The Xmas Murders

Chapter One 12 -12 -12

'The life that you are seeking you will never find.  When the gods created man they alloted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping'   The Epic of Gilgamesh

 

Chapter One   12 -12 -12

Saturday 1st December 2012

"Hurry up and buy the Christmas tree, Willy. I know you, you'll wait until they're all sold out."  Cassandra's disembodied voice had been launched from the kitchen and shot up the stairs until, with the inevitability of a heat-seeking missile, it tracked him down in the bathroom - or salle de bain as she liked to call it.

"Yes, dear." 

"They're five pounds cheaper from Patel's than they are in the High Street."

"All right, dear."

"And don't go sneaking off to the pub just because it's your rest day, we need to get it put up today. Remember, mother and my sisters will be arriving on the twelth and I want their stay to be perfect this time - not like the disaster it was last year."

"No, dear and yes, dear!"

Remember?  How could he bloody forget, she reminded him at least three times a day. The mother-in-law Matilda and his two middle-aged spinster sisters-in-law, Doris and Dora.  All staying for three bloody weeks!  A shiver ran up his spine.

"Are you being sarcastic, Willy?"

Bill Watson, that is Detective Inspector Bill Watson of (the soon to be sold-off by the bloody penny-pinching, small-minded, expenses-fiddling politicians) Scotland Yard, allowed himself another five minutes luxuriating in the bath before getting out and drying himself and getting dressed.. He knew that his wife was annoyed with him - she always called him Willy when she was peeved because she knew that he hated it. Childish!  He considered her question briefly before replying. 

"No, dear." he finally replied. He would not dream of being sarcastic, it's the lowest form of wit - but ironic? Possibly.

He finished dressing and, feeling relaxed in jeans and a sweater instead of his usual suit, collar and tie, went downstairs.  After stuffing his mouth with toast and  marmalade and gulping down a cup of tea he put on his overcoat and hat and kissed Cassandra gently on the cheek.

"See you shortly, Sandy", he said provocatively.

"Don't call me that! You know I hate it. I'm not some bloody temperamental Frankenstorm!"

He chuckled to himself as he closed the door behind him; he liked his new nickname for her, suited her down to the ground and after twenty-eight years of marriage that's where he found himself - ground to the ground as if crushed by a mighty, unforgiving hurricane.

He shivered as a sudden gust of ice cold air blew a wave of snow flakes into his face.  After using his ID and credit cards to scrape the ice off the windscreen he squeezed himself into his twenty-eight year old Ford Capri and swore loudly as the engine coughed and spluttered before reluctantly coming to life.  Twenty-eight years attached to the same wife and motor, a once trusty car and trusting relationship; now a rusty car and a rusting relationship - perhaps it's time to trade them both in.  

As the heater blew freezing cold air into the car the radio was playing a tune which brought back memories of their honeymoon in New York.  They'd only known each other for two months and had had a brief and disappointing sex session behind some garages and she'd become pregnant, or so she said.  He was a high-flyer in those days and had been put on a police academy exchange to NYPD for a month. After a shotgun wedding they found themselves engaged in bitter rows and humiliating public disputes in front of the very people he was trying to impress.  When she called him a faggot in front of his NYPD commanding officer, he'd suffered a wound which had never healed. 

Then, as an afterthought, 'How the hell am I going to get a six foot bloody Christmas tree into this bloody car?'

Sunday 2nd December

The Christmas tree was up and already embedding its needles into the shag carpet.

                                                           **** 

It wasn't a pleasant sight; two bodies chained together back-to-back.  Inspite of the rather reckless over-application of the blowtorch the charred remains still showed that one had been a woman and, judging by the grey, pinstriped pencil skirt, stockings and exclusive black leather stilettoes, quite a smart one at that. The partial incineration had not been an attempt to conceal her identity. On the contrary her handbag, with her passport, driving licence and thirteen platinum bank cards including one from Coutts, contained plenty of that and her head had not been touched. Even after her terrifying ordeal there was something of a strange beatific expression upon her once beautiful face.

In contrast the man had died relatively easily.  He'd had his throat slit, quite professionally, not the usual slashing and fountains of blood, more like a gentle bleeding to death.

"So, what do we know, sergeant?"

Detective Sergeant Jennie Holmes had no need to consult her notes, she had a very good memory and always paid acute attention to detail, her first class honours degree in criminology gave evidence to that. Tall, brunette, the eyes of a tiger and the lips of Liz Hurley with a figure to match. At twenty-eight she was twenty years younger than Watson and would probably outrank him in another two.

"Her name's Carla Colombe.  She's French, the CEO of STUPA, Selective Treatment and Ultra Priority Access. They're health insurance brokers who guarantee rapid medical care for a coterie of high net worth clients. It's a subsidiary of a global French health care company. He was the Member of Parliament for Doveport. It looks as if he was slowly bled to death over two days as warfarin was administered to maintain the blood flow. There was a note stapled to his right nipple."

"Ouch! That's got to hurt but not as much as the slit throat."

"You've never had your nipples pierced have you, sir?"

"No, sergeant, and you've never cut yourself shaving."

"I have actually. The note's gone off to the private forensic lab - let's hope they don't lose it this time. Here's a photo that I took of it." She passed her smartphone over to Watson who immediately handed it back.

"How do you work this thing?"

She pressed a key and gave it back to him and he read aloud in a flat monotone, totally devoid of any thespian ambitions.

""Beauty, truth and rarity - Grace in all simplicity - Here enclos'd in cinders lie."

He looked again at the woman's charred torso.

"Any ideas, sergeant?"

"Not yet, Inspector. But that's two in two days."

"You mean that MP who hanged himself yesterday.  You think that there's a connection?"

"Well he had the strangest suicide note that I've ever seen."

"Why, what did it say?"

"Just '12 - 12 -12'"