An Unfortunate Christmas Murder, page 4
Margery laughed, jumping up to grab a piece of kitchen roll from the side to pass it to Clementine. ‘I thought you hated being called that! You keep telling people to call us by our full title.’
‘Yes well,’ Clementine said as she put the cup down and dabbed at where she had spilt her tea. ‘Education Centre Nourishment Consultant Mystery Solver does have a snappier and classier ring, Margery.’ She stood from her chair and pushed it back under the table. ‘Come on then, I’ll just get dressed quick and we’ll get to school. We never did go up to the storeroom to count the tablecloths yesterday, do you want to do that before work starts?’
‘Definitely, thanks for reminding me. I’ll be up in a minute,’ Margery said, grateful that Clementine was always around to remind her of the little jobs her new role in management required her to do; sometimes she felt like she was a juggling octopus. ‘Oh er… get the L plates for the car though, will you? You’re going to have to start your driving lessons again, I’ve got a big crochet commission coming and I need to practise.’
* * *
Margery had to run through what each button in the car did several times and translate from what Clementine had decided they were called, while she was explaining how the car worked. Clementine had recently agreed to try and pass her driving test after many years of being chauffeured by Margery. Her practical was booked for after Christmas, though she kept threatening not to go because ‘I just enjoy being driven so much, Margery’.
Clementine had passed the theory test first time, though Margery suspected that she might have smuggled in the DVSA handbook as she had not seen her study for the test at all. Margery did not believe Clementine would be able to cheat on the practical test. She had been taking once-a-week lessons with a real driving instructor and Margery had been letting her practise with her car the rest of the time. Only if Margery was in the car too, of course, to keep the whole thing proper in the eyes of the law, though if she were being honest with herself, she often wished she had never suggested it. She was nervous enough of her own driving, let alone Clementine’s erratic steering and loose understanding of how and when to use the handbrake.
By the time they finally managed to get to the school, they were so much later than planned that they decided to immediately take stock of the Christmas tablecloths and other decorative items they would need for the end of term lunch. It would be a good opportunity for Margery to count the crackers and special snowman cups for squash. They wandered down the identical hallways of the school at an easy pace and up the two flights of stairs to the storeroom. The ropey old Christmas decorations seemed much less charming in the early morning light. You could almost see the fingerprints on the glass bulbs and cheap, plastic baubles.
The storage room was a disaster; everything and anything was discarded here. There were piles and piles of old English exam papers next to a box of deflated basketballs, with the plastic guns from last year’s modern-day performance of Romeo and Juliet lying on top of them. All the departments used it as a dumping ground. The dinner ladies were certainly not innocent; an entire corner was dedicated to broken kitchen equipment and pots and pans too burnt to be recoverable, but too expensive to throw away.
Margery and Clementine managed to find what they were looking for easily enough, considering the mountains of junk. The big crate of tablecloths was thrown on top of a pile of papers at the back of the storeroom and Margery inspected them as best she could. They were as frayed as the rest of the school decorations, but there would be enough to cover each table in the lunchroom. She sighed; they couldn’t afford new ones on the budget this year. The old ones would have to do. Margery always joked about downgrading all lunches to turkey dinosaurs and old cuts of meat that they had in the freezer, but it might actually come to that soon. Maybe they could do a fundraiser, she thought. Mrs Smith seemed to be able to do whatever she wanted most of the time; maybe she could use their very rocky new friendship to raise some funds for the school. It was not a bad school at all, the headmaster was immensely proud of their ‘good’ Ofsted rating, but it was not a wealthy school by any means.
‘Margery, look at all this great stuff!’ Clementine said, rummaging around in one of the many, many plastic storage boxes stacked high around the room and pulling out a box of confiscated Pokémon cards. ‘I bet we can use these to play Piccalilli Paula later!’
‘Clem, put that all back the way you found it please,’ Margery scolded from across the room. ‘Oh actually, yes we’ll take them, and I can use them to fix that wobbly chair in the canteen.’
‘That reminds me, Margery, where are the tools?’ Clementine looked around perplexed. ‘The bag’s here but there’s hardly anything in it.’
Margery looked to where Clementine was gesturing. Sure enough, the big workman’s tool bag was almost empty, save for a gloopy-looking bottle of superglue and half a packet of thumb tacks. Margery put down the tablecloths and wandered over to it in surprise. She knew there had been much more in the bag not even a week ago when she had borrowed a screwdriver to replace a bulb in the kitchen gantry.
‘Does it say who signed it out last, Clem?’ She picked the heavy tool bag up and rummaged around for the sign-out sheet. It was not in the bag at all. Margery scratched her head. It was mandatory to fill the form out whenever anything was taken, and yet here was the empty bag with no sheet.
Clementine’s voice broke the spell she was under. ‘Oh gosh, Margery, it’s nearly nine o’clock, we’ve got to get down to the kitchen.’
Margery looked down at the wristwatch that Clementine had bought her last Christmas; it was time to go to work indeed. The mystery of the tools would have to wait until later, though she wished they could stay and look around for them a bit longer. It seemed strange that they would have disappeared the day after the police were looking for who put the stage together. She decided that even though Officer Thomas had explicitly told them not to investigate, she should let him know about it at the earliest occurrence. The missing tools would be a great concern due to the nature of the incident. She decided to come back up with Clementine’s phone after work when they had finished counting the tablecloths and take a photograph of the empty bag to show the headmaster too. Surely, he would have something to say about it, even if they were not supposed to be getting involved. They grabbed a box of tablecloths each and made their way down to the kitchen.
Chapter Four
Mrs Smith swept in during the middle of lunch service for the second time in as many days. Margery initially thought she might be coming to start a collection for a card and flowers for poor Mrs Large. Instead, she demanded that they all meet in the school hall that afternoon straight after work to pick up where they had left off with the concert. Margery could not help feeling that continuing as if nothing had happened was a bit callous, though she did not expect much else from Mrs Smith. It could not possibly have come at a more inconvenient time either; Margery had only managed to add the word ‘turkey’ to her Christmas menu and not much else. She was beginning to worry that the menu would not come together in time and to make matters even worse, Gloria and the others had made it quite clear that they still had absolutely no interest in being in the play. She would have to drag them there against their will again, with the promise of Secret Santa and the lure of a staff Christmas meal in the future.
As they were closing the kitchen down and getting all the frozen foods defrosted for the next day Officer Thomas strolled in through the kitchen door. Young Officer Symon followed behind him. They both looked much more business-like than they had before. Margery paused her day-labelling of the display fridge as he marched straight over to her.
‘Margery, can I speak with one of your staff please?’
‘Yes of course. Who?’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘And why?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ he said sharply. He looked down at his notepad. ‘Seren Jones please.’
‘Seren?’ Margery asked in concern. ‘Why on earth for?’
‘I’ve already said, I can’t tell you.’ He was trying to be firm, but Margery could tell he was finding this interaction as awful as she was.
‘All right.’ She put the date label stickers down on the counter and called for Seren, who was in the back of the kitchen wiping out the inside of the raw meat fridge. She pottered over, taking off the plastic cleaning gloves as she did so. Her eyes widened with fear as she came face to face with the officer, and her steps slowed almost to a halt. Margery remembered all the issues Seren had had with the police recently after a misunderstanding in Tesco and decided to put on her best management face and step in.
‘Look, I really think I ought to sit in on this conversation,’ she said, in as strong a voice as she could muster. ‘Seren has been through a lot recently and I’m not sure I like you whisking her away to interrogate her.’
‘What did I say about not involving yourself in a police—’
Margery cut him off with a wave of her hand. ‘She’s a member of my team. You’ll have to go through me if you want to speak to her.’
He stared at her in surprise for a moment, before deciding it was obviously not worth the trouble of fighting her. ‘Fine. Come along, then.’
They went and sat down in the empty canteen at one of the plastic tables. Seren looked terrified, Officer Thomas looked worried. Margery gazed between them in concern, as did Officer Symon, who did not seem to know where to sit and was hovering behind his boss.
‘Ms Jones, I’m here to talk to you regarding the missing tools in your staff storeroom,’ Officer Thomas began. Margery looked at him in surprise; the police must have already realised the tools were missing. They were already taking Mrs Large’s misfortune much more seriously than Caroline’s; maybe they were determined to not be bested by two dinner ladies again. Officer Thomas removed a piece of paper from his clipboard and slid it in front of them both. It was the tool kit sign-out sheet. Margery squinted at it and wished she had brought her reading glasses up with her from the dry store.
‘How did you find it?’ she asked without thinking.
‘How did you know it was missing?’ Officer Thomas raised his eyebrows at her.
‘I saw the tool kit in the storeroom when I was getting our tablecloths,’ Margery said sheepishly in explanation. He nodded in acceptance, though he still looked suspicious.
‘Ms Jones, can you explain to me why your name is the last on this sheet?’ He pointed to where she had signed her name on the paper in her usual poor penmanship. She turned bright red.
‘I broke my favourite mug.’ Margery remembered that happening; the mug had been another victim of Karen’s terrible washing up. ‘I borrowed the superglue from the tool kit, and I signed it out, like you’re supposed to.’
She turned to Margery, who nodded to her in encouragement. ‘Were all the tools still there when you returned the superglue?’ Officer Thomas asked her.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’ He questioned her again. ‘Nothing missing at all?’
‘No, nothing. I remember putting it back on top of everything else,’ Seren said softly. She had flushed so much she was almost purple. ‘Can I go now?’
Officer Thomas looked as though he had more to say but had not quite worked out which questions to ask. Margery felt vaguely sorry for him. Dewstow was an awfully quiet town, and this was the second awful thing to happen in less than a year. Officer Thomas must have been nearing retirement age and probably had been hoping for no other big events until he had finished. ‘Just a moment please, Ms Jones.’
‘Whoever took the tools must have been a member of staff,’ Margery found herself saying. Both Seren and Officer Thomas stared at her. ‘No one else could get into the building. Security has really been upped since Caroline died.’
‘Yes. I’d assume so,’ Officer Thomas said.
‘No, you don’t understand, it really has.’ Margery tried to explain. Seren cut her off.
‘Last week I forgot my pass and Gary Matthews the security guard made me fill out a registration form, we’ve been dating for six months!’
‘Have you, Seren?’ Margery said in surprise. ‘Oh, that is lovely news!’
‘Yeah.’ Seren smiled awkwardly. ‘It is nice.’
‘Well, congratulations,’ Officer Thomas said, scratching his head. ‘But none of that really helps us much. We already ran all the security cards and looked at the CCTV footage.’
‘What was the outcome of that?’ Margery asked.
‘Mrs Butcher-Baker, let’s stick to the current conversation please.’
‘Fine,’ Margery huffed. ‘Well, if you’re looking for advice on the tools, the first thing I would do is find out who has the key to the storeroom. Only managers are supposed to have one, and as we just said, Gary would never cut a key for anyone he didn’t know. He barely does anything for us anymore.’
‘Then how did Ms Jones…’
‘I lent her the key that day to get the superglue.’ Margery shrugged. ‘The other thing that’s worth you knowing is that all the tools are numbered and labelled. I remember because the sticker for the pliers fell off when Clementine accidentally put them through the dishwasher and Ceri-Ann printed us a new one. So, you’ll know they’re our pliers if they turn up because they have a massive glittery number six stuck to them.’ She sighed, thinking of Ceri-Ann’s disastrous graphic design work again. Officer Symon had handed Officer Thomas his notepad and he was writing down everything Margery said in a fervour.
‘Anything else you can think of?’ he asked.
Margery thought about it, straining her mind for anything that could help at all. ‘There’s only twenty tools in the case, I think. Honestly, I don’t know how Kevin used to do it, he must have brought his own in.’
‘Kevin is the old caretaker?’ Officer Thomas paused his scribbling.
‘Yes.’
‘Get his details from Mr Barrow, Symon,’ Officer Thomas said, Symon nodded. ‘Every little helps at the moment.’
‘The thing that’s really bothering me and Clementine,’ Margery continued, deciding that if they were not allowed to get involved, then the least she could do was tell Officer Thomas her side of things from a staff member’s point of view, ‘is that the stage couldn’t have been put together by one person, there’s no way. You’ve seen it, it’s huge! It’s got its own dedicated storage space behind the shutters in the hall and it’s all in bits you have to slot together. There’s a reason that we only get it out for the Christmas concert and the leavers’ assembly in the summer term.’
‘Who’s the most likely to have even built it? Nobody cares about the school play, not at all,’ Seren piped up. ‘And there’s so much to do around here, who’s got time to put a stage together?’
Unless it was someone who really wanted the play to go ahead, Margery thought. Like Mrs Smith. Margery tapped her finger on her lips and pondered. The only person she could think of who would want the concert to go ahead was Mrs Smith. Possibly the rest of the drama department, though they all seemed to be as forced into it as the rest of the staff were most of the time, but Margery could not see Mrs Smith doing any hard labour herself. Let alone raising the shutters at the back of the school hall, dragging the stage platforms out one by one, and then unfolding and putting the whole thing together piece by piece to secure it in place. Then after all that was done, getting the ladder out and clambering up it to fit the light fittings. Even if she had got that far, she could not have possibly done it all alone. No, there definitely had to be somebody else involved.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Officer Thomas said as he wrote down the last of Margery’s words. ‘Well, thank you both. Ms Jones, you’re off the hook for now.’
‘Are we free to go?’ Margery said, as she checked her watch. ‘We’ve all got to go to the next rehearsal.’
‘That’s still on?’ Officer Thomas asked in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘We’re as surprised as you are,’ Margery said. She could see Clementine waiting for her by the kitchen door, still in her kitchen pinafore. The others must have already left to get changed.
‘Well, then I’ll let you get on. Margery, here’s my number.’ He wrote it on the notepad and then ripped the paper off to give it to her. ‘Call me if you find out anything.’
They rushed off to get changed out of their kitchen clothes. Margery wondered if the police had managed to find anything else of use in their investigations. It was going to be hard to stay out of it all, she could already feel herself itching to start putting the details together.
‘What was that all about?’ Clementine asked as they hurried down the corridor to the school hall. Margery managed to catch her up on the way. They were dreadfully late for rehearsal and Margery hoped Mrs Smith would not be too angry at their lateness. She wished she could muster up even an ounce of enthusiasm for the play, but she felt as flat about it as the rest of the team did. All the other staff would probably have already gathered in the hall by now. They made it to the room, flinging open the double doors and almost knocking Gloria over as they bowled in.
‘Where have you been?’ she hissed, ‘I’ve had to stop Benjamin escaping, and I caught Karen and Sharon trying to leave through the fire escape. You can’t force us all to come and then be late, Margery, it’s not on.’
‘We’re here now.’ Margery panted, handing Clementine her asthma inhaler from her cardigan pocket. ‘Come on, let’s at least get good seats.’
* * *
They all wandered in and over to the plastic chairs by the piano. The cleaners were there. The unfortunate teachers who had been dragged into the play were there. Mrs Smith was not.
It was not like her at all. She was usually terrifyingly punctual. Margery looked around in confusion as she took a seat. Had something happened in the few hours since they had last seen her?
