Murder Most Malicious: A Mancini Mystery

By Elizabeth Pulford

When good-natured Mr Mancini discovers a body in the Winter Garden Glasshouse, he is commandeered to work alongside the newly appointed and prickly-tongued Detective Haynes. Right from the beginning the case frustrates. Besides the body having no identification, there are no reports of any missing persons. And, as Hayes, tells Mancini, ‘Don’t believe all you are told - people lie.’

In spite of their different personalities Mancini and Haynes must find a way to work together, otherwise the killer might well remain free?

Can two equally stubborn headed gentlemen manage to collaborate successfully, as well as solve such a heinous crime?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Pulford
• Release date: Jul 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370135417

Elizabeth Pulford

Before I became a writer I was a traveller, a typist, a cleaner and an ice-cream girl in a cinema.Now I live in New Zealand in a small southern seaside town with one extra nice husband who is a king of-all-trades.We have two children and two grandchildren.Every morning I go to my little writing room to make up stories. From this room I look out into a small garden, where I can hear the birds squabbling.Writing has long been a passion and sometimes even a curse!I have had over sixty children's books published from the very young to YA with regular publishers. Plus my adult short stories have been lucky enough to win many short story competitions.I love being creative, be it baking bread or chasing after new characters.Photograph by: Liz Cadogan - http://www.facebook.com/LizCadoganphotos

Book preview

A foul find

On a Friday morning, without fail, Mr Mancini was always out of the house early.

He had made it his business over the last thirty-one years to be the first to collect the Otago Witness from the news agency that stood on the Main North Road corner opposite the Botanical Gardens. The newspaper was always delivered at eight o’clock.

It had become a tradition and so must be kept.

The sun had not yet risen above the hill. The winter air was cold and damp. He breathed in deeply and felt his chest expand. It was a welcome change from the deluge of rain that had fallen over the last two days. It was going to be a good day; he could feel it in his bones.

Alfonso Antonio Mancini was fifty-two and a widower of ten months. He was medium in height and a little on the portly side. His black hair had recently sprouted some grey, which Mancini felt gave him a distinguished look. Today he wore a dark coloured coat, a scarf tucked in at his neck, black trousers, ankle boots and a pair of leather gloves. A briefcase, which had seen better days, was almost always tucked under his arm. His complexion was ruddy, his eyebrows and moustache brown, his eyes a grey-blue, depending upon the light. His nose was a little larger than he would have liked, but he possessed excellent eyesight and hearing.

After collecting the newspaper, being assured no one had as yet bought a copy, he tucked it into his briefcase. He then crossed the road and took his customary walk through the deserted gardens. On reaching the pond he pulled out a paper bag from his pocket and scattered breadcrumbs amongst the squabbling ducks.

When the bag was empty he went and sat on one of the seats. He resisted opening the newspaper. He would wait until he was back at home in the privacy of his kitchen before rifling through to see if perhaps his latest attempt at poetry had been published. If it had it would be his first of many submissions. How splendid to be able to read it out to the members of the book group.

No – his purpose for the moment was to talk to Mrs Mancini. Another Friday routine, established after her death, in her favourite spot in the gardens. After relaying all the events that had occurred over the week (five small events somewhat embellished), Mancini rose and set off towards the Winter Garden Glasshouse.

On his way he saw a gentleman approaching and being of a kindly nature he tipped his hat as an acknowledgement of his presence. But the gentleman, it seemed, was in too much of a hurry to be bothered by Mancini's civil greeting.

He was a tall man with long strides, dressed in an overcoat with a dark scarf tucked around his neck. On his head he wore a bowler. He carried a smart looking briefcase, which suggested he was someone of importance in the city. Over his arm hung a black umbrella. As they passed one another he had his head down and seemed totally oblivious of Mancini. In fact if Mr Mancini hadn't stepped swiftly to one side he would almost certainly have been knocked flat and by now be lying in the dormant bed of camellia bushes.

Mancini had always prided himself on his ability to notice and mentally record details. His wife, Maria used to tease him unmercifully about it and how one day it might get the better of him. Not that she could explain exactly what she meant when Mancini had asked.

Upon reaching the Winter Garden Glasshouse he paused, as he always did, to admire its beauty. It was such a magnificent feat with its many panes of glass and its three separate wings. It held the reputation of being the first public conservatory in Australasia. Constructed last year in 1908, Mancini had followed its progress with much interest, as had many other inhabitants of Dunedin. Out of the three sections Mancini’s favourite, without a doubt, was the Tropical House where it was steamy and clammy and where plants had been transported from foreign lands for all to view at their leisure.

He skirted around the large notice informing the public of its closure while suitable repairs were made to the west wing, the long skinny area that contained the cacti and succulents. Just one peek through the half-glassed door and then it was home to enjoy a hot coffee. A rarity in this colonial country where everyone, it seemed, drank nothing but tea. Of course, coffee wasn’t easy to obtain, but Mancini still used his father’s connection.

When Maria had been alive she would have it waiting for him along with a buttered scone and a dollop of raspberry jam.

When he reached the building he stood there puzzled. The door was open, not by much, a mere crack. Whoever was meant to lock up last night hadn’t done a very good job. Perhaps it had been a workman, getting things ready for the maintenance, beginning today. Mancini shook his head in disbelief. Those who had been employed needed to be more respectful of such a fine structure. He hoped the supervisor would be more vigilant during the coming days.

Unable to help himself Mancini slipped inside and was immediately overwhelmed by the sticky warmth.

He paused, and as he did so was filled with an immense joy at being inside the glasshouse on his own. Usually it was filled with people. Worse were the unsupervised children who ran around as if it were a playground. The plants and atmosphere needed to be one of reverence, Mancini had often told Maria.

He moved towards the door that led to the Tropical House and hoped it wasn’t locked.

Again fortune smiled upon Mancini and stepping lightly he found himself in the humid, exotic and wonderful jungle of rare plants. As he circled around the different species of cycads and climbers he nearly missed it. At the time he had been gazing at the banana plant, which towered to the glass roof.

Why he had chosen to lower his gaze at that exact moment he would never know.

But he had, and there, peeping out from between the lush growth of the lower growing plants was a shoe. From where he stood he could see it was a woman’s shoe of black leather, with a small heel.

Taking great care, Mancini stooped and pulled back the large flat leaves. As soon as he did so he saw a woman lying flat on her back, her blank eyes staring upwards as if surprised at where she had found herself.

Truth is often stranger than fiction or so they say

Mancini recoiled in horror. His left cheek twitched. He blew on his hands even though he was wearing gloves. And he blinked continuously.

He was in two minds whether to simply leave the Winter Garden Glasshouse, ignore what he had seen and let the woman be discovered by someone else, or report his find. Yet to do the latter meant leaving her and in a strange way Mancini felt to do so would be to abandon her, even though he knew perfectly well she couldn’t possibly come to any further harm. But to pretend she wasn’t there didn’t sit comfortably with Mancini. Therefore, there was no choice; common sense and his moral duty rose to the fore. Closing the elephant-size leaves as best he could to hide the crime he retreated towards the doorway.

He hurried back to the newsstand. Once there he would ask for assistance in locating the local constable. When that had been accomplished he would return to the glasshouse to guard the woman. As he had discovered the poor soul it was his job to protect her until the authority arrived.

As he approached the gates to the main entrance of the gardens there were two young lads heading in his direction. Between them they carried a long wooden ladder.

Mancini’s mind swung into action. Two young men carrying a ladder could only mean one thing. They were headed for the Winter Garden Glasshouse to begin the repairs.

He hurried over to them.

‘Excuse me,’ said Mancini, forgetting to lift his hat. Forgetting everything except the deceased female lying prostrate in amongst the tropical plants. ‘I need to ask for your help.’

Both lads paused.

Mancini continued, without the flicker of an eyelid. ‘There’s a dead woman below the banana tree and I need one of you to go and find the constable, while I guard her.’

One of the lads raised his eyebrows as if to say to the other, ‘someone’s been on the bottle’.

Of course, even to Mancini’s ears it sounded bizarre.

With a wink at Mancini the two young workers smiled and plodded on their way.

Mancini was not put off in the least. ‘I implore you,’ he said, hurrying after them, ‘what I have said is true. She lies in the Tropical House.’

The lad at the front of the ladder hesitated.

‘I need you to find a member of the law. Either that or stand on guard.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said the lad at the rear end of the ladder.

‘I can tell you with all certainty what I say is the truth. And I can also say with some certainty that if you hurry to the newsstand you might be lucky enough to find the local constable. I know he presents around this time of the day.’

Again the young men hesitated.

Mancini understood their reason. It all sounded too strange to be true and neither wanted to fall for a trick. He tried another tact. ‘What possible reason would I have for deception?’

‘Here,’ said the front ladder holder, ‘you hold onto this while I nip out to the newsstand.’

‘I can’t thank you enough,’ said Mancini, reaching out to shake his hand, but the young man had already left and was running towards the gates.

‘If this is a joke,’ said the other lad, ‘and we end up being late, our gaffer…’

Mancini cut in. ‘I can assure you it is no joke.’ He cleared his throat. ‘If you would like me to help get the ladder to where it is going, I am more than happy to oblige.’

‘Maybe it’s best I stay here and wait for Harry.’

With a small inward smile Mancini knew the real reason for his refusal of help. The youth didn’t think he was capable of bearing some of the ladder’s weight. In spite of his advancing years Mancini was fit. Not only did he walk a considerable distance each day, he also tended his garden. Although to be fair that was more so in the spring, summer and autumn, rather than winter. With all the bending, stretching and lifting that went with gardening he knew the simple act of helping to carry a ladder would have caused him no harm.

‘Then I shall return to the Tropical House. If you would be so good as to direct the law to me when he arrives.’

On his arrival at the glasshouse Mancini slipped back inside. Thankfully, there was still no sign of any of the workers. Most were probably having a cup of tea before beginning. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to view the deceased woman again; it was more a case of needing reassurance she was still there and he hadn’t imagined the whole scenario.

In less than a minute, having been totally reassured that there was indeed a dead woman in the Tropical House, Mancini staked himself outside the door of the west wing.

Within ten minutes he could see in the distance three figures approaching. Two were carrying a ladder. The third looked very much like a member of the law.

Mancini let out a grateful sigh.

‘This is the gentleman I told you about.’ Harry nodded to Mancini. Then without another word the two young workmen left, skirting around the side of the building until they were out of sight.

‘Now then, sir, what’s all this about?’ said the constable who towered over Mancini.

‘The name is Mancini. Alfonso Antonio Mancini.’ After which he began to explain what had happened. Before long the constable interrupted.

‘Best if you just show me the body, Mr Mancini.’

‘It is a woman,’ said Mancini, annoyed that she had already lost her gender. He spun around on the heel of his shoe and moved rapidly through the cacti and succulents area and back into the Tropical House.

Upon reaching the spot he pulled back two of the leaves.

As he did so he heard a gasp from beside him. The constable quickly cleared his throat. ‘It seems you were speaking the truth.’

Mancini knew he could have replied several different ways to the constable’s response, but refrained.

Not for himself, but for the woman whose life had been taken.

The arrival of a detective

‘This is him, sir,’ said the constable.

‘So you are the gentleman who found the body?’ Detective Ellis Harvey Haynes’ sharp blue eyes flicked away from the constable and onto Mancini. The detective was a wiry man who stood a good shoulder above Mancini. A flock of fair hair flew around his uncovered head. His face looked as if it had been finely chiselled out of porcelain; so pale were his other features compared to his eyes. His jacket, buttoned up against the brisk morning air, was crumpled and littered with what looked like bits of fluff. His trousers fared no better. In those first few moments Mancini decided the detective either didn’t have a wife, or his outfit had been pulled in a hurry out of a packing case where it had lain for some considerable time.

To Mancini, Haynes looked nothing like a detective. He had always imagined detectives to be as furtive as the criminal they were pursuing. Along with being smartly dressed.

‘I am,’ said Mancini, his stomach rumbling.

‘How long ago?’

‘At a guess I would say around ninety minutes.’

‘I don’t like guesses,’ said Haynes, swinging around and heading inside the area that held the cacti and succulents.

Mancini felt put out. On the constable’s instructions he had hung around until the detective had finally arrived. His feet had no feeling left in them. He was famished (even though he had eaten a hearty breakfast at seven-thirty) and his face was stiff. In addition to that, he was still in shock at having found the poor woman, so being told, by what he considered a very unorthodox detective that ‘he didn’t like guesses’, did not fare well with Mancini.

As Mancini followed Haynes he pulled out his fob watch from his top pocket (the chain having been broken and never repaired) and worked out the exact moment of his discovery. He remembered he had checked the time before entering the west wing, wondering how soon after it was that the workers had appeared.

‘It has been exactly seventy-eight minutes,’ said Mancini.

‘Excellent,’ said Haynes. ‘Which would make it what time?’

‘I entered the Winter Garden Glasshouse at eight twenty-two and walked directly to the Tropical House. I had been in there no more than two minutes when I saw her. Which would make the time of discovery eight twenty-four.’ Mancini had been going to add ‘give or take a few seconds’, but thought better of it. Haynes was obviously a gentleman who liked precision, not a diluted version of the facts. He needed to remember that in case he was called upon to give a formal account of his find.

‘There was no one else around the building? Inside or out?’

Mancini shook his head. ‘Which was why I took the opportunity of having the place to myself.’

By now they had reached the towering banana tree.

‘Hmmm,’ said the detective after lifting the leaves of the plant harbouring the crime.

For the first time Mancini noticed the woman’s appearance, having been far too shocked before. She wasn’t in her prime, but neither was she old. He would put her age at around forty, maybe a little younger. Her long black hair was strewn around her face in disarray, partly covering the left side of her face like a broken wing. He guessed (which naturally wouldn’t suit the detective) normally the woman’s hair would have been pinned up, as was the fashion. She had on a plain white blouse and a brown skirt with a small frill around the lower edge. One shoe still remained on her foot, while the other lay in a careless manner in front. She wore no jewellery. Where was her hat? Her bag? A well-heeled woman never left the house without either, so Maria had been fond of telling him when he had to wait most patiently for her to well-heel herself. And gloves? Mancini could see there were none. The palms of her hands lay open, her fingers curled inwards. Who was she? Certainly not a lady of the night…

‘What exactly were you doing here, in this particular location?’ said Haynes, interrupting Mancini’s thoughts.

‘I always come to the gardens on a Friday to talk to Mrs Mancini.’

The blue in Haynes’ eyes narrowed.

‘By the duck pond, that’s where we meet after I’ve collected a copy of the Otago Witness. It’s quiet then.’

‘And Mrs Mancini is who exactly?’

‘My wife,’ said Mancini, annoyed he had been caught out again. He thought it would have been obvious, but then on further consideration Mrs Mancini could well have been his mother.

‘And where is Mrs Mancini now?’

‘She died ten months ago. The duck pond was her favourite place in the gardens.’

Haynes let the foliage fall over the dead woman. ‘I see. My condolences.’

Mancini nodded.

There was a moment’s stark silence before Haynes spoke. ‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why were you here? This particular glasshouse does not open until ten o’clock in the winter. In summer it is nine. I’m curious to learn how you entered if the door was locked?’

Mancini could see that Haynes knew most of his facts and times in relation to the Botanical Gardens, but not all.

‘In answer to the last question first, the gardens themselves are open from dawn to dusk throughout the year. It is the buildings, such as the Winter Garden Glasshouse that have the times as stated by you.’

‘And…the reason as to why you were here?’ said Haynes, making no apology for his oversight.

‘Inasmuch as Mrs Mancini’s favourite place was the duck pond, mine, since its completion, has been the Tropical House.’ Mancini smiled. ’When I came to admire the magnificent building as I usually do after talking with Mrs Mancini, I noticed the west wing door was ajar. At first I thought it was the workmen setting up for the repairs, but realising it wasn’t the case I slipped inside so I could admire the exotic plants without interruption.’

‘Why should I believe you?’ said Haynes.

To say Mancini was taken aback would have been an understatement. Words gargled around at the back of his throat but none left his mouth.

At that moment a voice called out, ‘You in there, Detective?’

‘Thank you,’ said Haynes to Mancini, ‘you may go.’ Then added, ‘Leave your home address with the constable.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘At the moment you are my only suspect,’ clipped Haynes, a ghost of a smile crossing his lips.

Dismissal hadn’t given Mancini the relief he had expected. He stood aside as a gentleman appeared lugging a large contraption, which Mancini recognised as a camera.

‘Morning.’

Mancini acknowledged the greeting and decided that the one word uttered by the gentleman held more manners and civility than the detective had done in all of his.

He hoped the blinding flashes of the picture-taking would cause no harm to the tropical plants.

With that thought uppermost in his mind, Mancini stumbled out of the Winter Garden Glasshouse where a small crowd of curious onlookers was being kept at a discreet distance by the constable.

Amongst them Mancini noticed the two young lads.

He raised his hat in their direction, then turned his back and hurried towards the main gates.

He was halfway there when he remembered about the detective’s instructions to leave his address with the constable. With a sigh Mancini retraced his steps to do his duty.

Mancini tells all to the professor

Blood.

Mancini stopped climbing the hill.

There had been no sign of blood. Not a drop. Of course once the body was moved it might provide a clue as to how she had died.

Before climbing any further, he gazed over at the newly opened Knox College, a Theological Hall dealing in the training of Presbyterian ministers. He had followed its building progress both physically and in the Otago Witness. Set on many acres it looked stark, but in time, given its grandeur and when the grounds were planted out, he had no doubt it would become a landmark.

Mancini turned off Opoho Road and into Arden Street.

He doubted the woman had taken her own life, but one never knew what another was thinking. If that was the case it seemed a strange place to choose.

He also doubted she had tripped and crashed to her death. There was nothing on the path to catch one’s step. If she had fallen she would have been lying face-down, not flat on her back. But for argument’s sake say the woman had fallen and knocked her head, where was the blood? And what had caused her to topple in the first place?

It appeared as if the woman had been deliberately hidden beneath the plants.

There had also been no smell. Which suggested, even though Mancini knew very little about corpses, she hadn’t been there long.

At that moment, Sir Bastion (a despicable bulldog) snarled from behind the tall green gate. Mancini jumped. He uttered a curse under his breath and hurried by. He was sure its owner, Mr Wylie, had trained it to be a nuisance any time anyone passed; although it had never behaved with such malice when Maria had been with him.

His thoughts returned to the dead woman. In Mancini’s mind everything regarding the deceased pointed to one thing. The woman had been killed elsewhere and then transported to the greenhouse in the hopes (perhaps) that the victim wouldn’t be discovered until after the west wing had been repaired.

Why go to such elaborate lengths?

Perhaps to give the murderer time to escape? Or more likely, given the heat of the Tropical House, time for the corpse to decompose quicker than normal, making it harder to identify.

The glasshouse murder – for that was how Mancini was now thinking of it – seemed to have been carefully planned.

The thought sent a shudder through him. He glanced over his shoulder, wondering if he was being watched. Followed by the murderer as having been the one who had made the alarming discovery.

Mancini hurriedly opened his front gate and sneaked down the short path towards the front door.

Against all hope he wanted to avoid Professor Millar