Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6) (18 page)
Read Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6) Online
Authors: Issy Brooke
As he hit the ground, the reindeer toppled forward, and
pinned Jared firmly in place between its antlers.
Jared screamed and kicked in frustration but he was
securely held by the wicker arrangement; it had been weighted down internally
to stop it blowing away.
Somewhere in the crowd, someone tutted. “I knew the health
and safety of that thing wasn’t up to scratch.”
In the distance, they could hear sirens approaching.
“It’s a waste of money, that’s what it is.”
It could have been Clive Holdsworth himself speaking. But
it wasn’t some ghostly apparition; his sister, Linda, had been grumbling about
the expense of the New Year celebrations ever since the day after Christmas.
There was a light drizzle of rain falling over Upper
Glenfield but it hadn’t put the residents off from attending the midnight
countdown. Penny nestled close to Drew, unashamedly seeking both warmth and
comfort from him.
He held her tightly. Even though Jared was finally in custody,
and all the evidence was being stacked up neatly against him, Drew had remained
firmly in “protective cave-man” mode since the events at the Christmas market.
Cath and her backup officers had wrestled Jared free from
the fallen reindeer, and hauled him off to the station. More officers had
descended, insisting on talking with Penny.
She had pointed at the waiting children. “I have a job to
do,” she had informed them.
No officer wanted to be the one responsible for ruining
Christmas for the under-eights, so they had stood to one side while Penny got
on with her task, albeit beardlessly. The beard had been whisked away for
testing. She used a fluffy white scarf that a passer-by handed to her, and it
was enough for the kids.
Jared had ranted and raved enough to seal his fate even
without the confession that came later.
When the beard came back from the lab, the results revealed
that it had, indeed, been poisoned. Drew had been very smug about that. He knew
that the active ingredients in wolfsbane could be dissolved in alcohol, and
that it was a well-known contact poison. She didn’t need to eat it to be
affected by it. When Penny had told him how the Santa costume was cleaned from
year to year, his suspicions had been raised, and seeing Jared out in the crowd
that night simply confirmed what he thought. He had raced off to raise help.
Jared had grabbed the beard from Penny when Drew had called out, because he
wanted to prevent the police getting the evidence that he was trying to harm
Penny.
That evidence, along with the bicycle pump and Jared’s
photos which placed him at the time and place of the second attack, were
enough.
But what of the original murder? It had been as Penny had
begun to suspect; Jared had seen the way Clive treated her, and he had left the
Christmas planning meeting with the intention of confronting Clive about it.
Clive had been up the ladder, just as everyone thought; he
was trying to bring the Christmas lights down. Jared had begun an argument with
Clive, but things had taken a sinister turn.
He saw an opportunity to kill Clive, and he thought that it
would look like a perfect accident.
But as the crime scene investigators had discovered, with
their 3D modelling and fancy computer projections, Clive hadn’t fallen
accidentally; he had been pushed, and pushed very hard and very, very deliberately.
Jared had switched from cycling to running immediately
after the murder because of being seen on cctv. He’d claimed to be out jogging
so it was a fiction he had to maintain. Unfortunately, he had done too much and
too soon, bringing a bought of tendonitis on. Penny had spotted it, but the
significance hadn’t sunk in.
It still saddened Penny to think that Jared had once been
her friend.
“Are you all right?” Drew asked, murmuring into her hair,
and bringing her back to the present.
“Yes, sorry, I was just thinking about things. About what a
strange year it’s been, for so many people.”
“Try not to dwell on it all.”
“I can’t help it. Right now, where is Jared? He’s in a cell
somewhere, on remand and awaiting trial. He won’t be leaving prison for a very
long time. Don’t you think that’s kind of sad? He should be out here, enjoying
the celebrations, but he let his stupid obsessions get the better of him. And
then it snowballed, didn’t it?”
“You’re safe now. He’s obviously unhinged. He’s better off
in jail than out here.”
“I know. But then there’s poor Clive. For all his horrible
ways, he shouldn’t have been killed.”
“I think Linda has taken up his interfering and
curmudgeonly mantle though,” Drew pointed out.
They could still hear her shrill complaints.
“Why did she bother to come out if she hates the New Year
so much?” Penny said.
“So that we all know how much she hates it, of course.”
“Like she hated my flyers in the end.”
“Did you ever think she would like them?”
“No,” Penny said sadly. “I was silly to think I could meet
her standards. I wonder if she will ever get that footpath opened. And if she
does, what she will do next. I can’t imagine her ever being happy with
achieving anything.”
She looked around. Haydn wasn’t present, either. His house
refurbishment had been finished and he had disappeared from the town, and no
one particularly missed him. He had clung on to his job, she had heard, and
that was a relief even though she had no particular feelings for him. No one
wanted to end up jobless at Christmas, after all.
But there was Ariadne, and Wolf, and Destiny close by. She
had enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Day dinner with them, and over a few too many
glasses of Advocaat and lemonade that night, she had told the whole story to
Ariadne. Francine was there, accompanied by Kevin the window cleaner, which
made Penny smile. She could see Ginni, with her nephew Steve making a rare
appearance. A scooter whipped by, containing William Goodfellow, all bundled up
in a dark blue World War Two RAF greatcoat. Sheila from the post office was
clutching a bottle of low-calorie wine, and others from the walking group
gathered around too.
Shopkeepers and customers, business owners and clients,
residents and families and visitors. As the first chime struck, the community
fell silent as one, craning their heads to stare up into the dark, damp sky.
“Ten! Nine...”
The countdown was shouted out, louder and louder.
“One!”
Fireworks lit up the sky, even in spite of the rain.
Stranger turned to stranger, friend to friend, embracing without embarrassment
and wishing one another a happy new year.
Drew caught Penny around the waist and kissed her.
“Here’s to a fantastic new year,” he said. “To you and me.”
“To us.”
And then they were pulled apart by others and they formed a
circle of hands, their arms crossed over their chests, and the familiar
rendition of Auld Lang Syne held the rain at bay for a little longer.
The End
Also out: Book One,
Small
Town Shock
(
http://amzn.to/1EILMdu
)
And Book Two,
Small Town
Secrets
(
http://amzn.to/1ys54BJ
)
And Book Three,
Small Town
Suspicions
, (
http://amzn.to/1FTyfO5
)
And Book Four,
Small Town
Trouble
, (
http://amzn.to/1NsmP6t
)
And Book Five,
Small Town
Treason,
(http:/amzn.to/1PodVvl)
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Lincolnshire is real! It’s a massive rural county in the
east of England, with a sparse population. It’s mostly agricultural. Upper
Glenfield, the town in this tale, is fictional. Lincoln, the main city nearest
to Glenfield, does exist and it’s worth a visit. The only thing I’ve
fictionalised in Lincoln is the layout and situation of the police station.
Just a quick heads-up on the whole spelling and grammar
thing. I’m a British author and this book is set in England. Sometimes, British
English looks unfamiliar to readers of other variants of English. It’s not just
spelling (colour and realise and so on) and not just the vocabulary (pavement
for sidewalk, mobile for cell phone) but there are differences even in the way
we express ourselves. (In the US, it is more common to say something like “did
you see Joanne?” whereas in the UK we would say “have you seen Joanne?” and so
on.) Also, my characters do not speak grammatically correct sentences - who
does? Not me. Rest assured this book has been copyedited and proofread (errors,
alas, are my own and I won’t shoot my editor if you find any.)
I’ve got a website at
http://www.issybrooke.com
where I have more information about the characters, about Lincolnshire, and the
fictional town of Glenfield. It’s a work in progress.
The dog in this story, Kali, is based on our own rescue
dog, a Rottie cross called Stella. That’s her on the cover of this book. She
left us in 2015 and these books are dedicated to her.
Oh, I’m on Facebook here –
https://www.facebook.com/issy.brooke
– and Twitter here – @IssyBrooke.
Thank you for reading.
Issy.