Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend Read online

  With an extravagant wave, she left the dining room to further applause. As it died down, conversation burst through the room, filling the void.

  “I think I’ve got it already,” said Brenda, and showed her notebook to Sheila, who by return showed Brenda hers. “We agree. What about you, Joe?”

  They turned their attention to the man who was writing furiously. Brenda noticed that while she and Sheila had written down one or two lines, and the identity of the killer (according to them) Joe’s spidery handwriting covered the page and, judging by his notebook, several more besides.

  “What are you doing, Joe?” Sheila asked.

  “He’s penning the novel,” Brenda grinned. “No wonder he took so long to finish his dinner.”

  “Memory is a fickle friend,” Joe told them, without taking his eyes from the page upon which he continued to write. “I’m making notes so that I don’t forget anything.”

  “I thought you weren’t taking part?” she reminded him.

  “I’m not entering into the competition.” Hammering the pen to paper in the final full stop, he closed the notebook, and dropped it into the large pocket of his gilet. “But I see no reason why I shouldn’t test my wits. As long as I don’t tell you or anyone what I’ve learned.”

  “We’ve got it anyway,” Brenda assured him. “Look.”

  They both put forward their notebooks. Joe looked them over, and declared, “You’re wrong. Both of you.” He drank from a cup of cooling coffee. “How could Zara Lucescu get anywhere near enough to drop cyanide in his glass? She never moved from her half of the table.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh.”

  “There’s something odd about her,” Sheila said. “She doesn’t know the geography or the history of her own country. Romania originally sided with the Nazis in World War Two.”

  “I know,” Joe agreed. “She’s obviously a wrong’un, but it doesn’t make her a killer.”

  Brenda’s gaze challenged him. “I suppose you know who did it?”

  “Yep. I don’t know why, but I’m sure that will become apparent as we go through the weekend.”

  “Go on then, Joe.”

  He tapped the side of his nose. “Oh no. I promised Melanie I wouldn’t disclose anything to anyone, and I’m sorry, but that includes you two.”

  Brenda edged closer to him, and gently rubbed his thigh. “Joe. My love. You know you’re the kind of man I always wanted to…”

  “Bribery won’t get you anywhere, either,” Joe cut her off. “Not your kind of bribery, anyway.”

  “I was going to say you’re the kind of man I always wanted to solve my murder mysteries.”

  “Stop teasing him, Brenda,” Sheila ordered. “Joe admires so much more about women than their bodies.” She laughed. “Like their ability to make perfect gravy for the steak and kidney pies.”

  “And doing the washing up,” Joe said. “Come on. Come with me.” He led them across to the table where the Haliwell Heroes had been sat, but Joe concentrated on a small section of the map centred on France inland from the landing beaches. “Notice anything?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Sheila. “It’s been quite badly drawn and printed, leaving out a lot of detail.”

  “I’ll go with that,” Joe agreed, “but there’s enough detail there to give you a clue to the main suspect. You have to think about that map in the context of what you were told over dinner.”

  The women studied the map for long minutes. “It doesn’t even identify Chateau Armand,” Brenda complained.

  “It doesn’t have to,” Joe said. “Chateau Armand is not germane to the issue right now. It may be later, but for the moment it is irrelevant.”

  

  A young man, who Joe recognised as one of Reggie Grimshaw’s salespeople was thumbing through the encyclopaedia. Joe waited patiently for him to finish checking his facts, and hand the book over.

  “Loada rubbish,” he said.

  “Is it?” Joe asked.

  The youngster nodded. “I’m Den Ellerby.”

  “Joe Murray.” The pair shook hands. “So why is it rubbish?”

  “There’s a bookmarked page on Chateau Armand, yet I know for a fact it doesn’t exist.”

  Joe nodded. “You’ve been to Normandy. Right?”

  “I’ve travelled all over Normandy and trust me, there’s no such place.”

  Joe began to flick through the book. “You’ll be telling me next that Colonel Haliwell isn’t really dead because he’s a figment of someone’s imagination.”

  Ellerby gave him a curious stare and wandered off.

  “What was that about?” Brenda asked, dragging her eyes away from the map.

  “He hasn’t worked out this is fiction,” Joe told her, and opened the encyclopaedia at the Chateau Armand page.

  “Yes, well, we haven’t worked out what this map is telling us,” Sheila grumbled. “Come on, Joe. Give us a clue.”

  He tutted. “If you can’t see what it’s telling you, it’s not because you can’t see it, but because you weren’t listening when Haliwell’s Heroes were talking. That’s as much as you get out of me.”

  He returned to his reading.

  Although the encyclopaedia was genuine, the article concerning Chateau Armand had been printed and inserted to lend it some verisimilitude. There were convincing photographs of a ruined chateau which could have come from anywhere in northern France or southern Germany during World War Two, and a detailed account of Colonel Haliwell’s three-day assault on the German forces occupying the place.

  The battle of Chateau Armand took place on the outskirts of Caen between June 8th and 11th, 1944. Four hundred men of the 13th Battalion the Royal Marine Commandos, under the command of Colonel G. D. Haliwell, MC, DSO, laid siege to the chateau, defended by approximately 150 men of the Wehrmacht 3rd Infantry Division.

  Haliwell’s orders were to take the chateau intact, yet it was never explained why the Allies wanted it so. Set away from the main routes into Caen, although close to the main supply route, Chateau Armand was of little strategic value, and had been used by the Germans as a radio centre, monitoring Allied broadcasts from across the English channel.

  Accounts of the assault vary, but what is clear is that Haliwell lost 93 men during the three day battle. Of the five officers under Haliwell’s command (two captains, three lieutenants) three were killed during the engagement, but the fourth was killed in a ‘friendly fire’ incident when the fifth officer, who has never been identified, thought he was a German infiltrator. No German prisoners were taken and it is not known how many were killed or escaped during the battle.

  The end of the battle has been the subject of some debate. According to Haliwell, the remaining German forces in the chateau detonated explosives and razed the building to the ground. An NCO under Haliwell’s command, later insisted that the British forces had entered the building intact, found the explosive charges and while they were attempting to defuse them, they detonated. Colonel Haliwell has strenuously denied the report, insisting that the sergeant in question was mistaken, probably due to battle fatigue.

  Allied forces later excavated large areas of the ruined building and grounds, but HM Government has never publicly admitted what it was looking for, or why Chateau Armand was so important. Colonel Haliwell and a number of his men were decorated for bravery after the battle, and no public recrimination was ever recorded against the colonel for his failure to take the building intact.

  Early in 1949, The Daily Herald claimed that the chateau had been used to melt down stolen gold which the Nazis had been accumulating, turning it into bullion bars. The Herald claimed they got the story from Helmut Bruner, a citizen of Dusseldorf, a former soldier in the Wehrmacht, who had been stationed at Chateau Armand, and who had escaped during the battle. The claim was vigorously denied by Colonel Haliwell and the survivors of his battalion, and the War Office has so far refused to comment upon the matter.

  Experts on the Third Reich are divided in
their opinion. Some maintain that it is possible, but without evidence of bullion at the chateau, it can never be proven. It would, say some, explain why the Germans fought such a fierce rearguard for a building so strategically unimportant. These same authorities maintain that the Germans could have been trucking the gold out while holding off Haliwell’s forces.

  Other historians insist it is probably untrue. Whilst agreeing that there was something about Chateau Armand that was of interest to both the Allies and the Third Reich, if the Germans had been smelting gold, and, moreover, shipping it out under cover of battle, routine reconnaissance flights would have detected the trucks, and the War Office has released no aerial photographs of the area with such evidence.

  At the time of going to press, the matter is unresolved.

  Joe made copious notes while reading the piece, and then, when he was through, he passed the encyclopaedia to Les Tanner.

  “Solved it, Murray?”

  Joe nodded. “I think so.”

  “Well, man, spit it out.”

  “I think that after the war, Haliwell took a job at the town hall, and one of the council tax payers got so cheesed off with his glaring inefficiency, that he or she decided to take matters into his own hands.” Joe grinned. Getting under Les Tanner’s skin always gave him great pleasure. “Catch you later, Les.”

  Joe moved around the table, checked the glass the Countess Lucescu had switched, made a few notes, then picked up the newspaper Haliwell had been reading at the opening of the play.

  Murder Remains Unsolved, read the headline of a small item half way down the home news page.

  A year ago today, the body of a blonde-haired woman was dredged from the Thames near Mortlake. She had been beaten so badly that her features were unrecognizable, but personal items in her handbag identified her as Lydia Beauchamp, one of Britain’s most famous undercover saboteurs who worked with the French Resistance in Normandy during the build up to D-Day.

  Inspector Jonathan O’Keefe of Scotland Yard yesterday reiterated appeals for the public’s help in tracing Miss Beauchamp’s last movements. “It’s been a year since her murder, and we have received no information regarding her final hours. We would appeal to anyone who may have seen this lady in the Mortlake or Richmond area to come forward.”

  Sheila took the newspaper from him and read the item. “Rather brief, isn’t it?”

  “It tells you all you need to know,” Joe said, and dropping his notebook in his pocket, made for the exit.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Brenda demanded.

  “Next door,” he replied. “I’ll get the drinks in while you’re trying to crack the case.”

  Chapter Four

  Joe found the Scampton Room quite crowded. In the far corner, by the windows which looked out onto the floodlit front of the hotel, a DJ was busy setting up his equipment. Melanie and her team were dotted around the room, some talking amongst themselves, others harangued by patrons, and despite her request to give the actors some breathing space, Zara Lucescu was the centre of attention, with a dozen people, mainly men, crowding around her.

  Melanie herself was seated by the windows with the young man who had played the part of McLintock, while Gerry Carlin was at the bar talking to Reggie Grimshaw and a dark-haired woman, one of Reggie’s party. Wendy Grimshaw sat nearer the far wall, close to the bar, talking to Robbie and Fliss, the young couple Joe had encountered earlier in the day.

  There was an inevitable party atmosphere about the room, enhanced by the glittering Christmas decorations, the glimmer of the lights on the large Christmas tree and further augmented by the flickering lights of the DJ’s disco display.

  There were several members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club seated around the room, which hardly surprised Joe. His members may have been aged between 50 and 85, but never let it be said that they didn’t know how to party.

  He found George Robson and Owen Frickley at the bar and tucked himself in alongside them.

  “You’re not doing the disco, Joe?” George asked.

  Signalling for service, Joe shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me. Said they had a professional, stress, professional on for the weekend.” Gesturing at the DJ, he turned back to the barman. “A glass of lager, Campari and soda, gin and it, please.”

  Turning back to his two members, he looked them up and down, both dressed in ridiculous, three-quarter length drapes, George with yellow lapels, Owen with mauve. Neither man had enough hair to comb properly, and neither had used any gel on what they had, but both had completed the ensemble with black shirts and Bolo, bootlace ties, George’s sporting a buffalo skull, Owen’s a Confederate flag.

  “I must say, you look a complete pair of prats.”

  “That’s what we love about you, Joe. Your tact,” Owen said. “And look who’s talking. You’re only short of a hecky-thump cap and you’d look like Marlon Brando in that fillum.”

  “The Godfather?”

  “Not that. The other one.”

  “Superman?” Joe suggested and George laughed.

  Joe’s drinks arrived. He paid for them and took the two to task again. “Not investigating the mysterious murder?”

  “You know us, Joe. We’re only here for the beer and the totty. Who gives a toss over some stupid play?” George asked. He drank from a pint of bitter, casting his eyes to one side at the dark-haired woman with Grimshaw. “I fancy giving a toss over that, when the old git with her clears off.”

  Joe followed his gaze. “You may have a long wait. I think she works for the old git.”

  “On her back?”

  “Maybe. I dunno, but I’d hope not. The old git’s wife is sat at the back of the room.”

  George and Owen wandered off, and Joe took to people watching again, mainly studying Melanie and the young man at her side. They were deep in discussion and judging by the frowns on both foreheads, it was serious.

  “Good evening viewers.”

  Joe glanced to his left where Reggie Grimshaw and his dark-haired employee were tittering over Gerry Carlin’s impression of the late Benny Hill. Not a good impression, but the awkward salute Benny Hill had given in character as Fred Scuttle, compensating for the too high elbow with a twist of the wrist, was accurate.

  Joe guessed Carlin’s age at about 50, a few years younger than himself, but where years spent in the hectic environment of the Lazy Luncheonette had ensured Joe burned off most of his fat, leaving him lean and wiry, the opposite was true of Carlin, who showed a distinct middle-aged spread under his dinner jacket, white shirt and deep red cummerbund.

  “The lazy life of an actor,” Joe muttered to himself.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He spun his head the other way and looked into the pale blue eyes of Valerie Wilson… or the actress who had played her in the dining room.

  “I was talking to myself,” Joe replied. “Joe Murray. Caterer.”

  “Tanya Richmond.” Introducing herself, Tanya did not appear overtly friendly. “I thought I heard you say the lazy life of an actor.”

  “You did,” Joe agreed. “I was just thinking about the colonel, there. He must be about the same age as me, but he weighs more. I figured it was the lazy life of an actor.”

  “You have my assurance, Mr Murray, acting is not a lazy life.”

  Joe tutted. “A touchy one, though.”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Then why so het up? It was a passing comment, and I made it to myself, no one else.”

  “I’ve had a trying day,” she insisted.

  “Well, finding the colonel poisoned like that can’t have helped.” Joe smiled at her, but he was worried it came out as more of a leer.

  “Now you’re taking the mickey.”

  “I wouldn’t like to wake up next to you when you’re reading the critics in the Sundays.”

  “I wouldn’t like to wake up next to you. Full stop.”

  Seeing Melanie making her way across the floor, Joe dismissed Tanya with a scowl, and ed
ged further along the bar.

  “Hello, Joe.” Melanie greeted him with a warm smile. “How did you find our little play?”

  “Intriguing,” he replied, “but not difficult to work out.”

  Melanie’s face fell slightly. “Oh dear.”

  “Not to worry,” he assured her. “I’ll say nothing to anyone else, and anyway, I haven’t ironed out all the wrinkles.” He took out his tobacco tin. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  She accepted a cup of coffee from the barman. “That’s kind of you, but I’m in the middle of some fairly important debates with the cast, so I need to keep a clear head. I’ll take you up on it later, if I may, because I’d like a word with you.”

  He smiled benignly. “As long as I don’t owe you money.”

  With Melanie gone, Joe relaxed against the bar, his ear cocked to the conversation between Reggie Grimshaw, Gerry Carlin and the dark-haired woman.

  “It’s that easy-going ability to put people at their ease which we’re always looking for, me ducks. Isn’t it, Naomi?” Reggie said.

  “And the determination to see it through,” the dark-haired woman, now identified as Naomi, added. “See, Gerry, the customer doesn’t always know what she wants. It’s my job to tell them that.”

  “Frankly,” Carlin said, “I’ve never heard so much twaddle in my life.”

  Listening in, Joe couldn’t help agreeing with Carlin.