Best British Crime 6 - [Anthology] Read online

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  Best British Crime 6

  Ed By Maxim Jakubowski

  Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  Maxim Jakubowski

  RUMPOLE’S SLIMMED-DOWN CHRISTMAS

  John Mortimer

  MONEY SHOT

  Ray Banks

  WHERE THERE’S A WILL

  Amy Myers

  THE STOLEN CHILD

  Brian McGilloway

  THE PEOPLE IN THE FLAT ACROSS THE ROAD

  Natasha Cooper

  MANDELBROT’S PATTERNS

  Keith McCarthy

  NO PLACE TO PARK

  Alexander McCall Smith

  GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

  Judith Cutler

  THE PREACHER

  Kevin Wignall

  THE ANGEL OF MANTON WORTHY

  Kate Ellis

  GOING BACK

  Ann Cleeves

  THE FIERY DEVIL

  Peter Tremayne

  UN BON REPAS DOIT COMMENCER PAR LA FAIM

  Stella Duffy

  ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

  Marilyn Todd

  MAKEOVER

  Bill James

  TRAIN, NIGHT

  Nicholas Royle

  THE PRINTS OF THE BEAST

  Michael Pearce

  GLAZED

  Danuta Reah

  TWENTY DOLLAR FUTURE

  John Rickards

  SERVED COLD

  Zoë Sharp

  THE MYSTERY OF CANUTE VILLA

  Martin Edwards

  ROSEHIP SUMMER

  Roz Southey

  ENTANGLEMENT

  H. P. Tinker

  THE MUMMY

  Peter Turnbull

  NORA B.

  Ken Bruen

  THE END OF LITTLE NELL

  Robert Barnard

  JOHNNY SEVEN

  David Bowker

  BUMPING UGLIES

  Donna Moore

  EPIPHANY

  Margaret Murphy

  CALL ME, I’M DYING

  Allan Guthrie

  HEROES

  Anne Perry

  MOTHER’S MILK

  Chris Simms

  THE SHAKESPEARE EXPRESS

  Edward Marston

  THE OTHER HALF

  Colin Dexter

  THREAT MANAGEMENT

  Martyn Waites

  FINGERS TO THE BONE

  Andrew Taylor

  THE PRICE CONFEDERATE

  Andrew Martin

  POPPING ROUND TO THE POST

  Peter Lovesey

  THE UNINVITED

  Christopher Fowler

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  INTRODUCTION

  Maxim Jakubowski

  Welcome to this attempt to gather the best crime and mystery stories written by British authors during the course of the preceding calendar year.

  Look up either the British or the American bestseller lists on any given week, and you are guaranteed to find them in majority occupied by crime, mystery and thriller titles. The genre continues to be wonderfully popular all over the world, and will ever continue to thrive. I will not bore you here with a discourse about the reasons why crime writing enjoys such a worldwide appeal, but suffice it to say that it invariably presents us with stories that go from A to B, strong characters, puzzles, action and a rainbow of strong emotions.

  Crime short stories are for me a perfect gift, encapsulating as they do all the ingredients to be found in novels, but in a miniature format that retains all the pluses and none of the possible negatives of novels. Commentators often complain about the relative lack of publishing outlets for short stories, but I am pleased to say this is not the case when it comes to crime and mystery. The tales I have harvested this year come from established and newer magazines, thematic anthologies and widely diverse sources both in print and on radio and the internet. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

  Since I completed this year’s selection, one of the stories (by Marilyn Todd) has been shortlisted for an American award. The previous year’s volume resulted in a Crime Writers’ Association award for Martin Edwards’ short story; the year before that it was, similarly, Peter Lovesey. In fact, all but two volumes so far in the series have resulted in a Crime Writers’ Association award for best short story of the year.

  Both Martin and Peter are on board again this year, as is Danuta Reah, winner some years back, but I am also proud to introduce many new names to the series on this occasion. New that is, of course to us, but naturally already well-known outside of the series for their previous books and stories. I am hopeful not only thousands of readers will enjoy the tales in these pages, but maybe also certain judges, so we can make it three prize-winning years in a row!

  Popular series characters like Rumpole and Charlie Fox are here to entertain you, and Colin Dexter, now having forsaken Inspector Morse, is still with us, as are many fabulous writers from all the generations past and present of British crime writing.

  Savour these stories (but do not try any of the criminal acts scattered across the pages of this volume at home . . .)

  Maxim Jakubowski

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  RUMPOLE’S SLIMMED-DOWN CHRISTMAS

  John Mortimer

  Christmas comes but once a year, and it is usually preceded by Christmas cards kept in the prison officers’ cubby holes round the Old Bailey and “Away In A Manger” bleating through Boots, where I purchase for my wife Hilda (known to me as She Who Must Be Obeyed) her ritual bottle of lavender water, which she puts away for later use, while she gives me another tie which I add to my collection of seldom worn articles of clothing. After the turkey, plum pudding and a bottle or two of Pommeroy’s Chateau Thames Embankment, I struggle to keep my eyes open during the Queen’s Speech.

  Nothing like this happened over the Christmas I am about to describe.

  Hilda broke the news to me halfway through December. “I have booked us in for four days over Christmas, Rumpole, at Minchingham Hall.”

  What, I wondered, was she talking about? Did She Who Must have relatives at this impressive sounding address? I said, “I thought we’d spend this Christmas at home, as usual.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rumpole. Don’t you ever think about your health?”

  “Not really. I seem to function quite satisfactorily.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Certainly. I can get up on my hind legs in court when the occasion demands. I can stand and cross-examine, or make a speech lasting an hour or two. I’ve never been too ill to do a good murder trial. Of course, I keep myself fortified by a wedge of veal and ham pie and a glass or two of Pommeroy’s Very Ordinary during the lunch time adjournment.”

  “Slices of pie and red wine, Rumpole. How do you think that makes you feel?”

  “Completely satisfied. Until tea time, of course.”

  “Tea time?”

  “I might slip in to the Tastee-Bite on Fleet Street for a cup of tea and a slice of Dundee cake.”

  “All that does is make you fat, Rumpole.”

  “You’re telling me I’m fat?” The thought hadn’t really occurred to me, but on the whole it was a fair enough description.

  “You’re on the way to becoming obese.” She added.

  “Is that a more serious way of saying I’m fat?”

  “It’s a very serious way of saying it. Why, the buttons fly off your waistcoat like bullets. And I don’t believe you could run to catch a bus.”

  “Not necessary. I go by Tube to the Temple Station.”

  “Let’s face it, Rumpole, you�
��re fat and you’re going to do something about it. Minchingham Hall is the place for you.” She said, sounding more and more like an advert. “So restful, you’ll leave feeling marvellous. And now that you’ve finished the long fraud case ...”

  “You mean,” I thought I was beginning to see the light, “this Minchingham place is a hotel?”

  “A sort of hotel, yes.”

  Again I should have asked for further particulars, but it was time for the news so I merely said, “Well, I suppose it means you won’t have to cook at Christmas.”

  “No, I certainly won’t have to do that!” Here She Who Must gave a small laugh, that I can only describe as merciless, and added, “Minchingham Hall is a health farm, Rumpole. They’ll make sure there’s less of you by the time you leave. I’ve still got a little of the money Auntie Dot left me in her will and I’m going to give you the best and the healthiest Christmas you’ve ever had.”

  “But I don’t need a healthy Christmas. I don’t feel ill.”

  “It’s not only your health, Rumpole. I was reading about it in a magazine at the hairdresser’s. Minchingham Hall specializes in spiritual healing. It can put you in touch with yourself.”

  “But I’ve met myself already.”

  “Your true self, Rumpole. That’s who you might find in ‘the restful tranquillity of Minchingham Hall’,” She quoted from the magazine.

  I wondered about my true self. Had I ever met him? What would he turn out to be like? An ageing barrister who bored on about his old cases? I hoped not, and if that was all he was I’d rather not meet him. And as for going to the health farm, “I’ll think it over,” I told Hilda.

  “Don’t bother yourself, Rumpole,” She said. “I’ve already thought.”

  * * * *

  “Tell me quite honestly, Mizz Probert,” I said in the corridor in front of Number 6 court at the Old Bailey, “would you call me fat?”

  Mizz Liz, a young barrister and my pupil, was defending Colin Timson who, in a pub fight with a rival gang, the Molloys, was alleged to have broken a bottle and wounded Brian Molloy in the arm.

  “No, I wouldn’t call you that.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” I gave her a grateful smile.

  “Not to your face, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be so rude,” Mizz Liz Probert replied.

  “But behind my back?”

  “Oh, I might say it then.”

  “That I’m fat?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “But you’ve nothing against fat men?”

  “Well, nothing much, I suppose. But I wouldn’t want a fat boyfriend.”

  “You know what Julius Caesar said?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Let me have men about me that are fat;/ sleek headed men and such that sleep o’nights.”

  Mizz Probert looked slightly mystified, and as the prosecuting counsel, “Soapy” Sam Ballard QC, the head of our chambers approached, I went on paraphrasing Julius Caesar. “Yond Ballard has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”

  As Ballard came up I approached him. “Look here, Bollard, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the Timson case” I said. “We all know the bottle broke and Brian Molloy fell on to it by accident. If we plead guilty to affray will you drop the grievous bodily harm?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “But surely, Bollard, you could be generous. In the spirit of Christmas?”

  “The spirit of Christmas has got nothing to do with your client fighting with a broken bottle.”

  “Good will and mercy to all men except Colin Timson. Is that it?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “You should go away somewhere to have your spiritual aura cleansed, Bollard. Spend Christmas somewhere like a health farm.”

  The result of all this was that the young Timson went to prison and I went to the health farm.

  On Christmas Eve we took a train to Norwich and then a taxi across flat and draughty countryside (the wind, I thought, blew directly from the Russian Steppes, unbroken by any intervening mountains).

  Minchingham, when we got there, appeared to be a village scattered round a grey walled building that reminded me, irresistibly, of Reading Gaol. This was Minchingham Hall, the scene of this year’s upcoming Christmas jubilations.

  The woman at the reception desk was all grey - grey hair, grey face and a grey cardigan pulled down over her knuckles to keep her hands warm.

  She told us that Oriana was giving someone a “treatment” and would be down soon to give us a formal welcome and to hug us.

  “Did you say ‘hug’ . . .?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “Certainly, Mr Rumpole. People travel here from all over England to be hugged by Oriana Mandeville. She’ll suffuse you with ‘good energy’. It’s all part of the healing process. Do take a seat and make yourselves comfortable.”

  We made ourselves uncomfortable on a hard bench beside the cavernous fireplace and, in a probably far too loud whisper, I asked Hilda if she knew the time of the next train back to London.

  “Please, Rumpole!” she whispered urgently. “You promised to go through with this. You’ll see how much good it’s going to do you. I’m sure Oriana will be with us in a minute.”

  Oriana was with us in about half an hour. A tall woman with a pale beautiful face and a mass of curling dark hair, she was dressed in a scarlet shirt and trousers. This gave her a military appearance - like a female member of some revolutionary army. On her way towards us she glanced at our entry in the visitors’ book on the desk and then swooped on us with her arms outstretched.

  “The dear Rumbelows!” Her voice was high and enthusiastically shrill. “Helena and Humphrey. Welcome to the companionship of Minchingham Hall! I can sense that you’re both going to respond well to the treatments we have on offer. Let me hug you both. You first, Helena.”

  “Actually it’s Hilda.” Her face was now forcibly buried in the scarlet shirt of the taller Oriana. Having released my wife her gaze now focused on me.

  “And now you, Humphrey . . .”

  “My first name’s Horace,” I corrected her. “You can call me Rumpole.”

  “I’m sorry. We’re so busy here that we sometimes miss the details. Why are you so stiff and tense, Horace?” Oriana threw her arms around me in a grip which caused me to stiffen in something like panic. For a moment my nose seemed to be in her hair, but then she threw back her head, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Now we’ve got you here we’re really going to teach you to relax, Horace.”

  We unpacked in a bedroom suite as luxurious as that in any other country hotel. In due course, Oriana rang us to invite us on a tour of the other, less comfortable attractions of Minchingham Hall.

  There were a number of changing rooms where the visitors, or patients, stripped down to their underpants or knickers and, equipped with regulation dressing gowns and slippers, set out for their massages or other treatments. Each of these rooms, so Oriana told us, was inhabited by a “trained and experienced therapist” who did the pummelling.

  The old building was centred round the Great Hall where, below the soaring arches, there was no sign of mediaeval revelry. There was a “spa bath” - a sort of interior whirlpool, and many mechanical exercise machines. Soft music played perpetually and the lights changed from cold blue to warm purple. A helpful blonde girl in white trousers and a string of beads came up to us.

  “This is Shelagh,” Oriana told us. “She was a conventional nurse before she came over to us and she’ll be giving you most of your treatments. Look after Mr and Mrs Rumbelow, Shelagh. Show them our steam room. I’ve got to greet some new arrivals.”

  So Oriana went off, presumably to hug other customers, and Shelagh introduced us to a contraption that looked like a small moving walkway which you could stride down but which travelled in the opposite direction, and a bicycle that you could exhaust yourself on without getting anywhere.

  These delights, Hilda told me, would while away the r
est of my afternoon whilst she was going to opt for the relaxing massage and sun-ray therapy. I began to wonder, without much hope, if there were anywhere in Minchingham Hall where I could find something that would be thoroughly bad for me.

  The steam room turned out to be a building - almost a small house - constructed in a corner of the Great Hall. Beside the door were various dials and switches, which, Shelagh told us, regulated the steam inside the room.