Murder Most Merry (14 page)

A few days before Christmas last year. Harriet Richards stood in the yard at her brother’s farm giving him a piece of her mind. At twenty-two, Harriet was as generous and warm-hearted as she was pretty. “Do you have to be such a Scrooge?” she demanded angrily.

“Go away,” Jason told her coldly. He was nine years older than his sister and he had no use for the season of goodwill. The only good thing about it to his mind was the profit he made on his flock of chickens and turkeys. He was damned if he was going to give any of them away to layabouts who weren’t prepared to get off their backsides and work. He said as much to Harriet.

“Layabouts!” she exclaimed furiously. “Do you call old Mrs. Randall a layabout?”

“It’s her husband’s job to provide for her, not mine.”

“When he’s nearly eighty and crippled with arthritis?”

“Ach!” Jason said, disgusted.

“And she’s not the only one,” Harriet went on. “There’s Josie Gardner with her three kids. And Bert Renwick and Phoebe,” she added, forestalling her brother’s attempt to interrupt her. “It’s not their fault they can’t afford anything but the bare necessities.”

“They get their pensions,” Jason retorted. “And benefits. They wouldn’t get those if people like me didn’t pay too damned much in taxes.”

“Oh,” Harriet said, exasperated, “I don’t know how Sheila puts up with you!” And, turning, she started toward the house.

“If you think I breed those birds to feed all the lame ducks in the village, you’d better think again!” Jason called after her.

There were times when she could strangle him, Harriet thought furiously. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford three or four turkeys. By local standards, he was well off. But he seemed to feel that people expected him to give them. It put him on the defensive, and he resented it.

Her sister-in-law was in the kitchen. “Have you and Jason been arguing again?” she asked, amused.

“You could say so.” Harriet, still boiling with indignation, explained.

“He works hard,” Sheila reminded her. “And he’s inclined to think other people don’t. There’s so much to do at this time of year, he gets worn out.”

“He could afford to pay another man if he wasn’t so mean,” Harriet said bitterly. “Anyway, it’s not just this time, it’s always.”

Soon afterward, she left. Sheila watched her go, thinking.

Later that evening Harriet had a very public quarrel with Colin Loates, her boy friend. Nobody who heard it was quite sure what it was about, but Harriet went home in tears.

Miss Crindle met her in the street the next day. Miss Crindle was a large woman with greying hair and a cheerful manner. Until her retirement three years ago, she had taught at Much Cluning Primary School for more than thirty years, and both Harriet and Colin had been among her brightest pupils. So had Jason, who hadn’t been as clever as his sister but by hard work had gained a scholarship to Leobury School and gone on to university. Harriet could have gone, too, but she preferred to stay home and work with the horses her father bred for show jumping.

Colin had been the brightest of the three, a cheeky little boy with charm and a talent for mischief. Miss Crindle had never quite forgiven him for leaving school at sixteen to go into his father’s grocery shop.

“And how is Colin?” Miss Crindle inquired that morning.

Harriet looked surprised. “Haven’t you heard, Miss Crindle? I thought everybody had. We had a row last night and it’s all over.”

Miss Crindle noticed that Harriet’s left eye was twitching and that she looked embarrassed. All the same, she didn’t seem too distressed. She had always been a sensible girl, Miss Crindle thought, and things were different nowadays. In her time, if a girl and her boy friend split up she would be upset for days. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Harriet shrugged. “I’ll get over it,” she said ruefully.

Miss Crindle was sure she would. A girl like Harriet, vivacious and attractive, would find no shortage of young men.

That afternoon, Colin, driving back from Leobury, slewed off the road into a ditch two miles from the village. He explained that he had swerved to avoid a pheasant and skidded, but the popular theory was that his mind hadn’t been on his driving, he was thinking about Harriet and their row. Whatever the cause, his car was well and truly stuck and he had to walk to the nearest house and phone the garage to come and tow him out.

They were still doing it when Billy Powis, having run all the way home, blurted out breathlessly to his mother that he had just seen Santa Claus. Mary Powis was busy making mince pies. She laughed but didn’t pay too much attention. She was used to her son’s tales.

“Oh, dear?” she said.

“But I did. Mum,” the seven-year-old insisted.

“Had he got his sledge and reindeer?”

Billy hesitated. He was a truthful little boy and he couldn’t really remember, he had been too excited. “He’d got something,” he mumbled. More certainly he added, “And he had a sack over his shoulder.”

“Where was he?”

“I told you, at the edge of Brackett’s Wood. He went into the trees.”

“You shouldn’t make up stories, Billy,” Mary told him mildly. “It’s telling fibs, and that’s naughty.”

“I did see him,” Billy persisted. He was learning early that it is bad enough to be suspected when one is guilty, but much worse when one is innocent. “He was all in red, with white stuff on his coat, and he had a big red hood and boots. Like he does when he comes to our school party.”

Oh, dear, Mary thought. She decided that the best course would be to ignore her son’s tale. “Go and wash your hands,” she said.

At the same time, Sheila Richards was trying without success to ring her sister-in-law. Harriet’s mother told her Harry was out. She didn’t know where, but she didn’t suppose she would be long. Sheila thanked her and said she would try again later.

Billy Powis wasn’t the only inhabitant of Much Cluning to see Father Christmas. Two other people saw him, and they were grownups. The first was George Townley, the owner of the general store-cum-post office. While Billy was running home to tell his mother what he had seen, George was returning from visiting his sister at Little Cluning. As he drove down the hill into the village, he saw a figure in red with a hood and carrying a sack disappear into the trees beside the road. He was unwise enough to mention it to one of his customers, and soon the story was all over the village. George Townley had started seeing things, and he believed in Santa Claus.

It had been getting colder during the day, and about five o’clock it started to snow. By the time most of Much Cluning went to bed, there was a three-inch covering over everything and it was still snowing. It stopped during the night, but the temperature dropped further.

The second adult to see Father Christmas was Miss Crindle. At one o’clock in the morning of December the twenty-third, she had to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. On her way back, she looked out of the window. It was a fine clear night with a moon. There was never much noise in the valley, but now every sound was muffled by the thick layer of snow.

Just across the road, a figure dressed in scarlet and white, its head covered by a hood, was turning the corner round the back of the Renwicks’ cottage. It was bowed under the weight of the sack slung over its right shoulder. Miss Crindle blinked. There were no children’s parties at that hour, and any devoted father who was inclined to go to the lengths of dressing up to deliver his offsprings’ presents would hardly do so two days before Christmas.

Miss Crindle told herself that if it wasn’t a fond father, it must be a burglar. She considered calling the police. But she disliked the idea of being thought an overimaginative old fool and, anyway, everybody knew the Renwicks were almost destitute. No burglar would try his luck there. She climbed back into bed, and the next day she kept what she had seen to herself.

She said nothing even when Phoebe Renwick, who was well over seventy and worn out from caring for her invalid husband, told her her news. When she came down that morning and opened the back door, there on the doorstep there had been a parcel wrapped in gift paper. In it there was a small turkey already plucked and drawn and a tiny Christmas pudding.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Phoebe said. She was close to tears. “We haven’t been able to have a turkey for over twenty years. Not since soon after Bert was first ill and had to give up work. We can’t keep it, of course, it wouldn’t be right, but it was a lovely thought.”

“Of course you can keep it. ‘ Miss Crindle told her with spirit.

“No. We were brought up not to accept what we hadn’t paid for, or to ask for charity, and we never have, neither of us.”

“You call a present charity? Anyway,” Miss Crindle added reasonably, “who would you give it back to?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Phoebe admitted.

“You keep it and be glad there are people in the village who think of others,” Miss Crindle told her. “You can say a prayer for them in chapel on Christmas morning.”

The old lady’s eyes moistened. “I will tonight, too,” she said.

Busy with her thoughts, Miss Crindle went back indoors and resumed the cleaning she had been doing when she heard Mrs. Renwick calling her. Who was the kind soul who had left the parcel on the old couple’s step? She had no doubt that it was the person in Santa Claus costume she had seen during the night, but who was he? Or she?

Not that it mattered: if somebody wanted to do the old couple a good turn surreptitiously, good luck to them. Only why the fancy dress? Such ostentation seemed out of keeping with leaving the parcel secretly in the middle of the night. It was like a disguise, and it made her a little uneasy.

The Renwicks weren’t the only beneficiaries of Much Cluning’s own Santa Claus: the Randalls, Josie Gardner, and an elderly lady named Willings with a crippled son had found similar parcels at their back doors that morning. By evening the story was all over the village.

Miss Crindle heard it. and she wondered still more.

Neither of the Richardses had heard about the parcels. Bracketts Farm was a mile out of Much Cluning and they’d been busy there all day. Thus there was no reason for Sheila to suspect anything when Jason came into the kitchen during the afternoon and asked her, “Has Mrs. Grundy been for her bird?”

Sheila had been right, he was tired. The woman who helped deal with the turkeys was ill with flu and he had been driving himself hard for days. He was also suspicious.

“No.” Sheila answered without looking up from what she was doing at the sink. “She said she’d come tomorrow.”

Jason swore.

“Why, what’s the matter? It doesn’t make any difference.”

“It’s gone.”

Sheila looked up then. “What do you mean?”

“What I say,” Jason told her angrily. “It’s clear enough, isn’t it? It’s been pinched.”

His wife stared at him. “Are you sure?” she asked. But she could see from Jason’s face he was. “Have any of the others gone?”

“I don’t know. I was only looking for hers.”

“Can’t she have another one?” Sheila tried to be practical, but she knew it wouldn’t assuage Jason’s anger.

“Of course she bloody well can’t,” he retorted. “The others are all sold, you know that. And you know how fussy she is.”

Sheila did know. Mrs. Grundy lived at Much Cluning Hall and. although she was pleasant enough, she disliked being thwarted or inconvenienced. Her manner implied that she expected her life to run as smoothly as the Rolls-Royce her husband drove. Oh, God, Sheila thought, it looked like being a miserable Christmas. Jason would be in a foul mood for days. A terrible thought occurred to her. “Hadn’t you better count them?” she asked.

“I’m going to.”

Jason strode across the yard to the big shed where the dead birds, plucked and drawn, were laid out in rows along the shelves. Sheila followed and watched while he counted them. There should be ninety, she knew. Christmas turkeys might be profitable, but they were only a sideline to the main business of the farm, the crops and sheep.

“There are four gone!” Jason shouted. “Four! That’s the best part of fifty pounds!” He turned furiously. “I’m going to ring the police!”

“Jason, do you think—?” Sheila asked weakly.

But he was in no mood to pay attention, and she followed him uneasily into the house.

It was nearly an hour before P. C. Tom Roberts arrived. He had been at the site of a road accident four miles away and the theft of four turkeys hadn’t seemed like the crime of the century, even in Much Cluning. Clearly Jason Richards didn’t agree with him.

“They must have got in during the night,” he said. Waiting had done nothing to soothe his anger. “You can see their tracks.”

He led the way through the churned-up slush in the yard, past the farm buildings to a small meadow bounded on the far side by a low hedge. It was still freezing hard, and the snow, several inches deep, was crisp and unbroken save for a clearly designed set of footprints leading from the yard to the hedge near the point where it met the road. Jason had said “they,” Roberts thought, but there was only one set. Smallish prints, too.

“Looks like he came this way.” he agreed. “Was the shed locked at night?”

“No.” Jason sounded as if he were daring the policeman to criticize him. “The padlock’s fastened with a peg. We’ve never had anything stolen before.”