Twelve Days of Winter: Crime at Christmas

‘Look, I got to go, OK? Sooner we get started on this pair, the sooner I get home.’

A playful smile sneaked its way onto his face. ‘Maybe when I get home. . .?’ Ever the optimist.

‘Fat chance! Some of us have to get up for work in the morning.’

The smile vanished. ‘How’s Emma ever going to get a baby brother if we never do it? I could dress up: would that help? You know, be a fireman, or a doctor, or something?’

Change the subject. ‘So, what we got – pair of oldies?’

‘Naw.’ He took her hand and led her back towards the dissecting room, where Professor Muir and Mr Unwin were hefting a dark-blue body-bag onto one of the mortuary’s examination tables. ‘Quite romantic really: man and woman, both early twenties, found holding hands on the bed. Painkillers, sleeping pills, and a big bottle of milk.’

‘What the hell’s romantic about that?’

‘Decided they just couldn’t live without each other. If one of them was going to die, they were both going to die.’

‘Oh yeah?’

Professor Muir unzipped the bag, revealing a pretty blonde woman. Upturned nose, small overbite, and bright-red lips. Her face was plastered with make-up, hiding the bloodless yellow waxy pall of death. But from the neck down she was all corpse. And not a natural blonde either.

‘So which one was dying? Let me guess, she-’

‘It was him. We found a letter from the hospital: test results. Turns out his HIV just got upgraded to full- blown AIDS.’

She scowled. ‘Great, just what we need – a pair of fucking biohazards. They take forever.’

‘Yeah, well, you just make sure you take care, OK?’ He patted her on the arse. ‘Don’t want nothing happening to my woman.’

She didn’t bother answering that, just stomped across the room as Muir and the undertaker manhandled the other body-bag out of its stainless steel coffin. ‘Better watch out,’ she pointed at the bag, ‘this one’s got AIDS.’

The professor swore, then pulled on a surgical mask and another pair of latex gloves. Scowled in DI ‘Stinky’ McClain’s direction. ‘No one bloody tells me anything.’ He hauled down the zip, zwwwwwwwwwwwwip . . . and there was Kevin.

The floor wobbled beneath Sandra’s feet.

It was Kevin. Kevin was dead. Kevin was lying on his back, on a cutting slab, staring up at the mortuary ceiling with a faraway look in his glassy eyes.

She stumbled back a couple of steps. He had AIDS! Just two days ago they’d had unprotected sex in a ‘dangerous area’: the multi-storey car park behind Marks and Spencer. The bastard never even told her he was HIV positive!

Oh fuck. . .

‘Sandra?’ Good old Ewan, at her side in a flash, playing the big, strong husband. ‘You OK?’

She couldn’t take her eyes off Kevin’s dead face.

The cheating, dirty, diseased, two-timing bastard hadn’t even bothered to tell her! That could be her lying there next to him, all peaceful and serene and not having to worry about dying from some horrific disease. Instead of some STUPID BLONDE TART.

‘Sandra?’

Kevin didn’t even have the common decency to ask her to commit suicide with him. He never really loved her at all.

Men were such bastards.

3: French Hens

Marguerite Dumond could swear fluently in four languages, but right now she was practising her English. Clutching the side of her head, trying to staunch the bleeding. Leaning against the alley wall, as Philippe – still dressed in his chef’s whites – kicked the shit out of the man who’d hit her.

Philippe’s words were slurred, his heavy French accent rendered almost unintelligible by half a bottle of vodka on top of a hit of heroin, but his aim was dead on. ‘How,’ kick, ‘many,’ kick, ‘times,’ kick, ‘do I have to tell you?’ Kick. ‘NEVER come around my work!’ He took three steps back, had a run up, and slammed another boot into the man lying curled up on the alley floor. Then started stomping on his face.

Marguerite peeled the tea towel off her head. It was soaked through – glistening and dark red. The alleyway began to spin, her knees gave out – she sat down heavily on a crate full of empty bottles, making them rattle and clink. She wasn’t going to be sick, she wasn’t going to be . . . oh yes she was. Marguerite leaned sideways and retched, spattering the cobbles with coq au vin and creme brulee.

Philippe knelt on the man’s chest and grabbed a handful of hair. Pulled his head off the ground. ‘I ask you nicely!’ A muffled grunt, then the hard, wet thunk of something being bounced off the alley floor. ‘I ask you nicely, but you don’t listen! You just,’ thunk, ‘don’t,’ thunk, ‘listen.’ Thunk. There was a moment’s silence, then, ‘You are stupid fucker, Kenny. You don’t deserve friend like me. . .’

Marguerite raised her head, mouth coated with bitter slime.

Philippe was rummaging through Kenny’s pockets, pulling out little silver foil packets. Then he settled back on his haunches and forced Kenny’s mouth open.

‘If you kill my waitress, how can she serve my food? A great restaurant, she cannot function without her front of house staff!’ He ripped the end off a wrapper of heroin and poured it into Kenny’s blood-smeared mouth. Then another and another and another. . . ‘Bon appetit.’ He slammed his hand into Kenny’s chest and the battered man convulsed, sending a plume of white powder up into the cold evening air.

Philippe clamped a hand over Kenny’s mouth. ‘I said, Bon appetit!’

And that was when Marguerite blacked out.

Half past seven in the morning and Alexander Garvie stood at the front door of La Poule Francaise, signing for the day’s fish delivery – haddock, brill, turbot and hake. No sea bass, which would piss the chef off, but some days you just had to go with what was available.

He shuffled back in through the restaurant doors, heading for the kitchen. If the reservations book was anything to go by, it’d be another busy day. Nearly full for lunch and packed for dinner. If it kept up like this they’d have to get more staff. Maybe a bigger restaurant?

Alexander shouldered his way through the kitchen doors and marched up to the walk-in fridge. There was a lot to be said for opening a new place: maybe something down by the river, or the cathedral?

He balanced the box of fish on his hip and cracked the fridge open.

It’d be expensive, but if they could match the success of La Poule Francaise they’d break even in about a year and a half. Eighteen months. It would be tight, but-

What the hell was that?

There was a man in the fridge!

He was lying flat on his back, next to the carrots and shallots, legs bent outwards, arms above his head. Like a frog waiting to be dissected.

‘Hello?’ Alexander slid the box onto the nearest shelf. ‘You shouldn’t be in here – it’s not hygienic. . .’

The man didn’t move.

‘Are you OK?’ He flicked on the inner light, breath misting around his head.

The man was not OK. His skin was the colour of rancid butter, spattered with dark-brown blood, and his forehead had a decided dip in it. Alexander reached out and touched the icy skin with trembling fingers. The man would never be OK ever again. He was dead.

‘Oh dear God. . .’ The first big glass of cognac hadn’t settled his nerves and neither had the second one. The