Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6) (11 page)

The daily specials were written up on a whiteboard behind
the counter. Saturday lunchtime was busy and with only one more weekend to go
before Christmas, there was a definite festive atmosphere. There were four
Christmas songs on an endless loop, and everyone was carrying large bags with
rolls of colourful wrapping paper poking out of the tops.

Penny had ordered a turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing
panini and it turned out to be rather nice, though that combination would have
made an Italian blanche. Still, it was the British way to take another
culture’s delicious food and make something new and occasionally horrifying out
of it. Cath had played it safe with a simple jacket potato and side salad.

“Off what? On what? What are you talking about? I’m lost
already,” Penny said.

“The case,” Cath said. “They kept me away from it because
of being the liaison support for the planning committee. Then a few days ago,
Inspector Travis asked for my input. A day after that, when his boss realised
I’d still been seeing you socially, I got moved off it again. I told them from
the start there was a conflict of interest.”

“Bother,” Penny said. “You should have tried to stay on it,
to find out what was going on. Do you know who the main suspect is?” She tried
to bite into her panini but the interior was still at a temperature most
commonly found in nuclear reactors. She cut it open to let it cool down.

“I’m not sure who is at the top,” Cath said. “I was looking
into Haydn, though.”

“Ah! I was talking to that rat yesterday.”

“That
rat
? What do you mean?”

“Huh. He’s got this way of winding me up, much like Clive did,”
Penny said. “Actually, I’m trying to imagine those two working together. That
would have been a recipe for disaster. They are both argumentative in different
ways. Clive was more arrogant and in-your-face but Haydn is really quick to get
riled up, and he has some outdated dinosaur ideas, too.”

“Tell me what happened,” Cath said with a weary tone in her
voice.

“No need to be like that! I didn’t hit him or anything.”

“Did you perhaps poison him with a cake? Stake out the top
of a ladder to surprise him by bursting out of an upstairs window? Follow him
across Lincoln? You’ve got previous form, you know.”

It was true. Penny had, indeed, done all of those things.
But she shook her head, and gave Cath a brief rundown of the previous evening’s
conversation.

Listening to herself giving a hasty, dry summary, Penny had
to concede that she sounded somewhat petty.

“You really don’t know when to pick your battles,” Cath
said.

“There is something dodgy about him, though, don’t you
think?”

Cath leaned forward and dropped her voice. “You’re right
about that. Listen to this. We know what Clive and Haydn really disagreed
about.”

“Ooh, go on.”

They both looked around like bad actors in a spy movie,
then Cath said, “We found out that Haydn lied on his cv and application form
for his job at the utilities company.”

“What sort of lie? I mean, I once said that I was
proficient with spreadsheets because I could make it add up a whole column of
numbers without using the help thing. We all polish the truth a little.”

“This is a bit more serious than that. He claimed to have
qualifications that he didn’t have, and the recruitment process didn’t spot it.
Clive found out, because Clive is – was – a control freak. He liked to be in
charge of everything, and this meant he also double-checked Haydn’s
certifications when Haydn transferred into Clive’s department.”

“I’m guessing that Clive confronted Haydn about this?”

“It seems so,” Cath said. “But, interestingly, there is no
record of him approaching the official channels with his discovery. The Human
Resources department at the company knew nothing about it, and were pretty
embarrassed when we could show them that Haydn was there on a lie.”

“Oh no! Does Haydn know this yet? Will he lose his job?”
Penny might not have liked the guy, but she didn’t wish to see anyone lose
their employment.

“Haydn was called in for more questioning earlier in the
week,” Cath told her.

That would explain why he said he was so stressed
,
Penny thought. “And his job?”

“I don’t know what will happen there,” Cath said.

Penny was finally able to eat her lunch. She worked her way
through half of the panini while she thought about the latest revelations.

“Cath, was Clive blackmailing Haydn? Clive knew Haydn’s
secret. He didn’t pass it on to the proper authorities. And Haydn kept on
working under Clive, even though they argued. That seems suspicious, to me.”

“And to me. But they often argued. Surely if Haydn was
completely under Clive’s thumb, he would not have dared to answer back?”

“Maybe he didn’t – while Clive was still working,” Penny
said. “Did they argue a lot at work?”

“I don’t know.”

“But yes, they certainly argued afterwards.” Penny
remembered the first time she’d encountered Haydn. She cast her memory back.
“Clive said something to Haydn about some people that shouldn’t have been
promoted at all.”

“We’ve got similar reports,” Cath said. “When he was
questioned, Haydn said that Clive was not blackmailing him. Of course, he might
be lying. He could think that if he admits to being blackmailed, it looks like
more of a motive against him.”

“And he’d be right.”

“Still,” Cath went on, “once Clive had retired, he had far
less of a hold over Haydn. If Haydn was going to kill Clive, it would make more
sense to kill him while they worked together.”

“Clive was well known for meddling long after he had any
right to meddle, though,” Penny pointed out. “He had retired when he put in
that phone call to his old place of work to get them to stop his sister’s
campaign to open up the footpath.”

“What?”

Penny explained about Linda and her latest passion,
including the way she’d turned into a shoulder-padded-bulldozer and forced
Penny into helping design and create some flyers.

Cath pondered the information. “And I suppose that if Haydn
thought he was free of Clive at last, and he relaxed at work, it would have
come as a huge shock to find that Clive was still interfering.”

“And Haydn is impulsive and rash. He speaks before he
thinks.”

“Hmm.”

They ordered some dessert. The choice was between homemade
fruit cake with cream, or a dry slice of millionaires’ shortbread. They both
went for fruit cake.

“Oh,” Cath said, dropping her voice again. “They have
established that Clive was definitely
deliberately
pushed off the
ladder. Did I tell you that?”

“Yes,” Penny said. She felt suddenly sick again. “But I’m
still culpable, aren’t I.”

“No, there’s more. They have checked the ladder and it
wasn’t faulty. Okay, you should have locked it away but you’re pretty much in
the clear.”

“Oh my goodness!” Penny exclaimed, her sickness turning to
hot relief. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me this first?”

“Sorry. I had more important things to talk about.”

“More important than
that?
”

“Yeah, we were deciding on our food order, remember?”

Penny leaned over and stabbed her fork into a corner of
Cath’s cake, and stole a lump of it.

Cath nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. I guess I deserved that.”

“I wish Drew was here,”
Penny said with a low sigh.

“Oh, charming. I’m not good
enough for you, am I?” Cath replied huffily. “I see.”

They were sitting next to
one another at the last minute Christmas Planning Committee  meeting on
Saturday night. The chairs were arranged in a large circle, which was supposed
to be democratic and inclusive.

But everyone was looking at
one another through narrowed eyes, and Penny could almost taste the feeling of
suspicion that hung in the chilly air.

“Sorry,” Penny said airily.
“Can you feel that atmosphere, or is it just me over-reacting?”

Cath looked around the room.
She leaned closer to Penny and said, “No, I don’t think it’s just you. Everyone
is quieter than usual. It’s because of Clive. Remember, the murder happened
after the last meeting.”

“Oh goodness, yes, so it
did.”

“Thank you all for coming,”
Ginni said in her loud voice, and the whispers and murmurs died instantly. She
was the chairperson of the committee.

She took a moment to glance
around the room. People shuffled awkwardly in their seats. Ginni had a
school-mistress air about her at the best of times, and even Penny felt under
scrutiny.

Ginni’s eyes came to rest on
Penny. Penny squirmed but Ginni gave her a small smile before addressing the
group.

“We’ve made a few changes to
the responsibilities of committee members,” she said. “I shall be overseeing
the health and safety role going forward.”

Everyone
looked at Penny and she sat up straight, fighting the
urge to slump into her seat and pull her scarf over her face. She already knew,
but it was unpleasant to have it announced in front of everyone else.

“Now, we’re got something
wonderful to show you all. Shaun, will you help me with the reindeer, please,”
Ginni said, standing up and dragging everyone’s attention back to her.

“Are we having an actual
reindeer?” Mary squealed in delight, clapping her pudgy hands together.

But it was not to be. Ginni
and Shaun, the diminutive butcher, went to the back of the hall and disappeared
behind a screen. There was a scraping sound, and they emerged carrying an
enormous, life-size model of a reindeer.

It looked to Penny as if it
had been woven from willow and then spray-painted white with added glitter and
sparkles. It looked amazing.

“The pupils at The Acorns
have made it,” Ginni said as they placed it in the centre of the circle.
Everyone ooh’d and aah’d.

Obviously Linda couldn’t let
a bunch of talented school children take the glory. She said, loudly,
interrupting the chorus of praise: “But is it flammable?”

Ginni stared at Linda. “I am
sure that the school and the staff have taken all the necessary precautions.”

“It will blow over.” Linda
got up and prowled around the sculpture, a sour look on her face. She prodded
it and it rocked.

“We will weight it down from
the inside, once it’s in situ.”

 “I had thought we were
having a Nativity scene as the centrepiece,” Linda said. “My ladies’ circle has
nearly finished it. All that hard work can’t possibly go to waste. But that’s
the way of the world, I suppose. I should have expected to be pushed to one
side. I’m always overruled.”

Penny nearly laughed out
loud at that.

“Of course, as usual, the
Nativity scene will be central to the whole display,” Ginni said. She smiled
grimly. “The reindeer is going to be placed outside the grotto.”

“That’s where the Nativity
scene needs to be.”

“There is plenty of space
for both.”

The two formidable women
faced off. Linda was wider, but Ginni was taller. Penny found it amusing that
these were the last two women in the country who still wore shoulder pads,
although at least Ginni’s went well with her tailored trouser suit. Linda was wearing
a cardigan with a butterfly motif picked out in sequins on it, and the addition
of shoulder pads under that was particularly inexplicable.

Cath rose to her feet. Penny
tugged at her sleeve, but Cath pulled free and frowned back at her.

“I want to see what they’ll
do,” Penny whispered.

“Fight, probably.”

“I’m putting money on Ginni.
A fiver says she wins.”

“No, you are not,” Cath
hissed. “Stop it.” She turned to the two women in the Mexican standoff. “Ginni,
Linda, I am sure that there will be lots of space and don’t we have more to
organise right now? Ginni, that’s a marvellous reindeer. Linda, I remember your
Nativity scene from last year and we are all looking forward to seeing the
latest creation, I’m sure. Let’s sit down and move on with the meeting.”

Both Ginni and Linda’s faces
showed the same thought process which ended with “…but she’s a police officer.”

They both went to sit down
again.

“Next on the agenda,” Ginni
said, pulling out a sheet of paper. “Next up … we still need a volunteer to be
the stand-in for Father Christmas.”

Every person in the room
went from looking around, to staring fixedly at their hands. Penny could hear
the hum of frantic thoughts:
not me not me not me.

Jared had been sitting
quietly at the far end of the circle, almost opposite to Penny. They had nodded
at one another, but they hadn’t spoken together since Jared’s declaration of
affection earlier in the week. Now he said, “Honestly, everyone, the costume
isn’t that bad.”

Still, no one wanted to
volunteer.

“Come on, folks,” Ginni
said. “You are not likely to have to actually do it. It’s just in case Jared is
ill or something.”

“And I won’t be,” Jared
said.

“Has the outfit even been
cleaned since last year?” Shaun asked.

“Of course,” Mary declared.
“I did it myself. That’s part of
my
role, that is.”

“Boil wash, I hope,” Shaun
muttered.