphone in his hand, he announced, “Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Weston-super-Mare Great Egg Hunt, just one event of a hundred or so going on around the country. My name is Robert Quigley, and I’m the local organiser for Giving GB, the charity which has arranged all the events. I’m not going to bore you with the details of those charities we support. You can find a list of them on our website. Instead I’m going to spell out the few rules pertaining to today’s event.”

  Quigley waved at the woods around them. “Ms Virginia Nicholson, known to the local townsfolk for her sweet stall on the street markets, has donated two hundred Easter eggs to the hunt. She was here first thing this morning, hiding them in the woods.” He held up a canned air horn. “When the siren goes, you have one hour to find as many as you can, and those you do find, you keep. The eggs are hidden on all three sides in the first thirty metres of the woodland. You’ll know when you come to the boundary because it is roped off and there are no hidden eggs beyond the rope.” He gestured at the trestle table. “For those of you who didn’t bring a bag to hold your eggs, we have baskets available at one pound each. All proceeds, naturally, go to our nominated charities. When the time is up, I will sound two blasts on the air horn. Doubtless, you’ll find it thirsty work, and there will be tea, coffee and soft drinks available in the pavilion when the hunt is over.”

  Quigley’s face became slightly more serious. “Under health and safety regulations, we are obliged to have an emergency signal. If you hear the horn sound three times in succession, it means we have some kind of emergency, and you should vacate the woods, and return to the pavilion.” Quigley looked up into the dull skies. “I can’t see us getting a forest fire today, but should an emergency arise, security officials will come into the woods to check that everyone is on their way back.” He smiled again. “And now I’d like to hand over to his worship the Mayor to formally get the hunt under way.”

  There followed a two-minute address from the mayor. Joe sensed the restlessness of the crowed, eager to get away from the local politician.

  “I think I’ll have one of those baskets,” Sheila said, while His Worship extolled the charitable virtues of local businesses who had given their wholehearted support to the hunt. “They’ll make a nice souvenir.”

  “Probably made of cardboard,” Joe said.

  “So where will you put your eggs without one, Joe?” Brenda asked. “And don’t tell me it’s where no woman would dare to look, because…”

  She trailed off under a warning glance from him.

  The mayor finished his short speech, raised the air horn in his hand and, wincing in anticipation of the noise, pressed the cap.

  People hurried off in all directions. Sheila and Brenda, along with a number of others, made for the trestle table, and soon the baskets and money were changing hands.

  The man standing next to him, whose wife had hurried to buy a basket, nudged Joe. “Your wife and her, er, friend seem to be entering into the spirit of the thing.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Joe replied. “My wife’s in Tenerife. They’re just my bits on the side.”

  The man gawped and when his wife returned they wandered off to the right, occasionally glancing back as he related Joe’s words to her.

  Returning with a basket, which, as Joe had guessed, was made of stiffened cardboard, Brenda spotted the couple and asked, “What’s up with those two?”

 
; “Dunno,” Joe lied. “He seemed to think that you and Sheila are my wives, so I put him right.” Sheila joined them. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s go find some choccies.”

  ***

  Ferreting through the thick undergrowth, Joe poked into bushes with a long twig he had picked up when they entered the woods.

  Several days of persistent rain had turned the undergrowth to mulch, smelling of decomposition. Even wearing gloves, they had learned that rooting through fern and bush was unhealthy, and Joe had quickly found broken branches for each of them.

  Although the eggs were all wrapped in gaily coloured foil, the lack of light hampered their search. Up above, through the spring canopy of leaves and branches, there were glimpses of the sky, dull, leaden, turbulent and hanging with rain.

  Sheila drifted off alone several yards to the right. Joe and Brenda continued working the left hand edge of the wood, close to the red rope strung around tree trunks, and Joe’s complaints increased geometrically with every step he took. “How long have we been at it?”

  “Twenty minutes,” Brenda replied, parting the leaves of a large bush to glance at the ground beneath.

  “And I’ve got one egg. It’s cost me a tenner. I could have gone into Woolworths and bought it for three quid.”

  “No you couldn’t,” Brenda disagreed. “Woolworths went bust years ago.”

  “Patel’s minimarket, then. In fact, I could probably have bought a dozen of them from the wholesaler for a tenner.”

  “Shut up moaning, Joe, and think how much good your money’s going to do for some chid.”

  Joe pushed on, pressing aside a thicket of ferns. “It’d do the kid more good if you sent him to the Lazy Luncheonette and I taught him how to work.”

  “His air fare would cost you a fortune,” Brenda pointed out.

  “How many have you found?”

  “Two,” Brenda replied.

  “See. You’re already making a bigger profit than me. A hundred percent profit, as it happens. I paid the fees, so your outlay was nil.”