The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries (16 page)

The current song bludgeoned its way to a halt and then another one, equally dreadful, started. There was one of those “boom-box” things sitting at the side of the dance floor, so
Daphne marched straight over and turned the horrible machine off. Blessed silence. The man stopped rearranging his girlfriend’s underwear and scowled. He wasn’t the most attractive of
men – thin and short, with a scabby little beard thing, spiky hair and glasses. But he looked like a Colin.

“What the hell did you do that for?” He let go of his partner, but she continued to dance, shuffling round and round in the absence of music, on her own.

Daphne squared her shoulders. “I want my Bill!”

“I’ve not sold you anything.”

“Don’t you play games with me, young man. Your hussy broke into my shed and she stole my Bill! I want him back.”

Crazy Colin looked back over his shoulder at the dancing woman. “You saying Stacy’s kidnapped someone?” He laughed as Stacy tripped over her own feet and tumbled to the floor.
She made an abortive attempt to get back up then gave up, sprawled on her back in the middle of the dance floor, like a dead starfish. “You’ve got to be kidding – she
couldn’t tie her shoelaces unsupervised. You got the wrong girl, Grandma.”

“I said I want him back!”

“Nothing to do with me, Grandma. You got a problem with Stacy, you take it up with her . . .” He grinned. “After I’ve finished, like.” He started to take off his
shirt. “You wanna watch? No charge.”

Oh . . . my . . . God . . . He was getting undressed! She didn’t want to see some strange man’s private parts! She hadn’t even liked looking at her husband’s. “I
don’t want any trouble; I just want my Bill back.”

“Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill.” He turned his back on her, unfastening his belt.

Daphne hurried back to her shopping trolley and unzipped the top, lifting out Wee Doug. He yawned and looked around the room, then sat down and had a bit of a scratch. Daphne pulled herself up
to her full five foot two inches and pointed an imperious finger at Crazy Colin as he unbuttoned his fly. “Go on, Wee Doug, KILL!”

Wee Doug looked up at her, then at the end of her finger.

Daphne tried again. “Kill!”

Still nothing.

She grabbed Mr Bunny from the shopping trolley and hurled it at the undressing man. The toy rabbit landed right in the crotch of Colin’s trousers as he tried to get them down over his
shoes. Wee Doug growled, his little feet scrabbling on the wooden floor, not going anywhere fast . . . until suddenly his claws got purchase and he was away, tearing across the dance floor like a
dog half his age. Barking.

The man spun round at the noise, eyes wide. He grabbed the waistband of his trousers and hauled them up, which was a mistake as Mr Bunny was still trapped in there – his two ragged ears
sticking out of the man’s fly at groin level. With a final happy bark Wee Doug leapt and clamped his jaws onto Crazy Colin’s crotch. There was a high pitched scream.

Daphne took a firm grip of her walking stick and went to shut him up.

Shaking, Daphne washed the blood off her hands and face with cold water and bitter-smelling hand soap in the ladies’ lavatory. Wee Doug was happily sitting up in the
shopping trolley – the reclaimed Mr Bunny looking none the worst for his adventure in a strange man’s trousers – watching as she stuck the head of her walking stick under the tap,
the water turning pink as Crazy Colin McKeever’s blood slowly rinsed away.

“No one knows . . .” she told herself. “No one knows Not even the girl – she was comatose the whole time. Couldn’t have seen anything. Couldn’t have – A
knock on the toilet door and she almost shrieked.

“Hello?” It was the bartender, sounding concerned. “Are you in there?”

Oh, God, he’s found the body! “I . . . I . . .”

“You OK? You’ve been in here for ages.”

“I . . . I’m fine.” She looked at herself in the mirror. He doesn’t know. No one knows. “Just a gyppy tummy.”

“That’s your taxi.”

She nodded at her reflection and plastered on a smile, then opened the bathroom door, taking Wee Doug and the tartan shopping trolley with her. “Thank you,” she said, trying to keep
the tremble out of her voice as he helped her out through the front door and into the cab.

“You take care now.” He stood in the street, waving as they drove away.

It was a rumpled Daphne McAndrews who slouched into the Castlehill Snook at quarter to eleven the next day. She’d slept badly, even with a quarter bottle of sweet sherry
inside her, knowing that they’d put her in prison for the rest of her natural life. The police would find Colin McKeever’s body and do all that scientific stuff you saw on the telly.
And they’d know it was her. Provided the nasty man who’d tried to steal her purse in the alley hadn’t already reported her for thrashing him. She couldn’t bring herself to
use the walking stick today, not now it was a murder weapon, and her hip ached.

Daphne collapsed into the chair opposite Agnes and looked sadly out of the window at the Castle car park. Determined not to cry.

“You feelin’ OK, Daphne?”

She just shrugged and ordered a fruit scone and a big mug of coffee. When the waitress was gone, Agnes leaned forward and asked, in her best stage whisper, “Did you hear about the
murder?” Daphne blanched, but Agnes didn’t seem to notice, “Beaten to death,” she said, “a drug-dealer – in a pub! Can you believe it?”

Daphne bit her lip and stared at the liver spots on the back of her hands. “Did . . . Do they know who did it?”

“Probably one of them gangland execution things. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it
a thousand times:
Oldcastle’s getting more like that Los Angeles every day. I
tell you . . .” She launched in to a long story about someone her Gerald used to go to school with, but Daphne wasn’t listening. She was wondering when the police were going to come for
her.

The patrol car pulled up outside the house at half past seven. At least they hadn’t put the flashing lights and sirens on. She’d have died of embarrassment if the
neighbours had seen that. She’d spent the day cleaning the place until it sparkled: no one was going to say she went off to prison and left a dirty house behind. With a sigh Daphne climbed
out of Bill’s favourite chair and answered the front door. It was Sergeant Norman Dumfries, the little boy who wouldn’t eat his greens. She ushered him through to the kitchen and put
the kettle on. Just because he was here to arrest her, there was no need to forget her manners.

“Tea?” she asked as he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“Er . . . Yes, that would be lovely.” Adding, “Thank you,” as an afterthought.

She made two cups and put them on the kitchen table, along with a plate of shortbread, telling Sergeant Dumfries to help himself. “Er . . .” he said, looking sideways at Bill’s
urn, still sitting on the tabletop from last night. “I’m afraid I’ve got something very awkward to tell you—”

Daphne nodded. There was no need to make it hard on the boy, he was doing his best. “I know.”

He blushed. “I’m so sorry, Mrs McAndrews.”

“You’re only doing your job, Norman.”

“I know, but . . .” he sighed and reached into his police jacket pocket. This was it, he was going to handcuff her. The neighbours would have a field day.

“It’s all right.” Trying to sound calm. “I won’t put up a fight.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, before bringing out what looked like a little plastic freezer bag. It was see-through, and full of grey powder. “We, um . . . the man you found in your shed
had . . .” He stopped and tried again. “We did a post mortem on him yesterday. He died because he’d injected himself with . . . Er . . .” He held up the bag. “We had
to take a sample to make sure. I’m sorry, Mrs McAndrews.” Gently he picked Bill’s urn off the table and tipped the contents of the plastic bag inside.

“Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs McAndrews. We think they were already under the influence of drugs when they broke into your shed to fool around. They discovered Mr McAndrews’ remains and . .
. Well, the man had residue in his nasal passages and his lungs, so it looks like they tried snorting the . . . ah . . . deceased. When that didn’t work, the man tried injecting. And then he
died.” It was silent in the kitchen, except for the sound of Wee Doug snoring. “I’m sorry.”

She grabbed Bill’s urn and peered inside. It was nearly full. “Did they both . . . ? You know?” Sergeant Dumfries nodded and Daphne frowned. She wasn’t sure she liked the
thought of Bill being inside another woman, and Bill would
certainly
not have been happy about being inside a naked man.

“Anyway,” Sergeant Dumfries stood up. “I have to get back to the station.” He looked left and right, as if he was making sure they were alone. “Just between you and
me,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “we’ve got a drugs war on our hands! One bloke got worked over right outside the kilt shop last night – said it was a gang with
baseball bats – and the next thing you know some drug dealer gets battered to death! Mind you, at least we’ve got a witness to that one.”

Daphne covered her mouth with a trembling hand, the girl: she was unconscious! She couldn’t have seen anything – it wasn’t fair!

Norman helped himself to a piece of shortbread. “We found this doped-up woman at the scene,” he said, in a little spray of crumbs, “who swears blind some huge hairy bloke with
a Rottweiler kicked the door down then bashed the victim’s skull in with a pickaxe handle.” He shook his head in amazement as Daphne went pale as a haddock. “I know,” he
said as she spluttered.
“Miami Vice
comes to Oldcastle, how bizarre is that?” Sigh. “Anyway, better make sure you keep your doors and windows locked tight. OK?”

When he was gone, Daphne sat at the kitchen table, trembling. Drug War. She let out a small giggle. The giggle became a snigger, then a laugh, and ended in hysterics. She’d gotten away
with it. Wiping her eyes she pulled Bill’s urn over and peered inside. There was only about a teaspoon missing. What would that be – an ear, a finger, his gentleman’s bits?
He’d miss them, even if she wouldn’t . . .

With a smile she ripped the edge off a couple of teabags and poured the powdered leaves in. At his age he’d never know the difference.

Peter Turnbull

Tuesday Forenoon

It was, he thought, all too human. He was not a man who was medically qualified, but he had seen bones before, actual human bones, often in shallow graves, and much, much
older than this bone, sitting there looking quite content in a curious sort of way, looked all too human. It had aged a little, he thought, it was certainly not as old as the bones he was used to
examining but it was not recent either. It had a greyness about it, and had been chewed upon by his “friends.” The man pondered what to do. He didn’t want to appear alarmist but
he also knew the value of over-reacting rather than under-reacting; and, after all, were they not told to report anything suspicious? He took the plastic bag he was carrying and walked further into
the wood and emptied the contents well away from the bone. He then left the wood and walked back down the lane to the village, and to the red phone box, of the old-fashioned design because the
village of Meltham was designated a conservation area, and dialled the police. Not 999; it was not an emergency, no longer life or limb – if indeed the bone ever did represent a life or limb
crisis. His call was answered, eventually, by a recording of a female voice telling him that his call was “placed in a queue” and “would be answered shortly”. The recording
then reminded him that if his call was an emergency he should phone 999 or 112. He was then treated to a tinny recording of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. Eventually, his call was
answered by a stressed out and tired sounding officer who took details and asked him to wait by the phone box. This he did, wrapping his duffel coat around him and stamping his feet against the
cold. It was the twelfth month of the year and the Wolds are cold, cold, cold during the winter months. It was a windless day, not a cloud in a blue sky, but cold. Very cold.

“It may be only an animal bone,” he said eagerly and apologetically at the same time as the officer opened the door of the police car and stepped out.

“Take your time, sir,” the officer said, calmly, but with authority as he reached for his notebook and pen.

“It’s in the copse.”

“Let me ask the questions, please.”

The man fell silent.

“You are . . . ?”

“Coleman.” The man was short, bespectacled, a mop of wild grey hair, “Clifford Coleman.”

“And your address, Mr Coleman?”

“The Old Rectory, here in Meltham.” He pointed. “That’s my house, just there . . . well, the roof . . . you can see from here.”

“You didn’t phone from home, Mr Coleman?”

“I didn’t, did I.” Clifford Coleman scratched his head. “Now isn’t that strange, I could have kept warm and had a cup of tea . . . why didn’t I do that? That
will puzzle me for some time.”

“You found a bone, you say?” The officer interrupted Coleman’s musing.

“In the small wood.”

“The small wood?”

“Is the name by which it is known round here, to differentiate from another larger wood just beyond it which is known as the ‘large wood’. That’s the ‘small
wood’.” Coleman turned and pointed down the pasty grey road to a copse approximately quarter of a mile distant.

“Can I ask your age and occupation, sir?”

“Why?”

“Just procedure, sir.”

“Fifty-four . . . a teacher . . . at the university . . . history. . . I am a medievalist. I often see human bones in old graves that are being excavated. There is an overlap between
history and archaeology, you see, and the bone I saw in the small wood looked to me to be human. There is much medieval in the village . . . the street pattern is medieval . . . though the oldest
building dates only from the seventeenth century.”

“Yes, yes . . . thank you, sir. Shall we walk to the wood?”

They walked to the wood. The constable taking long, effortless, energy-preserving strides, Coleman taking short, rapid steps, but of the two it was Coleman who had to keep pace with the
constable. In the wood, Coleman led the constable to where the bone lay.