Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

‘Lost something by doing the walk in summer,’ Markov said as he glanced at the menu in the Green Jade restaurant.

‘We could do it again,’ replied Carmen, whose eye was caught by the chicken chow mein. ‘A blustery winter’s night, or Halloween. That would be fun.’

They spent the night at her house, where she was still living largely out of bin liners and cardboard boxes. She had bought ‘within the walls’, having been told that she would never have a problem selling her house if she bought ‘within the walls’ and that night they lay together listening to the Minster bells chime midnight.

Max Winner woke early the next morning, as he did during the summer months, but he remained long in bed, still feeling a sense of whirring confusion in his head. The sense of weight having been lifted from his life was tangible…but yet, strangely, there was a loss, too. He was now finally alone in his house. She was no longer in her room. He didn’t miss her, not at all, but there was a space, a hole where previously there was no hole. He didn’t think her loss would have had such an effect on him, and it surprised him that it did.

He heard the doorbell ring. He levered himself out of bed, wound into his dressing gown, and went down the ancient creaking staircase and answered the door. He gasped in surprise and astonishment.

‘Morning, Max,’ beamed Julia Patton. ‘Did you miss me?’ She stood with two suitcases at her feet. ‘Nothing to stop us now, is there, Max?’

‘No – no -’ He said ‘no’ because he didn’t know what else to say. ‘Won’t you come in?’

They sat in the sitting room where the day previously he had received Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said.

‘I knew you’d be pleased. I used to watch the house almost every evening…got to know her movements… Waited for her on the bridge. I knew she’d stop and give me a mouthful…and she did. Then when she turned away to go back to her car, I hit her over the head. I had a rock inside a sock. She went down slowly. I tried to lift her over the parapet, but I couldn’t, so I dragged her down some steps and put her in the water, face down, dropped her handbag in after her and chucked the rock and sock in the water as well. So we can be together now, Max, I can be lady of this house.’

‘Yes…’ He smiled. ‘Yes…have you breakfasted yet?’

‘No. I came straight here. The police called yesterday but I got rid of them, they won’t be back. Just you and me now, Max.’

Max Winner stood. ‘Well, look, why don’t you make yourself at home.’

‘At home,’ she echoed.

‘I’ll go and get my clothes on and I’ll make us both something to eat.’ He left the room and walked back up the stairs to his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and picked up the telephone by his bed. ‘DC Pharoah or Markov,’ he said when his call was answered. ‘Either will do.’

One of the most baffling crimes Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro ever faced had nothing to do with murder, but quite a lot to do with buying presents for his mother and two small daughters. Birthdays were difficult enough for a widower, but Christmas presents were worse, especially when Rose, aged eight, took one look at the familiar oblong cardboard box and cried out reproachfully: “Oh, Papa, not another doll.”

Had his normal powers of deduction been functioning, Inspector Faro might have found the vital clue in her younger sister Emily’s letter, that she “liked the dolly’s frocks, but not very much.”

Birthdays were inevitable but by the 1870s the fashion set by Her Majesty and the late Prince Consort had been eagerly followed and the Christmas craze had spread to Edinburgh. Now a middle class, once content with the annual Hogmanay debauch, demanded turkey, plum pudding, a tree in the window, and the unsteady march of Christmas cards across the mantelpiece. In mainly candlelit rooms this also had the city’s fire engines on constant alert.

Nor were fires the only hazard in the homes of the well-to-do. A rash of yuletide parties and conviviality, with a regrettable slackening of the tough moral fibre of Calvinism, was regarded as a positive enticement to sneak thieves. As a consequence, this quite unnecessary season of peace and goodwill was greeted with less than enthusiasm by the Edinburgh City Police.

Advertisements like that of Jenners in Princes Street, offering customers a chance to inspect valuable seasonal items, had been viewed by the criminal element as an open invitation to more splendid opportunities of breaking and entering in a spate of daring robberies.

As Faro’s young stepson Dr. Vincent Laurie studied his sister’s letter, he said:

“Now what do you think of that? I imagined that all little girls liked dolls.”

“They do indeed, Stepfather, but not every Christmas and birthday. Ever since our mama died-” he added sadly. “Don’t you see-”

Faro tried but failed. “You wouldn’t-I suppose-” he said wistfully.

“No, I certainly wouldn’t,” was the stern reply. “The very idea! I find it hard enough getting suitable presents for my own list.”

Vince could be notoriously unsympathetic sometimes, but seeing his stepfather’s anguished expression, he said: “What about a piece of jewellery, then? Small girls like lockets and bangles.” And warming to the idea, “And a brooch for Stepgrandma-”

“You really think so…?”

“I do indeed. And what’s more, there’s a splendid new jeweller’s shop opened in South Clerk Street, just a step away. Foreign chap. Did an excellent repair on my pocket watch-a wizard with clocks, I understand-highly recommended-”

“In the circumstances-would you-?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” said Vince crossly. “The experience will do you good.”

Rose and Emily had lived with their grandmama in Orkney for the past two years, and as the last date for posting parcels grew nearer, so too did Inspector Faro’s frowns grow deeper and darker with the preoccupation of choosing suitable presents. Finally, with all the anticipatory joy of a man presenting himself for the extraction of a particularly sensitive tooth, he stared glumly into the jeweller’s window, feeling utterly helpless faced with such a bewildering and dazzling selection.

If only he enjoyed shopping. He had relied on his dear Lizzie to keep his wardrobe up to the mark. His indifference to sartorial elegance was well known at the Central Office of the Edinburgh City Police. As long as garments were comfortable and covered him in modest decency, he did not care a fig for fashion. The reflection of his greatcoat in the window glass jolted him a little, but closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and entered the shop, where a loud bell noisily proclaimed his presence.

Taking stock of his surroundings as he waited for the jeweller to appear, he saw that the shop was small, dark, and depressing, a complete contrast to the brilliant sunshine of a winter afternoon settling into a rosy sunset sharp with frost.

A closer look at the owner, who entered through the curtain and bowed gravely, told a delighted Faro that he might have modelled Mr. Dickens’s Fagin but for those gentle eyes and dignified bearing.

Indicating a tray of brooches, he found Mr. Jacob most helpful. Was the recipient a young lady?

Faro shook his head. “No, it is for my mother.” He was both delighted and relieved when Mr. Jacob after careful deliberation pointed to the very one he had in mind. “Yes, indeed. That is perfect,” said Faro. “I will take it.”

“Is there anything else I might interest you in, sir?”

When Faro asked to see lockets, the jeweller beamed.