Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend Page 7

  Joe passed the next two hours between Sheila and Brenda, and Melanie when she was free of discussions with her cast. Drink flowed freely in the room, the party warmed up until by 10:30, the dance floor was packed.

  Joe spotted Reggie and Wendy Grimshaw leaving the bar, Reggie carrying a tray with a teapot, two cups, and other items. Wendy appeared to be hanging back. Joe waved to them. Wendy waved back but Reggie had already left the bar.

  A short while later, with the time just turned eleven, Joe was sitting with Melanie when Gerry Carlin approached.

  “Excuse me, old son, Melanie, Billy and I are calling it a night. Don’t forget we have to be on the ball early in the morning before the motley come down to breakfast.”

  “I’ll meet you in the dining room at seven thirty,” Melanie promised.

  Carlin bid them both a friendly goodnight and wandered off.

  “The rock upon which our success is built,” Melanie assured Joe.

  “He has a thing for Wendy Grimshaw, doesn’t he?”

  She frowned. “I don’t think so. I know he knew her years ago. They were in Rep together, I understand. And I’ve known him a long time. He’s not the kind to play around, especially with a married woman.”

  Joe beamed. “Y’see. I can misread the signs.”

  Melanie’s smile faded quickly. “Listen, Joe, I have a proposition for you. It might make a little money for you. If you’re interested, that is.”

  “I’ll always listen to ideas where there’s a profit involved. As long as it doesn’t cost me a fortune.”

  “It won’t actually cost you anything,” Melanie told him. She checked her watch. “Difficult to talk here with all this noise, and I have to be up in the morning. Please don’t misunderstand what I’m going to say, but why don’t you pick up your computer and come along to my room at midnight? I can show you what I have in mind.”

  Joe cast a furtive glance across the floor to Sheila and Brenda, both of whom were preparing to leave. “All right. I’ll escort my friends back to their room, collect the computer and be with you in, say, half an hour. How’s that?”

  Chapter Five

  Sheila was in some considerable discomfort, clutching at her right side. “Gallstones,” she announced as they waited for the lift. “That damned fish.”

  “Not to mention the booze,” Joe said as the lift arrived.

  The doors opened and George Robson stepped out. “Hey up, you lot. Cracking barney on the first floor. Someone just hit someone else with a tin tray.”

  Joe frowned. “How do you know?”

  “Heard it as I was passing, didn’t I? Walked that lass back to her room, gave her a goodnight feel, and as I was coming back to the lift, I heard the woman clatter this bloke over the head with the tray. At least I think it was a woman hitting a bloke. Can’t see it being t’other way round. Went with a real crack, and I could hear him moaning. Bet he’ll have a hell of hangover in the morning.” George’s laughter subsided as he noticed Sheila’s pain. “You all right, luv?”

  “Gallstones,” she repeated. “Painful.”

  “Had mine done yonks ago,” George told her. “Keyhole surgery, best thing ever. No trouble since. You need anything? Ibuprofen, or owt?”

  “No, thank you, George. I have painkillers in the room.”

  “Oh well. Take care. Night all.”

  Two minutes later, Joe, Sheila and Brenda stepped out of the lift onto the richly carpeted corridor of the fourth floor, and by then, Sheila was almost doubled up in pain.

  Their faces lined with concern, they helped her to the room she shared with Brenda, where she lay on the bed, clutching at her right side.

  “You sure you don’t want anything?” Joe asked. “I can get the hotel to call for a doctor.”

  “No, Joe,” she gasped. “I’ll be all right. It will pass in a little while. It always does.”

  Joe turned to Brenda. “I’m right across the corridor. If she gets much worse, shout me.”

  “Don’t worry, Joe. I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

  He nodded, left the room and crossed to his own. Retrieving his netbook from the wardrobe, he sat at the escritoire, looking out over the twin towers of the cathedral while he rolled a cigarette. From there, he returned to the lobby and stepped out into the damp night air, where he found actor Billy Norman smoking a cigarette.

  “Your mate Gerry said you were hitting the sack,” Joe commented, lighting up.

  “We were supposed to, but he’s pulled some woman and he’s, er, otherwise engaged.” Billy grinned. “Lucky bugger. We have an understanding. If one of us scores the other takes the prop room.” He held up a key.

  “Prop room?”

  “We’re a small outfit, Joe. For a weekend do like this, we get to stay in the hotel at reduced rates, but we still have to pay for the meals and stuff. In order to keep costs down and make sure Markham Murder Mysteries can still pay us our wages, we have to share rooms, but we take an extra, single room for the props. Since Gerry looks after the props, it’s handy if one of us, er, strikes it lucky. Naturally, none of the aforementioned applies to her ladyship.”

  “Melanie?”

  Billy nodded. “She sleeps alone.”

  “I’m the same with the Sanford 3rd Age Club outings,” Joe told him. “The rest share, I always take a room alone.”

  Billy crushed out his cigarette. “Never know when you’ll get lucky, eh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m just nipping to the bar for a last snifter. See you tomorrow. Oh, and keep your eyes on the Countess Lucescu.”

  “I will,” Joe said after his departing back.

  He gave the actor another few minutes, then stubbed out his own cigarette, made his way back into the hotel and up to the first floor.

  Emerging from the lift, padding along the corridor, a loud and familiar voice came to him through a partially open door.

  “You’d do well to mind your own business, old lad, but I’ll be charitable and put it down to drink. Take my advice and sleep it off. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  Joe had no idea who Reggie Grimshaw was talking to, but it didn’t take much to work it out. He could imagine young Robbie Kendrew’s angry (and drunken) face challenging the old man.

  Tempted though he was to stay behind and listen to the argument, he did not want to keep Melanie waiting. He knocked lightly on her door. She opened it, let him in, and closed it behind him.

  “Bit of a row going on over there between Grimshaw and one of his team,” Joe said, unpacking his netbook on the escritoire and plugging in the mains adaptor.

  “I find him a very disagreeable man,” Melanie declared. “Brash. You know.”

  “He’s certainly pushy,” Joe agreed, switching the machine on, “but I suppose in his field you have to be.”

  “Who was he arguing with?”

  “Dunno,” Joe replied. “I fancy it’s that young Kendrew kid. He was having a moan to me earlier about Reggie.”

  Melanie had discarded the dark blue jacket of the business suit she had been wearing in the dining room and bar, and perched on the edge of her bed, in a skirt and a pale cream blouse which showed her flowery bra beneath.

  “Let’s forget about them, Joe, and talk about Markham Murder Mysteries. As well as the proprietor, producer and director, I’m also the head writer. It’s my job to come up with new scripts, new angles, which we can play to audiences like this weekend’s. The whisper is that you write up your cases, as you call them, and they’re on the shelves of your café for your customers to read.”

  “And they’re very popular. In the Lazy Luncheonette, at least.”

  “How detailed are they, and could I read one?”

  He grinned. “So that’s why you wanted me to bring the computer.” He turned to the screen and ran his finger across the mousepad, opening the documents folder. In turn he double clicked on a file and the word processing software sprang to life. “There you go. It’s an account of our s
tay at the Beachside Hotel in Filey, during the summer.”

  “Detailed?” she asked.

  “Only the names have been changed,” he told her. “Including mine.”

  Melanie moved to the wardrobe and took out a laptop. “May I copy it and read it through over the weekend?”

  Joe took a memory stick from the netbook case, and inserted into one of four USB slots. “Are you going to tell me what all this is about?”

  “Simple enough” Melanie replied, switching on her machine. “I want to turn your cases into murder mystery weekends.” She smiled. “And I’ll pay you for each one you let us transcribe.”

  ***

  Ever the soul of discretion, Billy Norman pressed his ear to the room door, and from within he heard muttered sounds of lovemaking.

  With a wry smile, he stepped next door, took out the key and unlocked it. Stepping inside, he grabbed the mannequin, already dressed in Colonel Haliwell’s clothes, from the bed and tossed it into a corner.

  “Sorry, Colonel, but I need my beauty sleep.”

  He threw off his jacket, sat on the edge of the bed and yanked his boots from his feet.

  With one ear cocked to the sounds coming from next door, he smiled again, and spoke once more to the dummy. “Don’t sound like Gerry’s gonna get much kip, though”

  ***

  With the script copied, Joe removed the memory stick, his wrinkled brow creasing further. “I’m not sure what the legal position is, Melanie. I mean, these are not novels, you know. These are real murders.”

  “Aren’t novels real murders, too?” Melanie asked taking the memory stick from him. “Murder is murder, Joe, and all novelists base their tales on the real thing, but you’ve already changed the names of the participants. Besides, we could leave the legal intricacies to solicitors. As a bona fide drama company, we would need the business on a formal footing anyway. You know: have proper contracts drawn up.”

  With her laptop ready to begin work, Melanie slotted the memory stick into a USB port, and Joe watched her slender, deft fingers working on the mousepad and keyboard to copy it over.

  “We’re not a rich company, Joe. We play on the popularity of murder mystery weekends, and we do some stage work… where and when we can get it. We couldn’t pay you a fortune. You’d be looking at hundreds rather than thousands of pounds.”

  Joe hedged. “That’s all right. I’m not a writer. I’m a cook. A businessman. I run a trucker’s joint in West Yorkshire.”

  “And this is a business proposition,” she reiterated, her eyes on the laptop screen. “I’m not interested in the quality of the writing, Joe. I’m interested in the case, your deductive processes, the way you arrived at your conclusions. And, of course, the murder itself. Gerry and I will deal with the script.”

  The job completed, she removed the memory stick and handed it back. Switching the laptop off, she put it to one side to let it go through its shutdown routine.

  “You’re a businessman. I’m a businesswoman. This is business.” She laughed. “God, why do I sound like a mafia hood when I say that?” She studied his worried face and sympathised. “What’s the problem, Joe?”

  “Is it legal?” He tucked the memory stick back into the netbook case and, following Melanie’s lead, shut down his computer. “Like I say, these were real murders, not made up.”

  “If there’s anything illegal, it’s you writing them down in the first place,” Melanie pointed out, “and you already know it’s not illegal. You changed the names. You’re not identifying anyone. Of course it’s legal, Joe. You own the rights to these tales as you’ve written them. I’m simply asking that you grant Markham Murder Mysteries the right to adapt and perform them, and let me pay you for that right.”

  There was a brief hiatus while Joe packed away the netbook and Melanie put away her laptop. Joe’s natural, Yorkshire caution ran riot through his head, looking for some loophole, some hint that Melanie was out to take him for a mug, or land him with the blame if it all went wrong.

  “Let me think it over while you’re reading about our adventures in Filey,” he suggested.

  “Of course,” Melanie agreed. “There’s not much we can do this weekend, anyway. I’m in the middle of a job, and you’re enjoying the New Year.”

  He picked up his computer. “Right. We’ll talk later.”

  Joe stood, ready to leave.

  “Just a minute, Joe. There’s something else.”

  “What?”

  Melanie took the netbook from him, placed it on the escritoire, then slipped her arm around his neck and kissed him.

  ***

  Almost two hours had passed since Joe bid them goodnight at the door, and still Sheila was doubled up in agony.

  Brenda had knocked on his door and got no answer. She tried his mobile and it was switched off. She had asked reception to telephone both his and his mobile room and they couldn’t get an answer, either. In desperation, she had reception call a local doctor who examined Sheila while Brenda stood by, acting as a veritable chaperone and a responsible friend.

  Once through with his examination, Dr Chowdury had not hesitated to call an ambulance. “Your friend may be right, Mrs Jump. It may only be gallstones, but I don’t think we should take chances. We’ll get her down to A & E and let them take a proper look at her.”

  Fifteen minutes after that, Sheila was on a trolley, being wheeled through the hotel, and Brenda was at reception.

  “Keep trying Joe Murray, and make sure he gets the message.”

  “As soon as we can find him, Mrs Jump,” the night duty manager assured her.

  Brenda turned to follow the ambulance attendants, and almost bumped into a wobbly, reeling Robbie Kendrew.

  “Get out of the way, you drunken idiot,” she snapped.

  Still furious with Joe, she rushed out into the night and climbed into the back of the ambulance.

  ***

  Joe stared up into the darkness, mixed sensations of satisfaction and guilt coursing through him.

  Passion had never played any part in his life other than with regard to the Lazy Luncheonette and the Sanford 3rd Age Club, but over the last hour he had been consumed by almost uncontrollable lust and he felt guilty.

  He was not so vain as to imagine that Melanie found him irresistible. She was making an effort to secure the performance rights to his cases. On the other hand, she had given as good as she got, so she can’t have been faking it all… could she?

  In a lifetime of tunnel vision focussed on the Lazy Luncheonette, Joe freely admitted he was clueless when it came to women. He did not have George Robson’s easy going charm. In general, he was clumsy and awkward, and successfully masked it with outspoken irritability. His libido, such as it was, had never troubled him when he was married, and during the ten years since his divorce, he managed to suppress it in work.

  And yet, here he was, sharing a bed with an attractive and demanding woman… an attractive, demanding and sleeping woman. Was that normal? Was it supposed to happen?

  Joe asked no further questions of himself. He had no answers, and anyway, he was tired. His eyelids drooped, he yawned one more time, and fell into an untroubled sleep.

  ***

  “I don’t know where the hell he got to but when I’ve finished with him, he’ll be singing soprano.”

  In deference to the taxi driver, Brenda had kept her voice low. Sheila, glad to be out of the hospital and no longer in pain, did likewise.

  “He’s not our servant, Brenda. He does have his own life to lead.”

  “His last words to me were, ‘If she gets much worse, shout me’.” Brenda growled. “I shouted him and he wasn’t there. I’ll bet he went back down to the bar with that Melanie Markham and then out clubbing with George Robson and Owen Frickley.”

  Sheila patted Brenda’s hand. “You were there, dear. And I’m all right now.” She glanced at her watch, angling her wrist so she could see it in the flickering illumination of passing street lights. “A quarter to
four. We won’t get much sleep before breakfast.”

  “We can always catch up later.” Brenda grinned savagely. “Then we can take Joe and his credit card shopping. Make him pay for ducking out on us like that.”

  ***

  With the time just gone seven, Billy tapped on the door. When he got no answer, he pressed his ear to it. Silence.

  He turned his key softly in the lock and stepped in. Even in the dim light he could make out the shape of Gerry and the woman in bed together. He cursed under his breath, tiptoed across the room and nudged his pal.

  “Huh? What?”

  Billy put a finger to his lips. “Don’t disturb your lady love, Gerry. It’s turned seven, and I need to wash and shave before we’re on.”

  Gerry glanced sideways at his bedmate, then grinned up at Billy. “Christ, what a night.”

  “Yeah, well you’d better get ready for the day…” Billy trailed off on seeing the woman’s face. “You lucky old bugger. Wendy Grimshaw? Won’t her old man notice she’s missing?”

  Gerry shrugged. “That’s her problem… and his. Not mine.”

  ***

  Checking both ways along the corridor, Joe bid a whispered, “See you later” to Melanie, and stepped out into the corridor. He had gone barely three paces towards the lift, when a familiar voice rang in his ear.

  “Hello, hello, hello. What’s all this here, then?”

  Joe called the lift and smiled at Gerry Carlin and Billy Norman, making their way along the landing. Gerry was dressed in a shabby, double-breasted suit and faded white shirt, with a ragged, dark red tie fastened at the collar. He also sported a floppy trilby hat on his head and a theatrical scrub moustache above his upper lip. Billy wore the same dinner suit he had the previous evening, and was carrying a mannequin under his arm which was clad in the colonel’s dinner jacket.

  “How you doing?” Joe asked.

  “We’re fine, old son,” Gerry said. “Inspector Jonathan O'Keefe at your service. And what have you been up to? Been entertaining the boss, have you?”