Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6) (4 page)

She walked quickly and decided she’d take Kali for a walk
when she got home. She went the back ways, wanting to avoid seeing anyone. The
only figure she did see was Haydn, and that was from a distance, as he left a
terraced house and headed up the street away from her. The house was in some
disrepair, and certainly didn’t look lived in, with its blank, dark curtain-less
windows and damaged front door. There was a skip outside, half-full of rubbish
and broken tiles.

She was glad she didn’t have to face him. She’d had enough
of confrontation. What had happened to their lovely community at this most
special time of the year?

* * * *

Penny walked Kali along the lonely road to the south of
town. If anyone else had said to her that
they
were going to walk that
way, she would have advised them not to be so stupid.
What, a woman, out on
her own at night? Are you mad?

Such rules didn’t apply to herself, of course. Anyway, she
had a Rottweiler, and lately she’d been teaching her to bark on command. That
was the first step, apparently, in then teaching the dog to
stop
barking
on command. It seemed a noisy and backwards way of doing things, but it came
highly recommended as a technique.

After the chilly walk, which had not involved having to
bark at anyone, she got home. She left her muddy boots by the front door, uncleaned,
and they flopped down together in front of the gas fire in the living room.
Penny wrapped herself in a comforting fleecy blanket, and Kali tried to creep
under it too. She thought about putting the television on, but it was ten
o’clock at night now and she had no wish to watch the news, which would only depress
herself further and cause her to go to bed angry at the state of the world as
well as the state of the local community.

She told herself that it was simply the stress of Christmas
that made people act in such irrational and argumentative ways.

She supposed she ought to plan her own Christmas
celebrations. She’d phoned her parents earlier but they blithely told her that
they were on a “Tinsel and Turkey Tour” which meant they’d be away for
Christmas, eating their way around the hotels of Scotland. “We can drink whisky
all day!” her father had told her merrily. “We’re on a coach!”

She had half-hoped for some invitation to go to her
sister’s house, but she knew that with two children, it might be a little chaotic.
There was still time for an invite. She didn’t like to think she’d been
forgotten about.

Penny wanted to be part of something, even if it was
chaotic, on that one particular day.

Never mind.
She put it out of her mind.
As a
childless woman of a certain age, you had to stop thinking of what was never
going to be,
she reminded herself. She half-closed her eyes and began to
drift into a warm, cosy slumber.

Her phone ringing woke her with a start and she clawed
anxiously for the handset. When she saw that it was from Ariadne, she was still
half-asleep enough to assume she was about to be invited over for Christmas
dinner.

“Open your door!” Ariadne said.

“What, wait, why?” Penny stumbled to her feet, and Kali
leaped up to be alongside her in case this was a sudden new game.

“I’m outside!” And to accompany the words, there came a
furious hammering on Penny’s front door.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Penny went and pulled the door
open but it jammed halfway, catching on her boots and coat which she had flung
to the floor.

“You need to tidy up,” Ariadne said with all the lofty
judgement an adult sister – even if a younger adult sister – could muster.

“I’ve only just got in,” Penny said.

“Oh! Really?
Really?”

“Yes. I was walking the dog. Anyway, why the panic?”

“Destiny has just told me that there is something kicking
off in the town centre.”

“And how would Destiny know?” Penny said.

“Online. Get your boots back on, let’s go and look.”

As Penny got back into her outdoor clothing, Ariadne told
her that Destiny was a member of some social media groups that gossiped about
the local area. “Apparently,” Ariadne went on, “the police have cordoned off
the whole market area!”

Penny threw a small dog biscuit to Kali, and the two
sisters hurried off into the night.

They could see the blue flashing lights as soon as they
were halfway down their own street. By the time they came to the crossroads,
they could hear sirens and see the whole town centre lit by strobing emergency
lights and car headlamps. Every local resident seemed to have come out to see
what was going on. Penny searched the crowd for familiar faces, and soon her
gaze fell on Linda – not the familiar face that she wanted to see.

Linda was looking horrified and didn’t look towards Penny.
Behind Linda, there was Jared, who was on his tip-toes trying to see over
people’s heads.

She caught sight of Ginni, and Mary, and also Haydn. But
Ariadne gripped Penny’s arm, and pointed upwards.

Everyone was looking up, slowly, and falling silent.

There in the Christmas lights that were strung from roof to
roof, criss-crossing the street high above, was a dark figure.

A dark figure of a man.

A dark figure of a man, tangled up among the sparking and
flickering bulbs, and hanging in a way that suggested he was very definitely
dead.

“I cannot believe that I am here again,” Penny said as she
stepped into the custody suite of the police station. No decent human being
should find such an environment to be familiar, unless they actually worked
there.

The desk sergeant didn’t smile at all. He glanced at the computer
screen that was angled away from Penny so she couldn’t see what was displayed,
and then he looked at the male police officer that was standing at Penny’s
side.

The police officer explained that she was a suspect in the
suspicious death of Clive Holdsworth. Penny cringed. She felt sick. Okay, so
she’d argued with the man – but come on! Who hadn’t? Was every person in Upper
Glenfield to be a suspect?

She had argued most recently, of course.

The desk sergeant was saying something. There was such a
roaring in her ears that she only caught the last sentence. “…do you understand
why you are here?”

She’d been through the process before. She knew she was
merely “assisting with enquiries” at this stage and had only been detained, not
arrested.

It was a tiny and technical distinction. It didn’t make
anything any easier. She had still be woken up by the police and driven off in
a police car as the neighbours’ curtains had twitched.

She nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

Then she was led straight through to a small interview room
to get it all over with.

* * * *

The officer who had come to her house first thing that
morning was called Detective Constable Barry Atkins. They had not only
collected her, but they had taken her still-muddy outdoor boots and her gloves
for examination.

They were now in the interview room. With DC Atkins was
Detective Sergeant Clara Vidal. They were both in smart-casual plain clothes,
and both spoke with quiet, firm reassurance.

They were both, in their own ways, terrifying.

Penny perched on her orange plastic chair and twisted her
fingers together in her hands. All she had to do was to tell the truth, and
everything would be fine, wouldn’t it? That’s what everyone said.

“Good morning, Ms May, and thank you for coming,” DS Vidal
said, as if she had had a choice. “Can you tell us exactly where you were last
night, from the hours of about four in the afternoon, until midnight please?
Don’t leave any detail out, however small and insignificant you might think
it.”

Penny’s mind went blank instantly. She gaped and made a
squeaking sound.

“Take your time,” DS Vidal added, and that really didn’t
help at all.

Penny struggled. “Four o’clock? I was at home, and I had my
dinner – sorry, it’s tea up here, isn’t it? I’m from London. We say dinner.
It’s funny, that.”

DS Vidal nodded but her steely gaze told Penny that she was
rambling about nonsense. She tried to refocus. “Right, so I ate, and then at
six thirty I went out to the Christmas Planning Committee meeting.”

She paused, but the officers did not speak.

“Okay, so the meeting was in the community hall on the
other side of town and loads of people were there and – oh, yes, Clive was
there. He’s not on the committee though. He came in uninvited and had a big
argument with everyone, and then he stormed out. And I left, and I walked home
and then took my dog, Kali out for a walk. I got back home at around ten
o’clock and sat down, but then my sister came to the door and said something
was happening in town and I went down but everyone else was there too.”

She stopped and drew in a deep breath.

The constable was scribbling some notes but DS Vidal kept
her eyes trained on Penny. “Can you tell me more about the meeting that Mr
Holdsworth attended?”

“He didn’t attend. He gate-crashed.”

“Please, in every detail … what he said, and who he said it
to. Imagine yourself back there; take your time to picture it. Now, take me
through what you saw and what you heard, from your point of view.”

It felt more like a therapy session than a hard-hitting
police interview, but Penny did her best, reciting the events as she remembered
them.

“Sorry,” she said at the end. “I am not sure it’s all in
the right order, but it’s roughly what happened.”

“Thank you. You’re doing very well. Now tell us about your
relationship with Mr Holdsworth.”

“We don’t have a relationship. I don’t know him. I first
saw him a few weeks ago at the Christmas lights switch-on. He was arguing there
with everyone.”

“Names, please?”

“Linda, who is his sister. And Haydn, but I don’t know his
surname.”

“Thank you. And tell us again about what Mr Holdsworth said
to you at the meeting.”

She knew it made it look as if she had a motive, but she
was still confused as to why they thought it was
enough
of a motive. She
repeated what she’d said earlier.

Then DS Vidal changed direction and it completely threw
Penny sideways. The police officer said, “Ms May, you are named as the health
and safety representative for the Christmas Market. Tell us what those duties
entail.”

Penny opened and closed her mouth a few times, and felt hot
and sticky as a fresh wave of panic-sweat swept over her. “Uh, um, I just do
the risk assessments and keep them in a file,” she said.

“Do you oversee the safe storage of equipment?”

“I do. We have a secure office at the back of the market
area in Glenfield. We’re temporarily keeping the bits and pieces in there.”

“Including the ladder used to secure the lights?”

“The lights were put up by the council,” she said.

“But the committee added some extras, didn’t they? They
have use of a set of ladders, I understand. Please correct us if we are wrong…”

“No, you’re right,” she said, and felt as if she was now
sitting above a trapdoor that was going to open up and deliver her to a pit of
crocodiles far below.

Because she remembered that she had not gone to check that the
ladder had been locked away, after it had been borrowed by a committee member
to add some dangling snowmen to the lamp posts.

She had intended to check – she had been on her way – but
she had been waylaid, and it had slipped her mind.

“Ms May?” DS Vidal was watching her closely. “What do you
need to tell us?”

She had to come clean. “I was supposed to check that the
ladder had been locked away after the Christmas lights switch-on. But I forgot.
It
might
have been left out.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“No, I don’t.”

“And was the ladder faulty in any way?”

“No. I did a visual check before it was used.”

“A visual check?” the officer confirmed. “And what safety
standards did this ladder have? And was the person using it trained in working
at height?”

“I … don’t know.”
It was a ladder
, she wanted to
scream.
Everyone’s used a ladder before!
“I have a form that goes with
it.”
I might have even signed it, for what it’s worth.

“We might be involving the Health and Safety Executive,” DS
Vidal continued. She had the decency to look sad about the news she was
imparting. “It could be that the death is a tragic accident as the result of
faulty equipment.”

“But why would he have been up the ladder in the first
place?” Penny said.

DS Vidal and DC Atkins shared a glance.

DC Atkins closed his notebook. “Thank you for your
frankness, Ms May,” he said. “I must advise you to not speak about this to
anyone as we are conducting a serious investigation. You are free to go, but do
not leave the area without informing us. We will be in touch very soon.”

DS Vidal stood up. “And if anything else occurs to you,
please ring our direct line.” She passed Penny a small business card.
“Constable Atkins will show you out.”

“What about my boots and gloves?”

The both stared at her.

“Yes, sorry, I quite understand.” She followed Atkins out
of the room.

* * * *

Penny stumbled out of the police station. She moved to the
side of the steps, halfway down, and stood in the harsh bright glare of a
cloudless winter’s day, feeling utterly adrift. People flowed past her on the
pavement below the steps, carrying armfuls and bags of Christmas shopping.

She fumbled for her phone and tried to call Drew, but it
went straight to his voicemail and she knew that he was working. He’d be at The
Acorns School all day, leading groups of troubled teens on outdoor courses and
exercises.