Love Me to Death (ebook)

Argumento de Love Me to Death (ebook)

A Christmas short story.

The first of an occasional series of short stories (covering the elapsed time between the books in The Falconer Files series.)

On Christmas Day the two detectives are summoned to a block of apartments in Market Darley, to investigate the unexplained death of a young woman whose fiance was due to move in with her on New Year's Day.

At first, her death seems a complete mystery, then, something that Dr Christmas discovers on the internet indicates that her death could just have been a tragic accident, or was it?

As The Lamb gave way to a reading – And there were shepherds in the fields abiding – his contented reverie was shattered by the brash ringing of the telephone. He rolled his eyes, knowing it wasn’t Aunt Ursula to wish him the compliments of the season, nor his mother Hermione with a last minute plea for him to join them and ‘have some fun’ for once in his life.

No, it would be work that was causing this untimely intrusion into the privacy of his celebrations, as it so often had in the past. Christmas was not a time of peace and goodwill, and of quiet contemplation, when you were a policeman. Picking up the telephone, he turned his steps back to the kitchen, to place his delectable but still raw game bird in the refrigerator.

It had been Superintendent ‘Jelly’ Chivers himself, who had summoned him, in tones both abrupt and imperious. Chivers never minced his words and, given the chance, called a spade a bloody shovel. He had risen to his present position through the ranks, with no buffer of a degree to set him on the road for fast-track promotion. It was said of him that, beneath his carapace of steel, lay a heart of pure flint. His diplomatic skills could be scored with a minus number, and it was rumoured in the staff canteen that he was an alien, originating from the planet ‘Bastard’.

On the phone, Falconer was being told, and told good and proper. Chivers expected this whole mess to be cleared up today, and would accept no excuses for failure; failure, for him, being a dereliction of duty. As Falconer hung up, he thought, with a rueful smile, that old ‘Jelly’ would no doubt have a luxurious and happy day, celebrating in his own inimitable way, with his friends and family. What a pity the superintendent could not have left him alone, to celebrate Christmas in his own fashion.0