Abigail Browining - Murder Most Merry

“Oh, drop it,” she said crossly. “I liked you on that stupid run, I still like you, though what I’d really like is to shake you till your stupid teeth rattle.”

Taken aback, he fiddled with the school magazine.

“You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about the police, fine. But that’s no excuse for wasting two uniformed officers’ time, and mine. Heaven knows what it is with you and Grand Drive, I don’t care.”

She broke off, eyes narrowing. “Hey! I think this was a setup. You have an ironclad alibi, so why not encourage the dim coppers to hassle you? Weeks and weeks of columns to be wrung out of that. Cancel the liking-you bit, you’re sick. Feel free to complain about my attitude. I’ll be happy to defend it, on the record.”

Appalled, Noel Sarum protested. “It’s not like that... setup? It never crossed my mind!” Cracking his knuckles, he glowered at the carpet. “It’s strictly personal, can’t you people get that through your heads?” After which, perversely (not only coppers are human), he told her the whole story.

Fifteen minutes later, Inspector Tierce said, “Why the heck didn’t you press every bell and find her that way? Can’t be that many flats in half a dozen houses.”

“What would I say when each door opens?” Sarum demanded. “I don’t even know if she’s married, she was wearing gloves, I couldn’t see if she had a wedding ring. Supposing her husband answered, imagine the trouble I could cause.”

“I still can’t make out how you chatted her up and didn’t have the gumption to get her name, even a first name.”

Still high-colored from enthusiasm and embarrassment, Sarum sputtered, “I didn’t chat her up. It was... idyllic, a little miracle. We looked at each other and started talking as if we’d known each other forever. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to ask her name or give mine, it might have broken the spell.”

“Yes, you told me,” Jill butted in, lips tingling from the strain of keeping a straight line. The copper-bashing demon she had pictured snarling over his columns turned out to be a hopeless, helpless romantic. Noel Sarum, a widower well into middle age, patrolled Grand Drive once a year because he was suffering belated pangs of puppy love.

Having met his ideal woman one Christmas Eve, driven her home, and departed on air, he’d been unable to decide which house in Grand Drive was hers. Similar period and the same architect, and they looked different by daylight.

She could understand why he hadn’t confided in a couple of constables patently ready to take him for some kind of weirdo. After all, he was the Know Your Rights fanatic, worried that they’d turn his romantic vigil into a mocking anecdote to belittle him. Inevitably he’d been combative.

It was already dark when Jill Tierce left Larkspur Crest. Fresh snow crunched under the tires. She slowed as her lights picked up a group of children crossing the road, dragging a muffled-up baby on the improvised sledge of a tin tray. At the foot of the hill a Rotary Club float blared canned carols, a squad of executive Santas providing harness-bells sound effects with their collecting tins.

Everything went a little scatty in this season, though nicely so, Inspector Tierce mused. She’d bought no presents so far, that was scatty, dooming her to Christmas Eve panic.

Not the least of her scattiness, either. She thought: I can’t believe I’m doing this, but stayed on course towards Grand Drive.

By six that evening, bad leg nagging savagely—it disapproved of stairs, and she had climbed a number of flights—Jill was showing her warrant card and saying with the glibness of practice, “This may sound odd, but bear with me.... Two Christmases ago, if you remember that far back, did you go Christmas Eve shopping at the Hi-Save in City Center?”

“I expect so.” The woman’s voice was unexpectedly deep and hoarse from such a slim body. “I use Hi-Save for all but deli stuff, it’s loads cheaper.”

“I mustn’t lead you, put ideas in your head, but that Christmas Eve did you have help with your shopping, like your bags carried to the car?”

“I don’t take the c— Oh. him, the knight errant!” She opened the door wider and stood aside. “Come in, you look chilled.”

Constance—”Connie, please, the other’s so prissy”—French remembered Noel Sarum, all right.

“He picked me up in the checkout line that Christmas Eve. Well, I picked him up, had he but known.” Brown, almond eyes sparkled wickedly. “It was such a scrum, the line was endless, all the trolleys were taken so I was lugging three or four of those wretched baskets, and he did the polite, offered to share the load while we waited.”

“Single men who aren’t teenagers are so pathetic, aren’t they? And he was kind and clean and cuddly, I really took to him.” She’d insisted on making them mugs of hot chocolate (“with the teeniest spike of brandy to cheer it up”) after Jill Tierce refused a cocktail.

And I could take to a pad like this, Inspector Tierce reflected a shade drowsily. Connie French had two floors of one of Grand Drive’s former mansions. Her living room was spacious yet cosy, elegant antique pieces to dress it, costly modern furniture for wallowing.

Ms. French sat a little straighten “What’s this about, dear?”

“I’m glad you asked that.” Jill pulled a face. “Officially I’m eliminating a loose end, confirming somebody’s reason for... never mind, confirming a story. Don’t quote me, but I was curious. A witness was terribly impressed by you and...”

Connie waited, and Jill said, “It’s just that you knocked him for six, he hasn’t got over it—and call it the Christmas syndrome, or downright nosiness, but I wondered if you’d felt the same.”

“I have thought about him since.” Connie smiled weakly, blushing. “A lot, on and off. Look, there is always enough for two when it’s a casserole, and a glass of wine can’t put you over the limit for driving. Terrible thing to tell a woman, but you look exhausted. Stay for a meal.”

They got on famously. A long while later, table cleared, dishwasher loaded, they’d put the world to rights and compared Most Terrible Male Traits (nasal fur, aggressive driving, and pointless untruths topping the painstakingly compiled list).

Inspector Tierce was deciding that she’d better go home by cab and pick her car up tomorrow—should have known she was unable to drink one glass of wine—when Connie French became fretful.

“What is it with that chap, Jill? I could tell he fancied me. Oh, not the flared nostrils and ripping the thin silk from my creamy shoulders, he wasn’t that sort, but we really hit it off. Greek gods and toy boys are all very well, but what you need is a man who’s comfy as old shoes. I’ve only met two or three, one was my brother and the others were friends’ husbands....

“Tell me his name, I’ll ring him.” Connie reached for the phonebook on the end table at her side.

“I can’t do that, I shouldn’t be here anyway, certainly not gossiping. Christmas has a lot to answer for.” It struck Jill that they were talking animatedly but with a certain precision over trickier words; perhaps the Beaujolais Villages in easy reach on the coffee table between them was not the first bottle.

“Wouldn’t ring him anyway. My late husband, as in divorced, not RIP, said I had no pride but... is he gay? My supermarket chap, not the ex.”

“Sarum? Certainly not.” Frowning at the alliteration as much as the slip, Jill muttered, “I must make tracks.”

“Night’s young,” Connie said on a pleading note. “He drove me home, I nearly asked him up for a drink—but something stopped me. I wanted him to at least introduce himself first, and after all that, he just took himself off.”