Abigail Browining - Murder Most Merry

“Of course I shot home, and damned if a taxi didn’t pull up behind me, with Nell and a young woman who’d found her: Mitzi Field. I recognized her from court, she was a regular. Cut a long story short, Beth was wandering the docks, running away if any male asked why she was crying; we’d drilled that into her, never talk to strange men. Mitzi twigged she needed help, looked us up in the phonebook, and flagged down a cab.”

Haggard fiddled with his empty glass. “Nell made her come in for some grub and a cup of tea. God forgive me, grateful or no, I was pleased to see the back of her, the girl was dirty under the paint and dead cheap. Nell, my wife, isn’t practical except round the house. Church on Sunday, says her prayers every night. She wanted to help Mitzi, give her a fresh start, once our girl was in bed and I’d explained what Mitzi was. I told Nell to forget it, the best help to her sort is leaving them alone. She’d still sleep rough and be on the game with a thousand quid in her purse.”

“Easy to say when you don’t want hassle—and how would it have looked, me taking a common prostitute, a dockside brass, under my wing? A month later she got herself killed.”

He put a hand atop Jill Tierce’s. “Comes back to me every Christmas, how we owed that girl and... we didn’t let her down but... you follow? It was Len Poole’s inquiry, I can’t involve myself. You can. Christmas, and I’m asking for a present. Something isn’t kosher about Noel Mr. Crusader Bloody Sarum; give him a spin, and help ease my blasted conscience.”

Taking his hand back, he blustered, “Any of that personal stuff leaks out, I’ll skin you alive.” But it was appeal rather than threat. Oh yes, Jill reflected, coppers were human all right—even devoutly ambitious ones.

Noel Sarum lived in one of the Monopoly-board houses of a new estate, Larkspur Crest. For no good reason Inspector Tierce had expected a student-type flat festooned in Death to Tories banners, fragrant with pot fumes and dirty socks.

Like most police officers, she was aware of Sarum. His know-your-rights column in the weekly paper kept sniping at law enforcers. Jill had acknowledged that the diatribes were justified in general terms, yet still she felt resentful, attacked while denied another right—of defense. Somehow she’d formed a picture of an acrid character with a straggly beard and John Lennon glasses, spitting venom via his word processor. He was a teacher, too. probably indoctrinating whole generations of copper-baiters. Not that they needed encouragement.

She was taken aback by the man opening the glossy front door of pin-neat Number 30. Fifty, she judged, but relatively unlined, face open under a shock of silver-gray hair. Track suit and trainers reinforced the youthful, vigorous impression. Before she could speak, he beamed and exclaimed, “Why, it’s the lame duck!”

Sensitive over her treacherous leg, she bristled, then recognized the face and decoded his remark. It was the Samaritan from that half-marathon in the happy time before she’d been hurt. Talked into running for charity, she’d not realized that the friendly fellow partnering her for the final miles was Sarum, scourge of the police.

Jill had been quite taken with him. He’d struck her as a man appreciating female company for its own sake. If he’d been ten years younger or she a decade older, she might have tried making something of it. As things were, when the event finished he’d wrapped her in a foil blanket and trotted away to help somebody else.

“You’re a police, um, person,” he said, returning Inspector Tierce’s warrant card. “I wondered what you did for a living, never thought of that . Come on in.”

The living room contrived to be homely and pristine, sealed woodblock floor reflecting carefully tended plants. “Passes inspection, huh? I lost my wife five years ago, but I try to maintain her standards. Must have known you were coming, that’s the coffee perking, not my tummy rumbling. Take a pew, I’ll get it—black, white, sugar, no sugar?”

He was just as he’d been on the charity run, chatting as if resuming a relationship after minutes instead of years. Some people did it naturally, and in her experience, the majority were as uncomplicated as their manner. He made reasonable coffee, as well... “What’s the problem? Can’t be anything too shattering, but you’re a senior rank.”

Disingenuous, Jill thought; he must have a shrewd idea what brought her.

“You’ve been seen in Grand Drive for extended periods over the last two years. Watching, hanging about. Spare me the stuff about a free country; you put the wind up the neighborhood, and no wonder. It’s no-hawkers-no-lurkers territory. Storm in a teacup is your comeback, but the snag is a woman was done to death at your favorite haunt three years ago.”

“Two and two makes me a murder suspect, is that it?” His tone was even. Sensing that Noel Sarum savored debate, she gained a better understanding of his newspaper column.

“No, you invited suspicion all on your own.” she replied calmly. “Gave my uniformed colleagues some guff about wanting to confirm the presence of a rare bird in Grand Drive, a... can’t read PC Harris’s writing, but he told me the name and I remembered it long enough to make a phone call.

“It’s your bad luck that a cousin of mine is an ornithologist—the bird you chose hasn’t touched England since 1911, and even that sighting was doubted. However, it’s something an intelligent amateur might pick to blind the cops with science. According to my expert.” And she smiled cheekily.

Noel Sarum’s mouth curved up at the corners, too. “Got me.” Then his jaw set. “As a matter of fact, that was my third Christmas of going to Grand Drive. Breaking no law, causing no nuisance. Which is all you need from me.”

“Believe it or not I’d agree if it weren’t for Mitzi Field. The dead girl. Worthless girl, some might say, squalid little life, good riddance. But we don’t agree, do we. I’ve got to account for loose ends, and you’re flapping about in the wind, Mr. Sarum.”

“Noel.” he corrected abstractedly. “The kids call me First Noel, this time of year. Every class thinks it’s being brilliantly original....” Stubborn streak resurfacing, he grumbled. “After your pals pounced on me, I went to the Gazaette office and researched the murder in the back numbers. That winter I was supply-teaching at Peterborough, didn’t get back to the city until the week after it happened. The night she was killed, I was chaperoning a Sixth Form dance more than a hundred miles away from Grand Drive.”

“Bloody hell,” Jill muttered. “What’s the matter with you, why not tell the uniforms that?”

Taken aback by her impatience and the subtext of disgust, he shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think of it at the time.”

Fair enough, Inspector Tierce granted. People didn’t remember their whereabouts a week ago, let alone years later. Though Noel Sarum might be lying . . . .

Guessing the reaction, he brightened. “Hang on, I’m not escaping, just looking in the glory-hole.”

She watched him delve in a cupboard under the stairs. Soon he returned, waving a pamphlet. “Here you are, Beacon School newsletter, date at the top of every page.”

It was a slim, computer printed magazine. Sarum’s finger jabbed at a poorly reproduced photograph in which he was recognizable, arm round the shoulders of a jolly, overweight woman in owl spectacles.” ‘First Noel’ got the Christmas spirit. Mrs. May got the grope, and the Sixth ‘got down’ with a vengeance last Thursday night.” ran the disrespectful caption.

“Mrs. May’s the head teacher, the kids loved that snap,” he chuckled. Tuning him out, Jill found the first page of her notebook. Yes, the date was right, Mitzi Field had died at about nine p.m. that faraway Thursday night when Noel Sarum was hugging the head teacher. His tone hardened. “Sorry to disappoint you.”