Christmas Is Murder Read online

  The latest killer was Univex mincemeat. Sarah shivered as she read of the latest three deaths, bringing the toll to twelve. As she turned the corner, she saw Maggie’s car in the drive and increased her pace. A grim idea had taken root in her brain as she read the long report.

  While she was hanging up her jacket, Maggie called from the kitchen. Sarah walked slowly through to find her tucking into a plate of eggs and bacon, but without her usual large dollop of tomato ketchup. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and the skin around them was grey and stretched. She had not slept at home for two nights. The job had never made such demands on her before. Sarah found a moment to wonder if the atmosphere between them was partly responsible for Maggie’s total commitment to this desperate search.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘It’s not,’ said Maggie. ‘Virtually nothing to go on. No link that we can find. It’s not as if we even have proper leads to chase up. I came home for a break because we were just sitting staring at each other, wondering what to do next. Short of searching everyone who goes into the supermarkets, what can we do? And those bloody reporters seem to have taken up residence in the station. We’re being leaned on from all sides. We’ve got to crack this soon or we’ll be crucified.’

  Sarah sat down. ‘I’ve been giving this some thought. The grudge theory has broken down because you can’t find a link between the companies, am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you thought about the effect unemployment has on crime?’

  ‘Burglary, shoplifting, mugging, vandalism, drugs, yes. But surely not mass poisoning, love.’

  ‘There’s so much bitterness there, Maggie. So much hatred, I’ve often felt like murdering those incompetent tossers who destroyed Liddell’s and threw me on the scrapheap. Did you think about people who’ve been given the boot?’

  ‘We did think about it. But only a handful of people have worked for all three companies. None of them have any reason to hold a grudge. And none of them have any connection with Burnalder.’

  ‘There’s another aspect, though, Maggie. It only hit me when I read the paper tonight. The News has a big piece about the parent companies who make the three products. Now, I’d swear that each one of those companies has advertised in the last couple of months for management executives. I know, I applied for two of the jobs. I didn’t even get interviewed because I’ve got no experience in the food industry, only in plastics. There must be other people in the same boat, maybe less stable than I am.’

  ‘My God!’ Maggie breathed. She pushed her plate away. The colour had returned to her cheeks and she seemed to have found fresh energy. She got up and hugged Sarah fiercely. ‘You’ve given us the first positive lead in this whole bloody case. You’re a genius!’

  ‘I hope you’ll remember that when they give you your inspector’s job.’

  Maggie grinned on her way out the door. ‘I owe you one. I’ll see you later.’

  As the front door slammed, Sarah said ironically, ‘I hope it’s not too late already, babe.’

  Detective Inspector Bill Nicholson had worked with Maggie Staniforth for two years. His initial distrust of her gender had been broken down by her sheer grasp of the job. Now he was wont to describe her as ‘a bloody good copper in spite of being a woman’, as if this were a discovery uniquely his, and a direct product of working for him. As she unfolded Sarah’s suggestion, backed by photostats of newspaper advertisements culled from the local paper’s files, he realised for the first time she was probably going to leapfrog him on the career ladder before too long. He didn’t like the idea, but he wasn’t prepared to let that stand between him and a job of work.

  They started on the long haul of speaking directly to the personnel officers of the three companies. It meant quartering the country and they knew they were working against the clock. Back in Burnalder, a team of detectives was phoning companies who had advertised similar vacancies, asking for lists of applicants. The lumbering machinery of the law was in gear.

  On the evening of the second day, an exhausted Maggie arrived home. Six hundred and thirty-seven miles of driving had taken their toll and she looked crumpled and older by ten years. Sarah helped her out of her coat and poured her a stiff drink in silence.

  ‘You were right,’ Maggie sighed. ‘We’ve got the name and address of a man who has been rejected by all three firms after the first interview. We’re moving in on him tonight. If he sticks to his pattern, he’ll be aiming to strike again tomorrow. So with luck, it’ll be a red-handed job.’ She sounded grim and distant. ‘What a bloody waste. Twelve lives because he can’t get a bloody job.’

  ‘I can understand it,’ Sarah said abruptly and went through to the kitchen.

  Maggie stared after her, shocked but comprehending. She felt again the low rumble of anger inside her against a system that set her to catch the people it had so often made its victims. If only Sarah had not lost her well-paid job, then Maggie knew she would have left the force by now, but they needed her salary to keep their heads above water. The job itself was dirty enough; but the added pain of keeping her relationship with Sarah constantly under wraps was gradually becoming more than she could comfortably bear. Sarah wasn’t the only one whose choices had been drastically pruned by her unemployment.

  By nine fifty-five a dozen detectives were stationed around a neat detached house in a quiet suburban street. In the garden a ‘For Sale’ sign sprouted among the rose bushes. Lights burned in the kitchen and living room.

  In the car, Bill made a final check of the search warrant. Then, after a last word over the radio, he and Maggie walked up the short drive.

  ‘It’s up to you now,’ he said and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a tall, bluff man in his mid-forties. There were lines of strain round his eyes and his clothes hung loosely, as if he had recently lost weight.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked in a pleasant, gentle voice.

  ‘Mr Derek Millfield?’ Maggie demanded.

  ‘That’s me. How can I help you?’

  ‘We’re police officers, Mr Millfield. We’d like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘By all means. But I don’t see what . . . ’ His voice tailed off. ‘You’d better come in, I suppose.’

  They entered the house and Millfield showed them into a surprisingly large living room. It was tastefully and expensively furnished. A woman sat watching television.

  ‘My wife Shula,’ he explained. ‘Shula, these are policemen – I mean officers. Sorry, miss.’

  Shula Millfield stood up and faced them. ‘You’ve come for me, then,’ she said.

  It was hard to say who looked most surprised. Then suddenly she was laughing, crying and screaming, all at once.

  Maggie stretched out on the sofa. ‘It was appalling. She must have been living on a knife-edge for weeks before she finally flipped. He’s been out of work for seven months. They’ve had to take their kids out of private school, had to sell a car, sell their possessions. He had no idea what she was up to. I’ve never seen anyone go berserk like that. All for the sake of a nice middle-class lifestyle.

  ‘There’s no doubt about her guilt, either. Her fingerprints are all over the jar of arsenic. She stole the jar a month ago. She worked part-time in the pharmacy at the cottage hospital in Kingcaple. But they didn’t notice the loss. God knows how. Deputy heads will roll,’ she added bitterly.

  ‘What will happen to her?’ Sarah asked coolly.

  ‘She’ll be tried, if she’s fit to plead. But I doubt if she will be. I’m afraid it’ll be the locked ward for life.’ When she looked up, Maggie saw there were tears on Sarah’s cheeks. She immediately got up and put an arm round her. ‘Hey, don’t cry, love. Please.’

  ‘I can’t help it, Maggie. You see, I know how she feels. I know that utter lack of all hope. I know that hatred, that sense of frustration and futility. There’s nothing you can do to take that away. What you have to live with, Detective Ser
geant Staniforth, is that it could have been me.

  ‘It could so easily have been me.’

  If you enjoyed these stories, you’ll love Val McDermid’s breathtaking new Karen Pirie thriller, Broken Ground – out now!

  Read on for the first chapter . . .

  1

  1944 – Wester Ross, Scotland

  The slap of spades in dense peat was an unmistakable sound. They slipped in and out of rhythm; overlapping, separating, cascading, then coming together again, much like the men’s heavy breathing. The older of the pair paused for a moment, leaning on the handle, letting the cool night air wick the sweat from the back of his neck. He felt a new respect for gravediggers who had to do this every working day. When all of this was over, you wouldn’t catch him doing that for a living.

  ‘Come on, you old git,’ his companion called softly. ‘We ain’t got time for tea breaks.’

  The resting man knew that. They’d got into this together and he didn’t want to let his friend down. But his breath was tight in his chest. He stifled a cough and bent to his task again.

  At least they’d picked the right night for it. Clear skies with a half-moon that gave barely enough light for them to work by. True, they’d be visible to anyone who came up the track past the croft. But there was no reason for anyone to be out and about in the middle of the night. No patrols ventured this far up the glen, and the moonlight meant they didn’t have to show a light that might attract attention. They were confident of not being discovered. Their training, after all, had made clandestine operations second nature.

  A light breeze from the sea loch carried the low-tide tang of seaweed and the soft surge of the waves against the rocks. Occasionally a night bird neither could identify uttered a desolate cry, startling them every time. But the deeper the hole grew, the less the outside world impinged. At last, they could no longer see over the lip of the pit. Neither suffered from claustrophobia, but being that enclosed was discomfiting.

  ‘Enough.’ The older man set the ladder against the side and climbed slowly back into the world, relieved to feel the air move around him again. A couple of sheep stirred on the opposite side of the glen and in the distance, a fox barked. But there was still no sign of another human being. He headed for the trailer a dozen yards away, where a tarpaulin covered a large rectangular shape.

  Together they drew back the canvas shroud to reveal the two wooden crates they’d built earlier. They looked like a pair of crude coffins standing on their sides. The men shaped up to the first crate, grabbing the ropes that secured it, and eased it off the bed of the trailer. Grunting and swearing with the effort, they walked it to the edge of the pit and carefully lowered it.

  ‘Shit!’ the younger man exclaimed when the rope ran too fast through one palm, burning the skin.

  ‘Put a bleeding sock in it. You’ll wake up the whole bloody glen.’ He stamped back to the trailer, looking over his shoulder to check the other was behind him. They repeated the exercise, slower and clumsier now, their exertions catching up with them.

  Then it was time to fill the hole. They worked in grim silence, shovelling as fast as they could. As the night began to fade along the line of the mountains in the east, they attacked the last phase of their task, stamping the top layer of peat divots back in place. They were filthy, stinking and exhausted. But the job was done. One day, some way hence, it would be worth it.

  Before they dragged themselves back into the cab, they shook hands then pulled each other into a rough embrace. ‘We did it,’ the older man said between coughs, pulling himself up into the driver’s seat. ‘We fucking did it.’

  Even as he spoke, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis organisms were creeping through his lungs, destroying tissue, carving out holes, blocking airways. Within two years, he’d be forever beyond the consequences of his actions.

  Val McDermid’s breathtaking new Karen Pirie thriller Broken Ground is out now!