Murder Most Merry

Sensitive over her treacherous leg, she bristled, then recognized the face and decoded his remark. It was the Samaritan from that half-marathon in the happy time before she’d been hurt. Talked into running for charity, she’d not realized that the friendly fellow partnering her for the final miles was Sarum, scourge of the police.

Jill had been quite taken with him. He’d struck her as a man appreciating female company for its own sake. If he’d been ten years younger or she a decade older, she might have tried making something of it. As things were, when the event finished he’d wrapped her in a foil blanket and trotted away to help somebody else.

“You’re a police, um, person,” he said, returning Inspector Tierce’s warrant card. “I wondered what you did for a living, never thought of that. Come on in.”

The living room contrived to be homely and pristine, sealed woodblock floor reflecting carefully tended plants. “Passes inspection, huh? I lost my wife five years ago, but I try to maintain her standards. Must have known you were coming, that’s the coffee perking, not my tummy rumbling. Take a pew, I’ll get it—black, white, sugar, no sugar?”

He was just as he’d been on the charity run, chatting as if resuming a relationship after minutes instead of years. Some people did it naturally, and in her experience, the majority were as uncomplicated as their manner. He made reasonable coffee, as well... “What’s the problem? Can’t be anything too shattering, but you’re a senior rank.”

Disingenuous, Jill thought; he must have a shrewd idea what brought her.

“You’ve been seen in Grand Drive for extended periods over the last two years. Watching, hanging about. Spare me the stuff about a free country; you put the wind up the neighborhood, and no wonder. It’s no-hawkers- no-lurkers territory. Storm in a teacup is your comeback, but the snag is a woman was done to death at your favorite haunt three years ago.”

“Two and two makes me a murder suspect, is that it?” His tone was even. Sensing that Noel Sarum savored debate, she gained a better understanding of his newspaper column.

“No, you invited suspicion all on your own.” she replied calmly. “Gave my uniformed colleagues some guff about wanting to confirm the presence of a rare bird in Grand Drive, a... can’t read PC Harris’s writing, but he told me the name and I remembered it long enough to make a phone call.

“It’s your bad luck that a cousin of mine is an ornithologist—the bird you chose hasn’t touched England since 1911, and even that sighting was doubted. However, it’s something an intelligent amateur might pick to blind the cops with science. According to my expert.” And she smiled cheekily.

Noel Sarum’s mouth curved up at the corners, too. “Got me.” Then his jaw set. “As a matter of fact, that was my third Christmas of going to Grand Drive. Breaking no law, causing no nuisance. Which is all you need from me.”

“Believe it or not I’d agree if it weren’t for Mitzi Field. The dead girl. Worthless girl, some might say, squalid little life, good riddance. But we don’t agree, do we. I’ve got to account for loose ends, and you’re flapping about in the wind, Mr. Sarum.”

“Noel.” he corrected abstractedly. “The kids call me First Noel, this time of year. Every class thinks it’s being brilliantly original....” Stubborn streak resurfacing, he grumbled. “After your pals pounced on me, I went to the Gazaette office and researched the murder in the back numbers. That winter I was supply-teaching at Peterborough, didn’t get back to the city until the week after it happened. The night she was killed, I was chaperoning a Sixth Form dance more than a hundred miles away from Grand Drive.”

“Bloody hell,” Jill muttered. “What’s the matter with you, why not tell the uniforms that?”

Taken aback by her impatience and the subtext of disgust, he shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think of it at the time.”

Fair enough, Inspector Tierce granted. People didn’t remember their whereabouts a week ago, let alone years later. Though Noel Sarum might be lying . . . .

Guessing the reaction, he brightened. “Hang on, I’m not escaping, just looking in the glory-hole.”

She watched him delve in a cupboard under the stairs. Soon he returned, waving a pamphlet. “Here you are, Beacon School newsletter, date at the top of every page.”

It was a slim, computer printed magazine. Sarum’s finger jabbed at a poorly reproduced photograph in which he was recognizable, arm round the shoulders of a jolly, overweight woman in owl spectacles.” ‘First Noel’ got the Christmas spirit. Mrs. May got the grope, and the Sixth ‘got down’ with a vengeance last Thursday night.” ran the disrespectful caption.

“Mrs. May’s the head teacher, the kids loved that snap,” he chuckled. Tuning him out, Jill found the first page of her notebook. Yes, the date was right, Mitzi Field had died at about nine p.m. that faraway Thursday night when Noel Sarum was hugging the head teacher. His tone hardened. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Oh, drop it,” she said crossly. “I liked you on that stupid run, I still like you, though what I’d really like is to shake you till your stupid teeth rattle.”

Taken aback, he fiddled with the school magazine.

“You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about the police, fine. But that’s no excuse for wasting two uniformed officers’ time, and mine. Heaven knows what it is with you and Grand Drive, I don’t care.”

She broke off, eyes narrowing. “Hey! I think this was a setup. You have an ironclad alibi, so why not encourage the dim coppers to hassle you? Weeks and weeks of columns to be wrung out of that. Cancel the liking- you bit, you’re sick. Feel free to complain about my attitude. I’ll be happy to defend it, on the record.”

Appalled, Noel Sarum protested. “It’s not like that... setup? It never crossed my mind!” Cracking his knuckles, he glowered at the carpet. “It’s strictly personal, can’t you people get that through your heads?” After which, perversely (not only coppers are human), he told her the whole story.

Fifteen minutes later, Inspector Tierce said, “Why the heck didn’t you press every bell and find her that way? Can’t be that many flats in half a dozen houses.”

“What would I say when each door opens?” Sarum demanded. “I don’t even know if she’s married, she was wearing gloves, I couldn’t see if she had a wedding ring. Supposing her husband answered, imagine the trouble I could cause.”

“I still can’t make out how you chatted her up and didn’t have the gumption to get her name, even a first name.”

Still high-colored from enthusiasm and embarrassment, Sarum sputtered, “I didn’t chat her up. It was... idyllic, a little miracle. We looked at each other and started talking as if we’d known each other forever. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to ask her name or give mine, it might have broken the spell.”

“Yes, you told me,” Jill butted in, lips tingling from the strain of keeping a straight line. The copper-bashing demon she had pictured snarling over his columns turned out to be a hopeless, helpless romantic. Noel Sarum, a widower well into middle age, patrolled Grand Drive once a year because he was suffering belated pangs of puppy love.

Having met his ideal woman one Christmas Eve, driven her home, and departed on air, he’d been unable to decide which house in Grand Drive was hers. Similar period and the same architect, and they looked different by daylight.

She could understand why he hadn’t confided in a couple of constables patently ready to take him for some kind of weirdo. After all, he was the Know Your Rights fanatic, worried that they’d turn his romantic vigil into a mocking anecdote to belittle him. Inevitably he’d been combative.

It was already dark when Jill Tierce left Larkspur Crest. Fresh snow crunched under the tires. She slowed as her lights picked up a group of children crossing the road, dragging a muffled-up baby on the improvised sledge of a tin tray. At the foot of the hill a Rotary Club float blared canned carols, a squad of executive Santas providing harness-bells sound effects with their collecting tins.

Everything went a little scatty in this season, though nicely so, Inspector Tierce mused. She’d bought no presents so far, that was scatty, dooming her to Christmas Eve panic.

Not the least of her scattiness, either. She thought: I can’t believe I’m doing this, but stayed on course towards Grand Drive.

By six that evening, bad leg nagging savagely—it disapproved of stairs, and she had climbed a number of flights—Jill was showing her warrant card and saying with the glibness of practice, “This may sound odd, but bear with me.... Two Christmases ago, if you remember that far back, did you go Christmas Eve shopping at the Hi-Save in City Center?”

“I expect so.” The woman’s voice was unexpectedly deep and hoarse from such a slim body. “I use Hi-Save