Health Shop Murders

By Robert H Fellows

Detective Superintendent Larry Lunn was not averse to having a few wets at his local pubs on most days, as he enjoyed a drink, an enjoyment that his wife tried to change by suggesting they had a healthier lifestyle, and what resulted was an incident with muesli, followed by his hatred of health foods.
However when it came to solving bizarre or difficult murders, there was no one finer than Lock Em Up Larry Lunn, yet ironically, thered been a series of murders in health food shops that had him baffled, and what fueled his frustration even more was Aymless Aymes, his senior officer, being particularly annoying by the way hed disastrously been meddling with his investigation.
So with his sidekick, acting Detective Inspector Frank Sinetra, whom he took his frustrations out on, he would, with more luck than judgement, eventually get to the bottom of the mysterywith surprising results.
Another enjoyable light read by this popular author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496982742

Robert H Fellows

I was born in Dudley. I am a keen WBA supporter, but I prefer to play rugby and have played for Saracens. I was schooled in Jersey, Channel Isles, then I returned to England. I went into sales and marketing and have owned my own business since 2011. I thought to write a book, then finished three in a space of one year and still continue to put pen to paper.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Y ou see my wife was forever telling me that when it came to me remembering any important dates that made up our social calendar for the year, then I was, she told me, ‘next to totally use less.

Now that had all stemmed from what you might call my ‘home memory’ not being anything like my ‘work memory’. You see my ‘home memory’ was all about forgetting, whereas my work memory was all about not forgetting.

Let me explain. What she had meant by my being ‘next to totally useless’, was that all birthdays, anniversaries, or home events of any sort, which you would have thought in all honesty I’d always wanted to remember, I’d often forgotten, and she thought that was disgraceful.

Truth was, there’d been occasions when I had even forgotten to send my mother or my wife a birthday card. Disgraceful I know. So from that, you can obviously deduce that for me to have remembered the birth-dates of my friends or relations, was nigh on impossible. In fact you could almost say that my having to remember anything at all that was domestic, even had it been important, was never going to be easy for me to remember; though I should add, it was never intentional.

Yet strangely at work, being as I’m a detective, when it came to remembering faces, facts, events, details, my memory was brilliant. In fact you could have almost said I had a kind of photographic memory, which I suppose is hardly surprising, having trained myself to remember such things.

Do you know, I’d even forgotten I was due to receive a bravery award from my superiors, for pulling a young girl out of a lake, just before she’d been about to go down for the third time. And had it not been for Ann warning me just in time, I’d have forgotten I was to receive an MBE from the Queen at Buck Palace, for my outstanding contribution to the public – by solving murders.

And there’d been other occasions both before and after I’d first met Ann, and our getting married, that I’d made other arrangements to do other things, and forgot; like the time when we were due to go to Turkey on a holiday together, and had luckily been reminded just in the nick of time by a colleague, three hours before the flight. Now most people would have wanted to remember those kind of things, yet I hadn’t, and Ann of course, had not let me forget that holiday episode in a hurry, I can assure you!

So because I’d continued to forget important ‘domestic’ dates, far too numerous to mention here, she had, bless her cotton socks, come up with the idea of combining two events on one date before our wedding; being the anniversary and my birthday, by saying Now you need something as simple as that, so as not to forget that date. Her meaning our wedding anniversary, and not necessarily my birthday, don’t you think?

And then she went on to say. I really do believe it would be so much easier for a person to accidentally fall under a bus, that not to remember that date, don’t you think? I mean even a dunderhead like yourself could never forget that both events were on the same day, could they? At the time, I remember her saying those words with just a trace of menace in her voice. So obviously I’d approved, and can still remember her smiling over her cleverness.

Now most people could be forgiven into believing that her almost too simplistic idea to solve what could have been a life threatening situation for me, had I not chosen to have remembered it in the future years, had been a great idea, so it may surprise you that I had unfortunately, much to Ann’s disgust and annoyance, continued to do!

Though to be fair to myself, I have tried not to forget ‘things’ domestic, and have been known to scribble down on little pieces of paper, various notes of whatever it was I’d needed to remember. Though the problem with that idea is that when it came for those blasted paper reminders to show themselves, and to remind you of whatever it was you had to remember, they could never be found; seeing as I’d already forgotten where I’d placed the stupid things in the first place. In fact there’d been many instances when a day, a week, even months later, I’d come across a little note telling me not to forget something or other, when that occasion had now passed, though not necessarily always forgotten, as Ann will testify. Oops!

And when she’d first gave me an annual diary, I’d even feigned annoyance, particularly when she told me like I was a school boy, ‘Now off you go, and put those dates that are of any importance to you, straight into the diary.’

Her reason for the dairy was for me not to remember our anniversary - right? Wrong! Because Ann had failed to mention my marking down that one important date, being the anniversary date, that would have reminded me of what she had really wanted for me to remember, and hadn’t, which immediately meant her ‘diary’ idea had already this one enormous flaw for it to have worked efficiently, or to her liking.

Anyway, regardless of that heavy threat hanging over my head, I’m not totally stupid not to have remembered most of the anniversaries; in fact three out of the first five, and since she gave me my very own annual dairy each year, four of the last five, including strangely enough, my also remembering our tenth wedding anniversary. Though I must admit, I might have still forgotten that had it not been for the numerous and not too subtle hints that my wife had given me from time to time during the weeks leading up to it, her having known my domestic memory does sometimes do a runner with anything that smacks of domestic.

Well during the weeks leading up to the grand event, with her continually dropping subtle hints about my birthday like she’d been throwing confetti at a departing wedding couple, and by saying silly things like - I really can’t imagine what middle age must be like, and soon it’ll be your fortieth birthday, you know. Though her best one was, I suppose you do know what date your birthday falls on, don’t you Larry, darling? - and then would always walk away giggling.

Though she’d not once mentioned the date, having craftily assumed she’d done enough hinting, you’ll now be delighted to hear I’d finally clued into her hints, and had even bought her a lovely gift, which I will tell you about in a moment.

Though I had you know, felt justifiably pleased to have remembered that important date, for eight times out of ten years is not a bad as average for a feller, is it? I mean, percentage wise, that’s a high 80%, which means I’d have remembered eighty times out of every hundred years, which is a whole lot better than my only remembering it forty or thirty-five times in every hundred years, don’t you think? Although thinking about it, there won’t be any of us around to verify what my final percentage would have been a hundred years from now even had I actually wanted to have known if my final percentage had got any better, or worse! So as I say, it’s all pretty irrelevant really, though I daren’t mention that to Ann.

Anyway on this occasion, I had gone right out there and bought my little lady a motor car, and not just any motorcar, but a five-door hatchback Renault 4 motorcar, that she had not once failed to mention whenever she saw one in the street, and had ooh’d and ah’d about, or have said, Oh Larry, I’d really love to own one of those.

Now most people would have said that buying a motorcar was a very grand and expensive anniversary present to have bought anyone, which is true, however I’d thought it was well deserving for this occasion, to not only show my appreciation for her being a first class wife for the past … arr hum, number of years, ah yes, ten years, but for her being most of the time, a lovely natured woman!

There’d also been another underlying reason for this gift, for the truth was, her lovely ‘Betsie’, a Morris Traveller, was getting you might say, a little long in the tooth, and the poor thing was now costing me more in repairs bills each year than she was actually worth. Although that wasn’t strictly true, I still thought it’ll be practical to get her a certain something that she’d always wanted, meaning the car.

Now telling you that the old gal had become expensive, meaning ‘Betsie’, not my wife, as some of you may have thought, though that is also debatable; and having known she’d owned her beloved ‘Betsie’ for four years before we met, with her also being its second owner, then a new car would have from my point of view, at least ticked all the positive boxes!

Besides, I’d recently had confirmation of my being promoted up the ladder to a fully-fledged Detective Chief Superintendent, and felt that the small increase in wages, that I knew would come with the promotion, might at least have paid towards the cost of the back seats of the car! I’m joking of course ... because I’d known that pay increase, would have probably paid for all the car seating – though not all at once! So my plan had been that just before midnight, the bewitching hour, with it being the last few moments of our tenth wedding anniversary day, and my fortieth birthday of course, to then give Ann the keys to her new motor vehicle. Ah!

Although previous to that, I’d also planned as part of the evening, to celebrate the occasion by taking her to a small Greek restaurant where I’d known she always liked to eat. The idea being, for us to have had of course, what is commonly called a romantic candle lit dinner for two. Ah! And then when we returned home, having previously arranged for the car to be parked somewhere close to our house, in our cul-de-sac, I’d then present the keys of the brand new motor car to her. So what a surprise that should be, and what could possibly go wrong with that idea?

Then after the presentation had been completed, my thoughts had been we’d both go back inside the house, and I would then open a bottle of champagne, and we’d toast each other’s future happiness, and the final moments of my birthday, our anniversary, and of course the new car; then anything else we had in mind that we’d thought might have needed celebrating!

However Ann had of course, promptly changed eating arrangement in preference to our eating at our local pub, the Royal Oak, which was still ok by me, having known the food there would always have been delicious.

However my ‘darling’ Ann, humph, had then taken it into her head, that instead of our having had a candlelit dinner at the Greek restaurant, or even at the Royal Oak, which would eventually turn out to have been a pretence meal anyway, my wife had instead arranged without me knowing anything about it, for our ‘romantic dinner for two’ to have now been a sizeable ‘secret’ party at our house.

In fact to keep up the deception of making me believe that she had really arranged our romantic dinner to be at one of our local pubs, the crafty so in so, being as smart as she is, had even suggested that we should both have an early pre-dinner drink together straight after work, which I’d thought was unusual, as she’d have normally liked for me to have been turned out all bright and fresh, and in clean clothes.

The reason for this, she’d later tell me, was to keep me from going straight home, thereby spoiling the surprise that she had in store for me! Although that part of the deception really hadn’t been too clever about my not going straight back home after work, because going to a local pub, be it the Royal Oak, or the Globe Inn to see Adam Crisp, or even Richard Lovett at the Anchor Inn, who were the landlords, would have been exactly what I’d have normally done on most nights of the week anyway!

In the meantime, she had during the day, almost from the moment I’d left home to go to work that morning, more or less commandeered most of our relatives, and that included both our mothers, who were not the best of friends, to put it mildly, into coming around to help her with the preparation of the food and other things. She’d even got the younger members to put up decorations, and move the furniture back to the walls to make extra room for dancing.

And my small part in in all this cunningly devised secret plan of hers was, to make sure that I turned up at the ‘Oak’ after work - and not to forget that I had to meet her there." As if I would!

So obviously now that Ann had made ‘other’ arrangements for the evening of our anniversary and my birthday, that had not involved my eating at the ‘Oak’, everything had, as you might have gathered, not gone exactly to plan because of her changes, anyway not for me, and would now be highly embarrassing for me, for having seen that the time was rapidly closing in on quarter to eight, the eating time, I’d laughably shown Rachael, the jolly landlady, ten fingers to tell her that we’d be ready to eat in ten minutes time, it having never occurred to me that there would never be any meal to eat.

Now Rachael, bless, had then rather annoyingly, continued to nod and smile at me all the time, her having been previously informed of Ann’s secret. So when I had suggested to Ann, ‘it’s time for us to have our meal,’ she had, Rachael style, just nodded her head, and smiled. And when minutes later, I’d repeated the same words, and again she had again rather annoyingly, smiled and nodded her head, I had become slightly angry! You see the reason that it was now annoying me, besides the obvious, was that I had in fact not eaten that day - well very little - not to spoil my appetite for this evenings celebratory meal, or for any meal in fact, because now I was starving hungry.

So when I said to Ann. Now look here Ann, enough is enough, you’ve arranged with Rachael for us to eat here, and now its eight o’clock, so let’s eat, for her then to say That’s ok Larry, I’m not ready to eat just yet, I was totally flabbergasted, and even more so when she’d added, In fact, Larry, darling, I’m not feeling at all hungry right now, you could have floored me.

And then when she’d quite nonchalantly added, So be a darling, and get me another whisky-mac. Would you mind? I’d nearly had an apoplexy, especially after having been led to believe that we’d by now be seated and eating a lovely two-some Anniversary meal in the pub’s romantically comfortable and decent looking dining area, which because of its age, and old wooden beams, gave it a bit of that old worldly charm.

After seeing me now huffing and puffing, and having noted my expansive and continued look of total exasperation, after I had exclaimed loudly, Would I what? with a voice that was slightly louder because it had a touch more anger in it, she had finally come clean, and had at last let me into her little secret, even though she must have been much amused at the various displays of surprise expressions that I’d shown on my face, especially after she said, Our eating here is not going to happen, Larry.

With my mouth open in amazement, she’d then told me, that she had in fact, never arranged for us to have a meal that evening, it was always a bluff, and had then rather annoyingly smiled along with most of the crowd around me who’d known of her ruddy secret. The sods!

Thinking back, I suppose what had impressed me most about the people who’d known about her secret, was how they’d all suppressed the urge to tell me something, anything, having known that all I really wanted was to have food, especially when they’d seen I was getting huffier and puffier by the minute, and more and more annoyed.

Of course, now having had her new arrangements explained to me, I could understand why all the silly looks, shrugs, and smiles that had come from not only Rachael, our jolly landlady, but everyone else in the know, who’d all been carrying on pretending that our romantic candlelit dinner was actually going to happen, and knowing that for my grumbling stomach would have needed to wait quite a while longer to get food, any food.

Incidentally, regardless of all the pretence, what had mostly annoyed me was that I’d really been looking forward to having had a nice quiet romantic meal with my wife, and that was now not going to happen - sob, sob!

Minutes later, having calmed down somewhat after Ann’s revelation of what was not going to happen, what had actually happened, was that my over indulging had begun, not on food as I’d wanted, but on booze. So now instead of savouring many mouthfuls of delicious food, I had been savouring mouthfuls of booze instead. This was partly to compensate and fill in the time until I got some food, and partly to celebrate both events, events that I may not have remembered, yet because I had in fact remembered, my romantic evening meal had been blown back into my face, so to speak, for having remembered. Which I thought was totally unfair!

Then when the happy events had been announced to all and sundry who hadn’t known, what had followed were cries of ‘speech’ from the pub’s Happy Birthday brigade, who’d then begun to sing extremely badly, ‘They should be publicly pissed on, they should be publicly shot, and put in a public urinal, and then to bloody well rot – rot -rot, and so forth.’

Then after their terrible rendition of a beautiful rugby song, they had, just as badly, sung a very loud version of ‘Happy Birthday to you Larry’, etcetera, followed by their own rendition of ‘Happy Anniversary to you, Larry - Ann’, in voices so loud, I’d half expected dear Rachael, humph, to have said ‘To hell with that, enough is enough’, and as she hadn’t, had prompted me to shake a friendly fist at her for having teased me.

But who cares, because now with this being the start of our tenth anniversary, and my fortieth birthday, I’d accepted, being childish, nearly every drink that had been offered to me, thinking I needed to celebrate both events in style, and having accepted the drink, that had been more often than not, accompanied by a friendly thump on my back, which some people might have said was life at its absolute basic, yet for me had been fantastic!

Shortly after the ‘rotten pub choir’ had finished singing, we’d said our farewells, and left the pub with a few invited friends, to make our way back home to what was to be my very own ‘surprise’ party; but not before we’d again both received many more hand pumping congratulations from most of the happy pub people, the Dyke family in particular, and others who shall remain nameless, but know who they are, along with our having to accept their light-hearted comments, which are generally banded about on such occasions, and are as you might gather, too red-facing for me to mention here.

Having finally got my head around the shock of Ann’s deception, the party had from thereon been wonderful, and counting our parents, friends, relations, most of our close neighbours, some colleagues from work, and chums; more than eighty people had attended the party, and each had kept Ann’s secret a secret from me.

Of course being me, I had needed no prompting to quickly celebrate both of the evening’s celebrations, and get into the swing of things, as was probably expected of me, with me being both a ‘birthday and a anniversary boy’, by chatting; dancing; boozing, laughing, eating, so much so, that I had later on in the evening, forgotten about my having to pass over the keys of the brand new car to Ann, until it being only a few minutes before midnight. Fool I am. When I had again failed to the music of a young Bob Marley, and for the umpteenth time, to limbo dance under a kitchen broom handle being held by two of Ann’s more fun loving women friends, and thinking what great fun it was to always fall back onto my butt, and then to have laughed out loud each time

So it had been extremely fortunate that I’d noticed the time, having been nearly ‘caught out’ as it were, whilst I’d been lying flat on my back, with my legs and arms stuck up in the air, having had, don’t they say, the good fortune that always favours the undeserving, then noticed the time on my wrist-watch through a booze haze, and saw it was time to present my wife with her very own secret surprise anniversary present, from me.

So I’d reacted, all be it very slowly, having seen the time, to struggle up onto my feet, now knowing the bewitching hour, and midnight, had only been a number of minutes away, had then turned the music off, and asked everyone for a little bit of shush, a little bit of quiet.

I must admit, I’d been surprised when everyone, even my chums, who can be the noisiest bunch of reprobates when they’re in the mood, had stopped whatever they had been doing, to listen to what I now had to say to Ann, even though I’d been hardly capable of making any worthwhile speech on such a joyous occasion.

Nevertheless in trying to be romantic, I had sort of tried to purr out what I’d needed to say, and worse still, I’d been slurring my words slightly. Well a lot really, and said. ‘Do you know me darlin’ ducklet … ducks… you are not the one only … not the only one, not the only one who can come up … can come up with big surprises, yer know! Oh no, no, no,’ I said wagging a finger somewhere in her direction, now really struggling for the correct words to use, ‘because, because me little darl. … dove, I’ve got my, my own big surprise that I need to show you!’

Ooohs, and hello hello’s, had come from my listeners, especially when I’d continued. ‘So if you’ll be kind enough to step outside into the garden with me for just a minute, I’ll then show you what me … my big surprise is!’

I can recall there’d been further hiyi’s and whistles, mostly from the rowdy lot, who’d for some reason, thought my words amusing.

Having done with the speech, I’d begun to shoo everyone out of the house, a bit like rounding up cattle I vaguely recall, and then had frog marched them all down the pathway towards the road like they were a group of hikers going on some god-dam trekking party. As for Ann and me, well we’d been childishly dancing alongside them in the meantime, doing what I thought had been a jig, or was it a quick step?

Never mind, cos had anyone been observing us, they’d have seen that Ann had been continuously stepping on my feet, humph, and it would have been blatantly obvious to one and all, that whatever the mind tune we’d both been hearing and dancing to, obviously had been to different rhythms, whatever they were.

So when I had eventually got everyone out to the road, what had followed next was that I’d begun looking around me like someone who’d been lost in a maze; which wasn’t entirely surprising, considering the amount of booze I’d already consumed, plus all of the activity that was going on around me.

Though I do remember a few choice remarks had been said from one or two of our guests, probably because the night air was actually quite chilly after the warmth of the house. So having taken another look around me, because I really hadn’t a clue where the car might have been parked in the road, having asked for it to have been parked anywhere in the cul-de-sac; I’d finally seen the shining metallic object that was going to be my gift to Ann, some thirty yards away.

So dragging Ann along with me, whilst fumbling around in my pockets I’d more or less staggered towards the vehicle, before I’d found the car keys, and pointing to the car had said whilst passing them over to her: ‘Now this is your own secret surprise anniversary present, my dove,’ and then had kissed her.

For a moment or two, many ooh’s and ah’s and whooping had followed, as each of our guests, I mean those who’d been sufficiently compos mentis enough to have understood what I’d just done; had then begun to act like a pack of raving lunatics; with some giving out loud shrieks; some madly clapping their hands; whilst others had stood laughing and stamping their feet as if they’d been either slightly mad, or cold, or both, yet they’d all in their different ways, shown their approval of my fine gift to my lovely wife.

Although strangely, no-one seemed to be bothered, or had noticed if you prefer, that Ann on approving of my gift, had been twice as noisy as the loudest of them. In fact, after she’d been handed the keys, she’d been making the loudest and longest shrieks of delight out of any of our guests. Not surprising really.

Of course the inevitable flood of happy tears had then followed, which had always made the giving of a gift much more pleasurable, and more memorable! What a strange lot we men must be to enjoy such pleasures as happy tears! Or is it only me whose strange about that?

Though I must admit, that having seen her happy tears, it had made me have a really nice warm glow grow inside of me, and I’d even felt a slight moistening in my own eyes whilst I’d been looking on her happiness, especially having seen her lovingly caress the dashboard, pat the seats, and even turning the steering wheel back and forth during the time we’d all been stood shivering from the cold.

Minutes after the initial excitement had all died down, my guests had all eventually begun to walk back to the house, and warmth, and Ann I saw, had still been looking back towards the vehicle, giving it long approving looks, whilst brushing away her happy tears, before it had occurred to me that maybe her happy tears may have also been due, just a little bit, to the fact that I’d remembered to remember an anniversary! Then thought nah!

Later, when we’d been dancing cheek to cheek to Nat King Cole’s ‘When I fall in love’, Ann told me that after I’d passed over the car keys to her, she had a strange feeling, and then told me it might well have been the flip-side of all that Cinderella must have felt at midnight, having had her night out at the ball.’

And why was that? I asked.

She answered. "Because Cinderella had at midnight if you remember, when I had been receiving the car keys for my lovely gift and joy, had been having her lovely coach and horses taken away from her, whereas at midnight, I’d only just been given my lovely gift!’

Her reasoning had been that her new car might have been Cinderella’s coach and horses. Daft eh – or is it me being tipsy!

Having further reflected on what she’d said, Ann had concluded by saying: ‘You know Larry, that must have been really sad for her to have watched those lovely coach and horses suddenly reverting back to a pumpkin and mice. Yes that must have been very sad indeed.’ Then she’d had suddenly kissed me nicely, and quickly added with a smile, ‘although there is one thing that is strangely consistent in both our tales."

‘And what pray is that’? I’d asked when she’d released me, gasping for breath, although with slurring my words, it had sounded ‘What spray ishdat’.

‘Well for Cinderella,’ she began, ‘her love for her special prince had always remained constant and true, just as mine has always been for you, as you are my own special prince, and that is despite what we two girls have both needed to put up with ….’

‘… put up with!’ I said slightly miffed, ‘what do ya mean, put up with?’

She answered. ‘Meaning despite Cinderella’s horrible stepmother and step sisters always trying to spoil everything for her, she’d needed her love for her prince, as I have for you, to always remain strong and resolute, regardless of …’

Whatever she’d been about to say, she’d left unsaid, probably having seen that I’d been far too piddled to have understood anything she’d have said anyway, and instead had smiled up at me, and again had kissed me nicely, and when I’d responded to this show of affection by standing on her foot, I’d received a punch on my arm for my trouble! How’s that for being un-grateful?

The following morning, in my bed, I had started to softly moan whilst pressing my fingers into my temples, and with some conviction, had muttered - ‘I will never again drink so much - ever again.’

So first off, it’ll only be fair to tell you what had been so wrong about last night – not the party, but for me. For I’ll now admit having probably drunk twice the amount of booze that I’d have normally had in