Deadvent Calendar - December 8th
The detectives return to the pub, which is the first sensible thing they’ve done in several episodes
Deadvent Calendar is a seasonal murder mystery told in 24 crimes. It follows the adventure of amateur detective Shilo Coombes and his companion as they try and unravel a sinister plot to murder the unChristmassy - a plot that doesn’t seem very Christmassy itself.
Number one with a bullet.
Mr Michael ‘Miki’ Platter, a singer with one hit wonders in every decade since the sixties, and now the composer of a Christmas song so tediously infectious that it was in danger of being classed an epidemic, wrapped in ribbon and tiny bells and dropped into the polar bear enclosure at London Zoo. The first the zoo keepers knew of it was that the bears kept jingling every time they farted.
December 8th
The trouble with trying to follow a police detective is that generally they are the ones who do the following and they tend to take exception to other people trying. Particularly when they have already taken exception to those people and in very explicit terms told them not to come anywhere near them. Particularly when they spend most of their time doing important and official things out of the sight of the general public, it turns out.
After a day of fruitless hanging about, Shilo and I went to the pub.
It was mere coincidence that the pub in question happened to be Inspector Street’s local.
It was, fortunately, also one of those London pubs that was refitted in the 90s to look like the Victorian pub it had originally been before it was refitted in the 80s to not look like that anymore.
Shilo and I hid in a booth and hunched over our pints, trying to look inconspicuous. When the Inspector finally came in, we shrank back into the shadows, hoping not to be noticed by her, or, just as importantly, the extremely large police officers she was drinking with.
“Remind me,” I said, “Why I have let you talk me into being here.”
“Because this,” said Shilo, holding up a copy of the flier we had found in the pub on the first, “Was already on this table when we arrived. We have in our hands one end of a scarlet thread of murder that weaves a knotty skein across the city and the season.”
“It is the fact that you talk such unremitting drivel,” I said, “That makes me doubt the sense of this at all. I begin to suspect that the Inspector, being a professional detective, might have a point. What do we know, after all?
“We find a flier a pub looking for unChristmassy people who deserve punishment. A pub in which, by the way, you almost get beaten up for calling someone Uranus.
“We witness the frankly unpleasant death of, as it turns out, a frankly unpleasant man, electrocuted by faulty fairy lights at a garden centre. You then cross examine your mother, who, if I ever doubted it to be the case, proves herself to be a woman of extraordinary patience and forbearance.
“Which leads us to a woman who, while she has every motive to commit murder has an absolutely cast iron alibi. And while she has no alibi for a completely unrelated death has also absolutely no motive.
“And that’s it. A string of wholly unrelated, if bizarre, events.”
“And we have,” said Shilo, “Murder.”
He picked up the file I had put on the table and spread out the cuttings and print outs between us.
“Eight murders, now,” he said, pointing at them in turn, “One a day for eight days.”
“Deaths,” I said, “Eight deaths, all bizarre, I grant you, but with nothing to connect them.”
“On the contrary,” said Shilo, finally picking out the flier from the pub, “Every victim a Scrooge, every death seasonal. An undeniable pattern, you said so yourself.”
“It is entirely possible,” I said, “That I am not in my right mind. Being round you, in fact, I would say it’s an inevitability.”
“Let us consider it,” said Shilo, “From the other end. Let us consider the individual who believes so much in the spirit of Christmas that they believe those who betray deserve the ultimate punishment of death.”
“A mad person,” I said.
“A mad genius,” said Shilo, “Who sets about trying to find deserving victims, so they advertise for them, and then find themselves with at least 24…”
“Or 25,” I said, “Maybe they work on Christmas Day.”
“...or 25 murders to plan,” said Shilo, “That’s a lot of work, that would need a lot of people. But they have a lot of people, they have, in fact at least 24…”
“Or 25,” I said.
“...or 25 people who have already proved that they’re quite willing to consider murder as a solution to their troubles.”
“Are you suggesting that anyone who picked up this flier is a potential murderer?” I said.
“Of course not,” said Shilo, growing excited, “That’s how you choose your victims: which applicants are willing to go that far? Then you simply swap around the murders, the price each applicant pays for their Christmas wish is helping out in someone else’s murder, a murder for which they have no motive, to which they have no connection, for which no one can ever suspect them.”
“Except you,” I said.
“Well,” said Shilo, “Not everyone is me.”
“Thank goodness,” I said, “But there is another mystery here, even if we assume that this is the case…”
“Once you have eliminated the impossible,” began Shilo.
“You’ve done that one,” I said, “Anyway, presuming this is the case, what do you intend to do about it?”
“Catch the mastermind,” said Shilo.
“How?” I said, “You’ve already said it yourself, if this is true, they’re a mad genius, with all the genius and madness of a mad genius. How do you catch one of them?”
“Well, quite,” said Shilo, thoughtfully, fingering the flier, “It is quite a challenge.”
“A three pint problem,” I said, tapping his empty glass, “Another?”
Unfortunately I had the terrible luck to arrive at the bar at precisely the same time as Inspector Street, fortunately she saw one of the bar staff before she saw me.
“Mickey, this isn’t at all a pleasure,” said Inspector Street to the barman.
To be fair, he wasn’t an unnoticeable man, being well over six foot, broad, adorned with wonky tattoos and a lumpy face that looked as if it had been extensively and violently rearranged several times, knocking his features into new and interesting shapes.
“Inspector Street,” he said, for all his size, quailing in front of the tiny, fierce Inspector.
“Detective Inspector,” said Street, “Unusual to find you honestly employed, Mickey. I assume it is honestly. Not cash in hand, is it? Nothing HMRC needs to know about, I hope?”
“Christmas,” was all Mickey could manage, “Need money for the kiddies, innit? Presents n’that.”
“Ah, Christmas and the little kiddies,” said the Inspector, “Why is it that everyone always thinks that the season is an acceptable reason? I better find that this is all legal and above board, Mickey, because otherwise I might get the present I want for Christmas. You inside. Then how do the kiddies like their festivities? Three pints of lager and a vodka and coke.”
Mickey served her, sullenly, while I took my two pints and slunk away to our corner. But not inconspicuously enough. I heard the sharp clack of her heels on the floorboards behind me as I reached the table.
“And that goes for the two of you,” she said, glaring at us, “You are going to remember that you are going to keep your heads down and your noses clean. You are going to remember that any murderers - if there are any - are not diabolical geniuses but horrid little scrotes like Mickey there and you are going to remember that they are entirely my business and none of yours. And you are going to remember that you are going to start drinking somewhere else. The most seasonal I am going to get is that I am going to allow you to finish your drinks before I make you go away. Understand?”
“Understand,” I said, “I mean, understood.”
The Inspector stalked away to collect her drinks from a cringing Mickey. “You asked me,” said Shilo, “How I proposed to find the mastermind.” “And the Inspector asked you not to,” I prompted.
“It seems to me that the way to uncover the network is to find one of their prospective murderers,” said Shilo.
“And how do we do that?”
“By remembering what the Inspector asked us to remember,” said Shilo, “By remembering that murderers are all people just like Mickey over there.”
I looked where he was pointing. Mickey was standing at the bar where the Inspector had left him. He had a phone in one hand and in the other he held a flier. One of the Krampus fliers, one of the fliers looking for unChristmassy victims. Victims like Detective Inspector Street.