Dead Guy: Quaystone Cops Murder Mysteries, #1

By Charles Rozel

He hates his job.

But murder forces him to be a detective.

He has numerous girlfriends. But nobody to love.

Until, that is, he meets Sarah Wilde.

A comedy thriller featuring British detective, Inspector Robert Peel of the Quaystone Cops and Sarah Wilde, a glamorous lawyer from London,

hunting a serial killer in an English coastal town.

A special forces unit, led by the dashing Captain Sutherland, helps in the hunt because MI5 believe the killer is an ex-soldier.

Sutherland becomes Peel's rival for Sarah's affection.

There is a real body on a Guy Fawkes bonfire before Peel unmasks the killer with Sarah's help.

Can you identify the killer before Peel does?

Murder is not funny but this book is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quaystone Books
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224968060

Book preview

DEAD GUY

A COMEDY THRILLER

CHARLES ROZEL

Quaystone Books

DEAD GUY

Copyright: © Charles Rozel 2018

All rights reserved

[e-mail]

Website: thrillers.pub

Cover: Quaystone Books

Dead Guy is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First published: 2018

This ebook edition: February 2024

Quaystone Books

The right of Charles Rozel to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

CONTENTS

A voice from the coffin

Sarah Wilde

News of the scarecrow

The Dancing Scarecrow

Peel's cottage

Cold storage

A burglar

The snake

An assault

A dead scarecrow

Jane confesses

Up in the air

The frogman

Colonel missing

Peel on a horse

Sarah and Sutherland

The siege

Sarah and MI5

Malpass confesses

Amanda

Peel and MI5

Dinner with Lady Swaffham

Amanda kidnapped

Peel with Bentley

Peel arrested

Peel arrested again

Peel escapes

Sarah in the woods

Peel and Sarah

At the Grange

One should not speak ill of the dead.

But what if the dead speak ill of the living?

A VOICE FROM THE COFFIN

The funeral started as normal. A coffin rested in peace in front of the altar. The few mourners shuffled into pews as the organist played. Bats clattered in the belfry. Mice scuttled in the crypt. A rat watched through the leper’s squint.

The vicar cleared his throat. ‘We are gathered here today…’

‘I was murdered.’

It was a voice that no one had expected to hear again in this life; nor in the next unless they were damned. The consensus of opinion, amongst those who had had the misfortune to be acquainted with Thaddeus Parkin, alive and kicking, was that he was destined to be dragged down to Hades by demons, still kicking.

‘I was murdered by one of you.’

Lady Swaffham and Colonel Havelock in the front pew, and Dr Ripon and Mr Malpass in the pew behind, were staring at the coffin like stoned gargoyles. These four mourners were magistrates in the Quaystone court. The deceased had been their chief clerk. Dr Ripon had certified ‘death from heart failure’ and Mr Malpass, an undertaker, had arranged the funeral. The fifth magistrate, Redpath, a fishmonger, was absent.

The shocked silence was broken by the twin thuds of the organist falling off her stool in the organ loft, and the vicar collapsing onto his knees to repent, now believing it possible that he had had a stiff-one too many before the funeral started.

Lady Swaffham was the first to recover and turned her elegant profile to the pew behind. ‘I take it Mr Parkin is not actually dead, Dr Ripon.’

‘Dead as Cock Robin when I signed the death certificate.’

Swaffham looked over her other shoulder at Malpass, the gaunt and sombre undertaker, standing next to the doctor. ‘Mr Malpass, what do you say?’

‘He was dead when I embalmed him, Lady Swaffham.’

‘Some form of group hypnotism do you think,’ suggested Colonel Havelock standing next to Lady Swaffham. He looked pointedly at the vicar through his monocle.

The vicar staggered upright from his knees and stared back at the colonel through pebbledash glasses.

‘I was murdered by a magistrate.’

‘We need to call the police,’ Lady Swaffham said.

The vicar coughed to find his lost vocal cords and gain attention. ‘I saw Inspector Peel near the font earlier but he went out as I began…’

‘Inspector Peel.’ Swaffham’s voice rang sonorous enough to cause the bats in the belfry to clatter even more and the mice in the crypt to scuttle even more and the solitary rat to squint and grin even more.

The Colonel also shouted Peel’s name louder than a regimental sergeant major with a column of privates out of step.

A slow creaking of the medieval door and a figure was backlit by sunshine. ‘Sorry. I was having a quick…is there a problem?’

Inspector Robert Peel stared down at the body in the open coffin which lay on the vestry floor. ‘He looks healthier than when he was alive.’

‘Always wore that suit in court,’ the colonel said.

‘A blazer would have been more appropriate,’ the doctor said.

‘One should not speak ill of the dead, old boy.’

‘Why not? He’s speaking ill of one of us. Accusing one of us of being his murderer.’

‘Tell me again what the voice said,’ Peel asked.

‘Murdered by one of you,’ Lady Swaffham said, standing at the head of the coffin.

‘I didn’t kill him,’ said the colonel.

‘Neither did I,’ said the doctor. ‘What about you, Malpass? Did you kill him? The funeral business a bit slow?’

‘You keep me in business, Doctor.’

Peel put up his hand to forestall fisticuffs between the doctor and the undertaker as they squared up to each other like pugilists, toe cap to toe cap—scuffed brown suede to polished black leather. ‘There’s obviously a rational explanation. Can anyone think of one?’

‘Perhaps one of us is a ventriloquist using the corpse as a dummy,’ the colonel suggested, watching the vicar’s lips.

‘What’s this?’ Peel’s hand came out of one of the deceased’s pockets with a fish finger covered in breadcrumbs. ‘Any ideas why he had a piece of fish in his pocket?’

‘Some religions bury their dead with provisions for the afterlife,’ the colonel suggested.

‘Not in the Church of England,’ the vicar said.

‘Redpath is a fishmonger,’ Lady Swaffham said, reminding those present of the absent justice of the peace.

‘By jove yes,’ interjected the Colonel. ‘Fries a damn good piece of cod. Uses nut oil.’

‘The fish finger of suspicion points at Redpath, then,’ suggested the doctor. ‘The only justice of the peace who is not at the funeral.’

‘Today’s Friday,’ Peel said. ‘Probably why Mr Redpath’s not here.’

‘Bad form not to have been. Respect and all that,’ the colonel said.

‘Nuff respect, mon,’ the doctor said in a Jamaican accent.

‘Doctor Ripon, I do wish you would take this a little more seriously.’

‘Oh, I do, Lady Swaffham. I mean; what’s happened here today is equivalent to finding out the moon is made of cheese.’

‘There is a theory that everyone has a doppelgänger, to use Jerry lingo, somewhere in the cosmos. Interesting that,’ the colonel said.

‘Does that mean there’s two of you?’ the doctor asked. ‘Heavens above!’

‘There was no handkerchief in his top pocket when I closed the lid,’ Malpass said.

They all eyed the triangular piece of white linen poking from the breast pocket of the chalk stripe suit.

‘You sure?’ Peel asked. Malpass nodded to confirm he was sure.

Peel removed the freshly laundered handkerchief and shook it loose. ‘Somebody’s drawn a crayon figure on the handkerchief.’

‘Is it supposed to be a scarecrow,’ the doctor suggested.

‘There’s something written in French underneath the figure,’ Lady Swaffham said. ‘Ceci n’est pas un épouvantail,’ she read in a Parisian accent. ‘This is not a scarecrow,’ she translated.

‘It reminds me of This is not a pipe, a surrealist painting by Magritte,’ the doctor said.

‘I think you mean Maigret, old boy. He smoked a pipe,’ the colonel said.

‘Any ideas who might have put the handkerchief in his pocket?’ Peel asked.

Malpass shook his head to say ‘no’.

A loud knock. They all jumped. Another knock.

‘Is he trying to communicate by another means do you think?’ the colonel whispered in Peel’s ear.

‘I think somebody wants to come into the vestry,’ Peel said, going to the door and turning the ring latch.

A youth in a grubby trench coat and a trilby pushed his nose into the gap between Peel’s shoulder and the door jamb. ‘Why are you all in here?’

‘Scram, Denis.’

‘No way to treat a newspaper reporter, Mr Peel. Why’s the coffin open? I’ve never seen a dead body. Can I have a look?’

‘Scram,’ Peel repeated, barring the youth’s way. ‘Or I’ll nick you for obstructing a police officer.’

‘I’m not obstructing you. You’re obstructing me. But I’ll just wait in the church till the funeral starts.’

‘Do that, Denis. But you may have a long wait. I’m taking the corpse into the Quaystone nick for questioning.’

SARAH WILDE

‘Dead and buried. Case closed.’

‘I still think Parkin was murdered. Ouch!’

‘Sorry. I don’t know why Playtex can’t invent a bra catch a bloke can undo.’

‘Lots of people wanted to kill him.’

‘Who for instance?’

‘Well, I did for one. After working for the sod for three years. Peel, your hand’s cold. And you never found out where the voice came from. Or how it was done. Talk about clueless. Even after dismantling the coffin. And taking the church apart. And having everybody searched. Dead and alive. Peel, I really don’t fancy being strip searched in the back of a police car.’

‘It’s unmarked.’

‘People could see us. Ramblers maybe.’

‘There’s no one about in these woods at this time of night. And anyway, the windows are misted up with my heavy breathing. No one can see we’re inside the car.’

Knuckles rapped on the driver’s window. They held their breaths and kept their heads down. Knuckles rapped again. They kept still on the back seat. The driver’s door opened and a voice muttered, ‘Probably having a shag in the woods.’ And the newcomer got in the driver’s seat.

Peel raised his head and sniffed. The source of an earthy aroma was bending underneath the steering column fiddling with the ignition wires.

‘You’re nicked,’ Peel whispered in the man’s ear.

‘Shit! Didn’t know you was there, guv. You nearly scared me to death. Nicked? What I do?’

‘Attempted theft of a police car. And interrupting coitus interruptus.’

‘What the fuck’s that?’

‘Name?’

‘Fox.’

‘Right, Mr Fox. I’m Police Inspector Peter Rabbit and my companion is Jemima Puddleduck.’

‘Hi,’ Jane said, coming up for air and regretting it.

‘Let’s you and I get out of the car while Jemima smoothes her ruffled feathers. And don’t try and make a run for it.’

‘Can’t run. Bad leg. War wound. Falklands.’

The tramp leaned with his back against the side of the car while Peel frisked him at arm’s length. The tramp was wearing a large overcoat with a trout in one pocket.

‘Got any fish fingers?’ Peel asked, holding up the fish by its tail.

‘Not into shoplifting. Too many additives. E-numbers and all that crap.’

‘Peel, there’s somebody else coming,’ Jane called, as she emerged from the back seat, after adjusting her dress, to stand next to Peel.

‘What are you lot up to?’ The beam of a powerful torch swept Peel and his two companions.

‘I’m a police officer,’ Peel said, shielding his eyes from the glare. ‘And who might you be?’

‘Johnson. I work for the Swaffhams. This is their land.’ The beam focused on the tramp. ‘He’s a poacher.’

‘Just about to let him go with a warning.’

‘You do, and I’ll report you for dereliction of duty. And my boss, Sir Augustus Swaffham MP, is a friend of your chief constable.’

‘My chief constable doesn’t have any friends.’

‘Look, copper...’

‘Inspector.’

‘Unless you nick ’im, your chief constable and the Police Complaints Authority might wonder what you and your curvy lady friend were doing up a dirt track in a private wood at one o’clock in the morning with a freshly caught trout.’

‘Looking for poachers. What else would we be doing?’

The poacher, fishing in the River Drake, looked up and saw the man in the moon through a line of poplars. He awoke to see the round face of Police Sergeant Tom Cooper at the grill in the cell door. A key jangled in the lock and Cooper entered with a tray. ‘I don’t normally serve breakfast in bed, Mr Fox, but you can lie in a bit. There’s a slight technical ’itch with the Court starting. New chief clerk’s not here yet.’

Fox swung his legs off the bunk and sat with his back propped against the wall. He stared past Cooper at the open cell door.

‘Should mention that the door at the end of the passage is locked in case you felt like going for a jog.’

Fox grinned. ‘Gammy leg.’ Then he balanced the tray on his lap and took up the knife and fork to bisect a sausage and dip one end into the yolk of a fried egg. He digested the food with a grunt of appreciation then looked up at the sergeant. ‘The old court clerk—Parkin—found dead…’

‘What about him?’

‘Folks round here say he was done in. Murdered.’

‘He died of natural causes. Heart failure. His doctor certified his death. Buried Friday, he was. Parkin—not his doctor.’

‘People say there was a technical ’itch with the funeral,’ Fox said, sipping his mug of tea. ‘I heard tell the body was taken to a mortuary and unzipped for a quickie autopsy before it was finally planted. Police can’t decide whether or not he was murdered. So I heard tell.’

‘Lot of folks round here have got suspicious minds and gossip. Like I said, Mr Parkin died of natural causes. You take my word for it.’

‘You should run a caf, Sergeant,’ Fox said, munching a piece of toast and marmalade. ‘This is excellent scoff.’ He took another sip of tea. ‘What’s this new chief clerk like?’

‘No idea. Comes from London. This is her first day.’

‘So why’s she late?’

‘Phoned the court office to say her car’s broken down. Inspector Peel’s gone to fetch her in his car. Any excuse to get away from paperwork.’

‘He’s a reasonable bloke.’

‘I think so. Not everybody does.’

Peel came to a tyre balding halt and wiped his windscreen to get a better look at the figure standing next to a Mini. As he got out of his car his mind whirled back to a formal constabulary dinner. Peel had been very impressed by the ice carving of a nude goddess holding a truncheon which had formed the table centrepiece. Now he was looking at another goddess who looked pretty frozen. The vision was even more beautiful close up. ‘I’m Sarah Wilde.’ Her smile was glacial.

‘Shall I see what’s wrong with your car?’

‘I’m hideously late for court. Could we go in your car and I’ll arrange for a garage to fetch mine.’

His eyes put her clothes back on. ‘Sure. Name’s Peel by the way. Inspector. At your service.’ He clicked his heels and saluted in what he intended to be in the manner of a pre-war AA patrolman saluting a member after repairing a breakdown. But her beauty, coupled with the cold, had sent his limbs rigid. His right arm, instead of pointing an extended finger salute towards his right ear, inadvertently slanted upwards, flat palm, in the manner of an SS patrolman.

‘I might be Jewish.’

Abashed, he opened the front passenger door as she opened the rear door and got in the back. Then he knocked his peaked cap sideways as he bent to get in the driver’s seat. Two turns of the ignition had no effect on the engine but did result in the drumming of polished nails on leather briefcase clutched in lap.

‘As I said, I am very, very late for court. On my first morning in the job.’

‘Not to worry. Only one case this morning. Poacher. Arrested him myself.’

‘Serious Crimes Squad are you?’

He concentrated on starting the car. He had now turned the ignition four times. Nothing. ‘Usually goes like a bomb,’ he said, as he tried the key again. This time the engine coughed, backfired, and smoke billowed from underneath its bonnet.

‘Out of the car,’ he yelled.

She was ahead of him, running as fast as her tight skirt would allow for a gap in the hedge. He caught up to her. They watched over the hedge, wide eyed like two kids on bonfire night, and ducked together as his car exploded and was then engulfed in flames.

‘Car’s never done that before,’ he said. ‘Even if it was an old banger.’ And then he smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile at her ashen face. ‘Still, you look a bit warmer. I’ll see if I can get your car going. I don’t think any bits of my flaming car fell on yours.’

He came out from behind the hedge and opened the Mini’s bonnet and peered at the engine. She was close behind him as if worried he might damage her car.

‘Might I ask you a personal question?’ he asked, withdrawing his head from underneath the bonnet.

‘If you must.’

‘Are you wearing stockings or tights?’

‘Pardon?’

‘I think your fan belt might be gone. Stockings over fifty denier make a good temporary fan belt. But tights are better. Twice the strength. Although stockings usually get me going better.’

‘Why don’t you put a sock in it?’

He lifted up a trouser leg to display an ankle. ‘Short socks. They were a birthday present. Of course, it could be your suspension.’

‘I suppose you’d like my suspender belt?’

‘Spect I would’. His huge grin made her realise he’d set her up for that punch line like the straight man feeding the comic. She pinked with crossness. Peel hastily assumed a serious expression. ‘Actually, to be honest, I don’t know what’s wrong with your car. Could you excuse me one for a few minutes. I need to phone the court. There’s a phone box a hundred yards back.’

‘I know. That’s where I phoned the court from to tell them I’d broken down.’

‘Why don’t you sit in your Mini.’

Seeing the sense in his suggestion, she sat in her car and listened to a Chopin etude until he returned from the phone box.

‘No need to rush. Court’s risen for the day. The only defendant has escaped.’

‘Escaped!’

‘Ah! They’ve sent another car.’

Sarah followed Peel’s gaze and saw a police car, with a flashing blue light, approaching at speed from the direction of Quaystone. The car slowed to a walking pace as it drew level with the Mini. The plainclothes driver wound down his window, gave them a leery grin, made several energetic v-signs at Peel and, with a cowboy-like ‘whoop’, accelerated with tyres squealing and disappeared around a bend.

‘Was that the CID?’ Sarah asked, her beautiful mouth agape.

‘Defendant still escaping.’

‘In a police car!’

‘What’s the time?’

‘I thought policemen always knew the time. It’s nearly eleven.’

‘Bus should be due.’

‘Will it be driven by an escaped prisoner?’

‘Here we are,’ Peel said, as a snub nosed bus owned by the Quaystone and District Omnibus Company hove slowly into view.

Having alighted from the bus, Sarah Wilde stared at the redbrick building.

‘Pretty ugly, isn’t it’, Peel said, standing next to her. ‘And the roof’s leaking.’

‘Probably the flashings need replacing.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘My father’s a builder.’

‘We’ll have to get Arnold in.’

‘Is he the local odd job man?’

‘Local flasher. This way,’ Peel said, taking Sarah’s case from her hand and opening the door to a side entrance. ‘Mind the bucket. Everyone kicks it sooner or later.’ He pointed to a rusty bucket strategically placed to catch drips.

Sarah followed him into a dimly lit passage.

‘This is the chief clerk’s room,’ Peel said, opening a door.

‘Is this where Mr Parkin was found dead?’

‘This is where he kicked the bucket one last time.’

‘Is there another room I could use?’

‘You could squeeze in with Jane. She doesn’t mind a squeeze. She’s your assistant. She found the body.’

‘Poor girl. It must have been quite a shock.’

‘I was close at hand. The police station part of the building is at the end of this connecting corridor.’

‘Does anyone else work in the court part of the building?’

‘Just you and Jane.’

‘How many police are there in the police station bit?’

‘Me, Tom Cooper, who is my sergeant, and two constables. The Quaystone cops they call us.’

‘That doesn’t seem to be very many police officers for a town this size.’

‘Not much policing necessary in Quaystone. Folks here are pretty law-abiding,’ Peel said, as he opened the drawer of a filing cabinet and took out a large fisherman’s knit pullover.

‘Another birthday present—like your socks?’

‘Publicans are not allowed to sell alcohol to police officers in uniform, but they are allowed to sell alcohol to police officers in woolly pullovers. Fancy a pint?’

‘I don’t drink alcohol at lunchtime.’

‘See you later, then.’

‘You’re not leaving me?’

‘You’ll be alright. There’s no one else here.’

‘I might manage a small cognac. Anyway, if I remember, you’ve got no money on you. I had to pay your bus fare so I’ll probably have to buy you a drink.’

Sergeant Tom Cooper was sitting with Jane in a corner of the saloon bar when Peel arrived with Sarah.

Peel did the introductions and then went to the gents leaving Cooper to go to the bar for a round of drinks.

‘How did the prisoner escape?’ Sarah asked Jane, after some