The Ho Ho Ho Mystery (6 page)

‘A
s you can see,’ said Detective Inspector Jill of Grimmtown PD, ‘the sleigh doesn’t appear to have crashed. From the impact marks on either side, it does look as if it was forced to land by a person or persons unknown, but they seem to have taken care to ensure that the landing was relatively safe. There is no indication as to what happened to any of the occupants afterwards, but we have found no evidence to suggest that they were injured when the craft went down.’

I could see the relief on Mrs C’s face. Now, at least, she had some hope that her husband might still be alive. I walked over to the yellow tape that cordoned off the area around the sleigh and had a good look. It was just as DI Jill had said: the sleigh itself didn’t look in too bad a condition, the tracks in the ground behind indicated a clean landing, but of the reindeer or Santa there was no sign. I called DI Jill over.

‘Did your forensics guys find anything?’

‘C’mon Harry, you know better than that,’ she said. ‘This is police business. I can’t just pass on confidential information to any Tom, Dick or Harry now, can I?’

‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘but you owe me one. Who gave you the info that let you break the Little Red Hen case? Me. If it hadn’t been for me, she’d still be out there.’

DI Jill looked at me for a second, considered her options and rolled her eyes skywards. ‘OK, Harry, you win. Forensics haven’t found too much. No fingerprints; nothing we might get a DNA sample from; very little trace evidence. Whoever did this went to inordinate lengths to cover up their tracks.’

I immediately picked up ‘very little trace evidence’. ‘But they did find something?’

Jill said nothing. I could understand that, she could only say so much to me without getting into trouble. On the other hand, the techs might be a different story.

‘Mind if I talk to them?’ I asked Jill.

She sighed heavily – a do-I-really-have-a-choice kind of a sigh – and lifted the tape to allow me under. ‘Why not? They’re nearly done, but they were pretty thorough,’ she said as I passed by.

‘Who’s the lead tech?’ I asked.

‘Crane.’

‘As in he of the bright orange head feathers and meaningful silences?’ In fact, Crane was so predictably enigmatic that the cops used to play a game when he was working on a
crime scene: try to guess which expression he’ll use next. The scoring was complicated but could be summarised as: sunglasses on or off = one point, meaningful pause = two points, withering stare = three points, and enigmatic quip = four points. All four at once got a bonus of ten points. The current record stood at thirty-four and I was determined to beat it.

‘The same, but you have to admit he knows his stuff,’ said Jill.

I didn’t doubt it. Grimmtown PD’s forensics team was one of the best in the business and Crane was their boss. If they couldn’t find evidence at a crime scene then that evidence didn’t want to be found. Still, it was worth a shot. Maybe my piggy eyes would pick up on something they’d missed.

‘Can I go in now?’ I asked.

‘Sure, it looks like our guys are packing up so there’s no risk of you contaminating the scene.’

I gave Jill an ‘as if I would’ sort of look.

I walked around the sleigh, examining the ground carefully. The kidnappers had certainly been thorough; all footprints, hoof prints or any other kind of print had been very carefully obliterated. The sleigh itself, dents apart, looked like it had been gone over by a professional valeting service after it had landed. It was sparkling. This meant, in effect, that regardless of how hard I looked, I wasn’t going to find anything.

As I examined the sleigh’s interior, there was a clearing of a throat from the far side. It was the kind of polite coughing that suggested that the cougher wasn’t too pleased to see me, that I was interfering with their work and that they’d much rather I was somewhere else. It had to be Crane.

I looked up into a stern-featured face dominated by a long beak and topped by an unruly mass of bright orange feathers, parted to the right. The eyes were masked by a spanking new pair of sunglasses.

‘Dr Crane,’ I said, grinning widely just to annoy him further. ‘DI Jill said I could take a look around.’

Crane took off his sunglasses and stared meaningfully at me. ‘That’s Lieutenant Crane.’ There was a pause – which I presumed he intended to be more meaningful as he continued to gaze at me. ‘What,’ another pause, ‘are you doing here?’ The glasses were put back on. At least now if he continued to stare at me, I wouldn’t have to see it – and I was nine points up already.

Small mercies.

‘Sorry, Lieutenant, I forgot.’ I hadn’t, I just did it to annoy him. He was very particular about his title.

‘Hmph,’ was the indignant response.

‘Anyway,’ I said, being even more cheerful, ‘did you find anything?’

The sunglasses came off again and this time he was giving me a significant stare – which I assumed was one step up the
scale from meaningful but still only garnered three points. Now I was up to thirteen and looking good.

‘That, my friend,’ pause for effect, ‘is a good question.’ Fifteen.

‘I know it is. I’m a detective. It’s my job to ask questions, so I’m pretty good at it.’

Another pause and stare (but I couldn’t tell if it was withering, significant or another type of stare entirely). Twenty points; record here I come.

‘And,’ pause, glasses on, ‘to answer your question, all we have found so far,’ long pause (definitely for effect), glasses off again, ‘is tobacco’. Twenty-six; I was on the final stretch, the record was looking good. No, I wasn’t enjoying this but I still needed as much information as I could get so, if it meant I had to listen to Lieutenant Crane, then this was a sacrifice I had to make.

‘Well, one of my techs found traces of tobacco just behind that rock there.’ He waved one of his wings, indicating a large boulder some distance from the sleigh. ‘It’s ordinary pipe tobacco.’ Pause. ‘You can get it in any store so it’s not much of a lead.’ Pause, glasses on. ‘It could have been left there by anyone. Once we analyse it in the lab we may know more because that, my friend, is what we do.’ Thirty-one points.

‘And did your team find anything else?’

I caught a hint of evasion on his face that he quickly masked with his usual blank demeanour. ‘No, nothing else.’

There was something, but he wasn’t willing to share. I had to find some way of making him change his mind.

‘You see that lady over there?’ I waved in Mrs C’s direction. Crane nodded.

‘Well, her husband is the owner of this sleigh and he’s missing. Now her style of dress might have given this away already, especially with you being a CSI and all, but the missing man is Santa Claus and, unless we find him in the next twenty-four hours, there are going to be a lot of very disappointed children all over the world. Do you have kids, Dr Crane?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Three.’

It was time to lay on the guilt trip. ‘Do you want to be the one to tell them why they have no presents this year? Why they’ll remember this Christmas Day for the rest of their lives for all the wrong reasons? It might even have a traumatic effect on them. Could you live with that? Could you?’ I could see I was getting to him. The mention of his kids had made a small crack in his calm exterior and I was about to open it wide. ‘This woman has hired me to track down the missing Santa and I’m going to do everything in my power to find him, do you understand?’ Dr Crane swallowed once and nodded. ‘Good, because every little thing that can help me might take me one step closer to ensuring your kids have a happy Christmas. I know you have to observe standard police protocol here but if you’ve found something else – no matter how small – it might be the thing that breaks this case.

‘Imagine the satisfaction you’ll get when we find Santa and you’re there helping your kids open their presents, secure in the knowledge that you were the one who gave us that one vital clue.’ My patter was working and I could feel he was about to reveal all – in a manner of speaking.

‘Well, there was one other thing, but I’m not even sure it’s relevant. I won’t know for certain until I get it back to the lab.’ No meaningful silences and the glasses stayed firmly on his face. Still stuck on thirty-one points: come on, Crane, cut me some slack. ‘We found this.’ He reached into an evidence bag and pulled something out. He held it out to me for a closer look. ‘Please don’t touch,’ he said. ‘You could compromise the evidence.’

I looked at what he was holding in his rubber-gloved wing. ‘It looks like a hair,’ I said. From what I could see it was a long cream-coloured hair. It looked too thick and rough to be human, and reindeer didn’t have hair as long as this so it hadn’t come from one of them. Dr Crane ran a feather along the hair. As he did, some particles of fine white dust fell off.

‘Any idea what it is?’ I asked.

‘Not at the moment,’ Dr Crane replied. ‘It’s not human – unless there was a caveman at the crash site. Based on what I know about animal hair – and I am somewhat of an expert – I don’t think it’s reindeer hair.’

‘So what is it and where did it come from?’ I mused. ‘Maybe it’s just coincidence that you found it; after all, it was a national park and I’m sure lots of animals live there.’

‘Yes, perhaps, but animals don’t have a tendency to use white powder. That doesn’t seem like something you’d find in the wild, now does it?’

‘True, but what is it? It just doesn’t make any sense.’ It was reasonable to assume we weren’t dealing with something that applied talcum powder after showering; or maybe we were, this case was weird enough as it was without adding cosmetics to the equation. I really needed the results of the hair (and the powder) analysis as quickly as possible. I had a feeling that this – when combined with the tobacco – was the clue that might just break the case wide open. My heart began to thump just a little bit faster and I could feel the sense of anticipation building up inside me. I was near to a breakthrough; I could feel it. Once more, Harry Pigg was on the case.

‘Doc, I have one more favour,’ I said.

The sunglasses came off once more and I was given a quizzical look. Thirty-five points, we have a winner and a new world record – and without any enigmatic quips either.

‘Can you let me know the results of your tests, just this once?’ I handed him a business card. ‘My number. Call me any time, day or night. I really need this one, and I promise I won’t tell anyone about this little conversation, OK?’

The crane looked at me for a long time and finally gave me a brief nod, which I took to mean yes. Then he turned his back on me and stalked over to his team. Clearly the discussion, such as it was, was ended.

Still, I’d gotten something – not a lot, but something – and in this case any lead, no matter how insignificant, was a break. After one last quick look around, I came back over to where the others were waiting.

‘Anything, Harry?’ asked Jack.

I shook my head. ‘Other than a trace of tobacco and a strand of hair the police found, there’s nothing else here.’ I described the hair to Mrs C and she confirmed that, based on my description, it didn’t sound like a reindeer hair. Other than that, no one could offer any suggestions as to what it was. We were going to have to wait until the Crime Lab did their analysis.

Despite the small break we’d just had, I was becoming as frustrated as the Three Bears during a porridge shortage. Every time I thought we were on to something, the lead fizzled out almost as quickly as we got it. Would this case ever get solved? I sank down on a nearby rock and buried my head in my trotters. This wasn’t good. My reputation as Grimmtown’s foremost detective was at stake but, more importantly, I didn’t fancy getting laughed at by Red Riding Hood and allowing her the opportunity to gloat.

After a few minutes of quality self-pity, I turned to the others. ‘It doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything else here.’ I could sense their disappointment, I think they’d been hoping for a breakthrough – or at least some solid evidence Santa was still alive. ‘Cheer up, folks,’ I continued. ‘There’s no reason to think he came to any harm and
whoever brought the sleigh down seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it got down safely, so there’re reasons to be hopeful.’ I really wanted to get out of there and back to Grimmtown as quickly as possible and wait for Dr Crane to call me. Reluctantly, they followed me back to our sleigh and, after we were all aboard, we made our way back to the city.

A
fter we’d landed back at the Claus residence I sent Jack and Basili home in a cab and wandered the streets of Grimmtown, trying to get my thoughts together. You know those dramatic scenes in movies where the hero is happily minding his own business walking along the street when all of a sudden a really big car screeches up beside him, two burly men jump out, put a bag over his head, bundle him into the car and drive off? Well, I had one of those (sort of). I was walking along the street, minding my own business and mulling over the progress (or lack thereof) in the case. There was a strange swishing noise from above and before I could react, two burly men materialised on either side of me, put a large black bag over my head and bundled me into … well, more like on to … something soft and wavy. There was a sudden lurch as whatever I was in took off once more and then silence – apart from some whispering.

‘Is this him?’ This was a deep I’m-a-tough-guy-so-don’t-screw-with-me kind of whisper.

‘How many pigs in trench coats do you see walking around Grimmtown? Of course it is,’ whispered a second, just as intimidating voice.

Now I didn’t recognise either voice, but I figured they were the types who would do me irreparable damage if I suddenly tried any heroics – not that I was going to try too much while I had a bag on my head.

I could still hear noises from outside the vehicle and could feel the wind buffeting my head, which suggested I was in a convertible of some kind, but I couldn’t feel any vibrations or engine noise. It was a very strange sensation. I extended my arms on either side but couldn’t feel any doors or walls. Mystified, I ran my trotters across the floor. It seemed to be made of very plush material; possibly a carpet.

Carpet! Of course. I wasn’t in the world’s quietest sports car after all. I knew exactly where I was and, more to the point, who had abducted me. Yet again I had one of those sinking feelings I knew only too well. Yes, things had gone from bad to very much worse.

‘Hi, Ali, can I take the bag off now? I presume we’re on your magic carpet.’

There was a brief round of slow, sarcastic applause and then a voice said, ‘Of course Harry. My, my, it didn’t take you too long to figure out where you were, did it?’

The bag was pulled roughly from my head and I found myself staring straight into the face of one of Grimmtown’s biggest gangsters, Ali Baba. Ah yes, now the plot was really thickening. If Ali had me, then my life expectancy was dropping fast to roughly the same level as a haemophiliac’s at a vampire convention.

Then, to my complete surprise, Ali said something that I never thought I’d ever hear him say, ‘Harry, I need your help.’

‘Excuse me,’ I said, shock visible on my face. ‘Could you repeat that? I’m not sure I heard it properly.’

‘You heard. I need your help.’ To be fair, he did look as if he was struggling to say the words.

Now this was roughly akin to the fox asking the Gingerbread Man for his assistance, so you can imagine my disbelief. ‘Why exactly do you need my help?’

Ali Baba looked at me strangely. ‘Presumably you’ve heard about what happened last night.’

‘Not really, I’ve been out of town,’ I said.

He threw a newspaper at me. ‘Read the main article.’

I picked up today’s edition of the
Grimmtown Gazette
and read the huge headline that dominated the front page.

That’s what I like about the
Gazette –
it doesn’t go for sensationalism! I read on.

I looked across at Ali Baba and raised an eyebrow. ‘Forty burglaries, forty thieves. It’s not much of a stretch, is it? Even Grimmtown PD must have been able to figure it out.’

‘Except for one small detail that they appear to have chosen to overlook: I didn’t do it.’

I raised my other eyebrow. ‘Really?’ I have to say, I agreed with Grimmtown’s finest here. Even without any evidence, Ali Baba and his forty thieves surely must have been a shoo-in for the crime; the numbers were just too coincidental.

‘Yes, really,’ Ali Baba continued as we sped through the streets of the city. ‘Although I think it’s fair to say that even if I and my men had been having dinner with the police commissioner and the mayor last night when these admittedly admirable crimes were committed, they’d probably still have arrested me. Except for the fact that the evidence is, as of now, circumstantial and I have an exceedingly good lawyer, I might still be imprisoned.’

‘So what’s all this got to do with me?’ I asked, although I had a fairly good idea what – and it wasn’t something I was particularly looking forward to.

‘Quite simply, I think someone is trying to frame me. I want you to find out who actually did these crimes and clear my name.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’

Actually he didn’t – but then again, he never looked like he was kidding. He had that kind of face and he wasn’t noted for his sense of humour.

‘But I already have a client. I can’t abandon her,’ I protested, knowing that it was a futile gesture.

‘Well, now you have two clients,’ Ali replied. ‘I can’t imagine your caseload is so heavy that you can’t manage two clients at once.’

‘Well, my current case is proving problematic. I’m not sure I can give you the time that you might reasonably expect in a case of this complexity.’

Ali gave a sigh of frustration and turned to the front of the carpet. ‘Sayeed,’ he said, ‘if you’d be so kind.’

The pilot, who was sitting cross-legged at the front of the craft, nodded once. The magic carpet lurched forward and then began to ascend through the evening sky. In panic I scrabbled around, looking for something to grab on to so as not to plummet down into the streets below. Around me, the two henchmen and Ali Baba seemed totally unaffected by the sudden ascent as they sat on the carpet, laughing at my discomfiture. How come they didn’t look scared? And, more importantly, how come they didn’t fall off?

Ali must have known what I was thinking. ‘Velcro,’ he said.

The magic carpet continued to shoot upwards and, as the pilot increased the angle of ascent, I began to slide towards the back of the carpet. Ali Baba showed great courtesy in leaning to one side to allow me to pass him by. I looked up as I zipped past him and caught his eye. He must have taken pity on me as he ordered Sayeed to level out – just before I tumbled off the edge of the carpet. What was it with this case, all these flying vehicles and close shaves?

With an all too familiar sense of resignation – why was I suddenly detective of choice for Grimmtown’s crime fraternity? – I nodded to Ali and confirmed that I’d take on the case, although it was not as if I had much of a choice, was it? I either agreed to Ali’s terms or became a pork pizza on the street below.

‘OK, OK,’ I gasped. ‘You have my complete and undivided attention. Now, just so we can be clear, you say you weren’t responsible for these robberies.’ Ali nodded.

‘So I assume you have an alibi for midnight last night?’

Ali shifted and looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, yes and no.’

‘What do you mean “Yes and no”?’ I knew it, it had been too good to be true. Here came the wrinkle.

‘As I’ve already said, we weren’t responsible for the forty robberies the police are interested in because we were in the process of relieving Danny Emperor’s warehouse of his entire stock of gentlemen’s clothes. We bypassed the alarms at ten p.m. and spent over four hours cleaning the place out. It was quite a haul.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t commit the forty robberies at midnight because you were busy burgling somewhere else? What kind of an alibi is that?’

‘It is a somewhat unfortunate alibi as alibis go, I will admit, but the fact remains, we are not responsible for last night’s crime wave, but we can’t tell the police why exactly, can we?’

No,
I thought,
you were too preoccupied with a smaller one of your own.

My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of my phone. With a nod from Ali, I was allowed answer it. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Whoever this is, it’s not a good time.’

‘Harry, it’s me: Danny.’ Oh well, there was a surprise. I suppose he wanted my help too.

‘Danny, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something here.’

‘Please, Harry, just give me five minutes. I’ve been robbed. It’s my warehouse. It’s been completely cleaned out.’

‘Gee, Danny, that’s terrible. Any idea who did it?’ Well, I couldn’t really say I was looking at the culprit, could I? Not if I didn’t fancy going for another flying lesson.

‘The cops have no idea, but they don’t think it’s linked to the other robberies last night.’

‘Well, that’s good at any rate. Listen I really need to go, can we talk about this later?’

‘Harry, please; it’s my livelihood. I need your help. Please, tell me you’ll take the case.’

Typical: I’d gone from zero to three cases in under a day and I didn’t want any of them. Mind you, at least I knew who had robbed Danny – although I wasn’t sure I’d be too successful in revealing the culprit. Then I had an idea; it might have been an idiotic idea but it might get me off the hook on at least one of the cases. ‘Danny, I’ll take your case. Now I really have to go. I’ll catch you later, OK?’ Before he could say anything else, I hung up.

‘Here’s the story,’ I said to Ali Baba. ‘I’ll take your case, but my fee is that you return everything you stole from Danny’s warehouse.’

Ali’s eyes narrowed. ‘I think, perhaps, that you may want to reconsider that last statement.’

I reconsidered (for a nanosecond) and ran the options through my head: solve one case immediately – check; give Ali Baba some of my time while I tried to solve his case – check, but then again I didn’t have a choice, did I? At least it was an easy way for Ali to get out of paying in the event I did manage to sort out his problem – not that I held out too much hope of solving it; I was more concerned with how to keep Ali sweet while I investigated what seemed like an impossible case – while trying to not run foul of a police force that believed they already had the case wrapped up. Nice!

‘No, Ali, I don’t think so.’ I wasn’t sure where this sudden bout of courage had come from, but I’d had just about enough of being pushed around. ‘Drop me off the carpet if you want, but my terms are that you return Danny’s clothes. Otherwise no deal.’ I looked into his eyes wondering if he had the same stare staying power as Rudolph – I hoped not, calling my bluff would put me in a very weak negotiating position (as in being dangled by my ankle from a magic carpet high above Grimmtown).

Ali didn’t even try to argue the toss – maybe he felt that me clearing his name was more then recompense for having to part with the spoils of his latest crime. ‘Very well, Harry,’ he said, with a nonchalant wave, ‘it’s a deal. Where can we drop you off?’

I sincerely hoped that he was using that phrase as a figure of speech. ‘Somewhere near my apartment would be good
–and on the ground,’ I managed to croak. A few moments later my feet were firmly on terra firma again. Before I could say anything – a ‘thank you’ certainly wasn’t one of them – the magic carpet was ascending into the darkening sky once more and, for the first time in what seemed like years, I was finally on my own. Wearily, I dragged myself through the front door and up the stairs to my second floor flat. Fumbling the key in the lock, I pushed the door open and fell into the living room, almost literally as I was so exhausted I could barely stand.