Deadvent Calendar - December 9th
The detectives venture into the darkest East End of London and find a derelict factory that mysteriously hasn’t been turned into a hot-desking venue yet
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.
Just desserts.
Mr Gordon Twine, a man who liked to say he was self-made, although the only ingredients he seemed to have used were theft, greed and selfishness, and who had just celebrated the season by finally disinherited the last family member still in his will, choked to death on a farthing in a slice of Christmas pudding. Unfortunately for Gordon, thanks to the dextrous fingers of a mortician, he couldn’t take even this last penny with him.
December 9th
However honestly he might be doing it, Mickey was certainly earning his money, as he spent most of the night and the next day at work. Unfortunately this did not make watching him any more enjoyable, as we no longer go inside for fear of the Detective Inspector, so we sat in the coffee shop opposite all day, watching the pub through the pouring rain until we were turfed out.
Even more unfortunately, I lost the coin toss and had to leave the relatively dry, if redolent, doorway we had hunched in to find a pair of city bikes for us. It had at least stopped raining by the time Mickey finally left and jumped on a bus with us in cold and shivering pursuit.
The bus took us East, across the top of the City, from streets where drunken lawyers jumped into the road, trying to hail taxis and almost knocking off us our bikes, under Smithfield, where junior marketing executives milled outside bars smoking and drunkenly tried to knock us off our bikes, and finally through Shoreditch, where the hen nights came screaming out of the nightclubs and tried to grab hold of us, nearly knocking us off our bikes.
Finally into the East End. Dark, silent, hissing streets, where groups of young men stood on the corners, debating whether it worth the effort to knock us off our bikes. They weren’t, of course, this wasn’t the East End of Shilo’s fervid Victorian imaginings. This was the East End where the most alarming thing that was likely to happen to you would be slightly too foamy milk in your flat white. The East End where the groups of young men had skinny jeans, silly hats and promising photography careers and who wouldn’t be seen dead near anything as pedestrian as a city bike.
Finally Mickey descended from the bus and turned up a side street. Then by railway arches and archly graffitied alley ways to a small circle of dingy buildings, half dilapidated small factories and half dilapidated small factories that were now communal work spaces that had been renovated to the point where the dilapidation still screamed authenticity but was no longer an actual health hazard.
Shilo and I stopped in the shadow of a lonely and confused Victorian chapel as Mickey stopped for a moment under a street light, looking around. We ducked behind a crumbling angel who held a noticeboard promising an introductory course in crypto-currency, within the shadow of the chapel porch.
“What’s he doing?”
“Looking for someone following him,” said Shilo, “Like us. Be quiet.”
Mickey was no longer under the streetlight but was now at an iron gate, long since adrift from its hinges and leaning out into the street. He slipped through the gap it made and disappeared into the shadows beyond.
“Come on,” whispered Shilo and took off across the empty square towards the gate, with me following him as quietly as I could. We stopped at the fence and peered through. On the other side was what might once have a small factory making some long forgotten necessity like boot scrapers or bottle brushes but which was now nothing but an empty shell. Almost the whole of the front of the building had gone. Inside it was open to the roof, with just the outline of floors showing where the paint stopped on the remaining walls. Those walls were a pattern of empty or broken windows and the roof itself was nothing but a grid of exposed girders and struts with a single skylight incongruously still in place and whole.
The floor was a jumble of fallen masonry, the stumps of ancient machinery and discarded rubbish: worn down tires and piles of broken-backed filing cabinets, a gleaming litter of nitrous canisters and a burnt out Skoda. The window frames and missing tiles made the whole an unreadable cross-hatching of shadow in the dim orange of distant street lights.
Then a train rattled past on the overhead line beyond and arc sparking of electricity illuminated the place in a flash, showing us, in stark resolution, Micky standing at the far end of the ruined hall, where a huge fireplace yawned at the base of the single broad chimney that held the further wall up.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out something like a piece of paper and pushed it into the fireplace.
“Did he just put a letter up the chimney?” I hissed at Shilo.
“Ssh!” He grabbed my head and pushed me down as Mickey turned and, half running, picked his way across the factory floor, jumped and was up, out of a window and gone.
We ducked back into the shadows by the fence, holding our breath and listening. There was a clatter of a tin can somewhere, then, more distant, the rattle of someone climbing chicken wire. Further off, then, footsteps, and at last all was silent but for the distant traffic. Then a vixen screamed and I jumped a good foot in the air.
“A fox,” said Shilo, “Get a grip on yourself.”
“I am not mentally nor physically equipped for all this sneaking about,” I said, “Anyway he did, didn’t he? He put a letter up that chimney.”
“Given the circumstances, I think he very probably did,” said Shilo.
“So let’s go and have a look,” I said, trying to stand. Shilo kept his hand on the top of my head.
“You will do no such thing,” he said, “We are assuming that Mickey is responding to instructions he received from replying to the flier, are we not?”
“I have to admit, putting a letter up a chimney with a wish on it makes that seem a fair enough assumption,” I said.
“And who are we expecting to read that letter,” asked Shilo.
“Your mad genius,” I said.
“So who are we expecting to come and get it? Who might even now be watching this factory, waiting to see if anyone has followed Mickey?” said Shilo.
“The mad genius,” I saw what he meant, “Fair enough. You go and look, then.”
“No, we are going to stay and look,” said Shilo, “Come on.”
And we crossed back over the square, into the shelter of the church porch. I nestled in behind my friendly angel and
“Excuse me,” said a voice in my ear. I froze. Over me towered a thin figure in a tight leather jacket and wide brimmed black hat.
“Sorry,” said the figure, “Didn’t mean to startle you. Just wondered if I could take your picture.”
“Go away,” said Shilo.
“It won’t take long, just a quick picture,” said the figure, “It’s for a project.”
“Street fashion, is it?” I said, regaining my composure.
“Street people,” said the figure, “Documenting the homeless.”
“How dare you,” hissed Shilo, “I’ll have you know this coat was cut by Hawkes of Saville Row.”
“Oh, I’m not being patronising,” said the figure, “It’s about the quiet dignity, you know, overcoming the rigours, all that.”
“That is pretty patronising,” I pointed out.
“Never mind that,” Shilo leapt to his feet, “Look! Over there!”
I turned and looked across the square at the factory, where, at the gates, a Deliveroo cyclist, a Santa hat tied on top of his helmet, was unlocking his bike from the railings.
“Deliveroo, right,” said the figure, “Must have really changed life for the homeless, having food on demand.”
“It’s brilliant!” cried Shilo, reaching for his city bike, “How better to pass unremarked at all times of the day and night, go anywhere, do anything with no one noticing. Come on!”
And he was off, as I grabbed my bike and clambered aboard.
“Ok, well,” said the photographer, “Catch you later, then. Thanks.”
And we were off again, into the London night.