The Greek Who Stole Christmas (6 page)

To be honest, I’d forgotten that Snape would have left someone on duty and I could see at a glance that we weren’t going to get past the policeman at the door. He had the sort of face that if he ever decided to join the dog unit, he wouldn’t need a dog. Ignoring him, I went straight to the house next door and rang the bell, hoping the owner would be in.

She was. The door opened and a huge, cheerful Caribbean woman in a brilliantly coloured dress appeared on the doorstep, the great slabs that were arms folded across her ample breast. “Yes, me darlings? How can I help you?” she boomed out.

I nudged Tim.

“I’m Tim Diamond,” Tim said.

“Yes?” The woman was none the wiser.

“My brother is a private detective,” I told her. “He wants to ask you some questions about the guy who lived next door.”

“That’s right,” Tim explained. “And if he lived next door, then I’d imagine he must have been your neighbour.”

“That’s brilliant, Tim,” I muttered. “How did you work that one out?”

It turned out that the woman was called Mrs Winterbotham and had lived at number 25 for almost as many years. Her husband was out, working at the meat market, and she invited us into her kitchen and gave us tea and coconut biscuits. She had already told the police everything but she was going to enjoy telling us again.

“Reginald was an actor,” she said, then looked left and right and lowered her voice as if he might be listening from beyond the grave. “But he wasn’t a very good one. Oh no! He was out of work most of the time. He was in
The Cherry Orchard
last May, playing one of the cherries. And last year he appeared at the Unicorn Theatre in a one-man show.”

“Was it popular?” I asked.

“No. Only one man came.” Mrs Winterbotham dropped three sugar cubes into her tea and helped herself to another biscuit. “Reginald was a nice man. But, you know, I’m not sure it really helped his career, his having a stutter.”

I remembered now. Parker had stuttered when he was on the roof. So it hadn’t been because he was afraid.

“I said to him that he ought to be a mime artist,” Mrs Winterbotham went on. “That way he wouldn’t have had to talk. But I don’t think people would have paid to see him. He didn’t have the figure for it. To be honest with you, I’ve seen more attractive figures hanging up in the meat market.”

“When was his last job?” I asked.

“Well…” She put down the biscuit and leant forward conspiratorially. “That’s what I told the police. He always got a job at Christmas. He worked in a department store. But this year something very unusual happened. He got paid for a one-night appearance in the West End! He didn’t tell me what it was but I do know that it was a lot of money.”

“Who paid him?”

“He never said. But I don’t think it can have worked out because when I saw him the next morning, he was very upset.”

“How do you know he was upset?” Tim asked.

“He was crying.”

“You’re sure they weren’t tears of happiness?”

“Oh no, Mr Diamond. He was completely miserable. And then that afternoon, someone came to the house. I heard this banging and crashing and I went round to the garden to see what was happening. Then there was silence. I knocked on the door but I got no answer. So I called the police.”

“Just one last question, Mrs Winterbotham…” I began.

“Please. Call me Janey!”

“Was Reginald Parker Albanian?”

“No. As far as I know, he’d never been to Albania. In fact, he never went anywhere. He couldn’t afford it. Most of the time he just sat at home and watched TV.” She sighed and I got the idea that maybe she’d been his only friend in the world. “And now he’s dead. I can’t believe it. Now, how about a nice piece of banana cake?”

We didn’t have the cake.

Because suddenly, even as Mrs Winterbotham had been talking, everything had made sense. Suddenly I was back on the roof, hearing Reginald Parker as he called out across the gap.
I d-d-didn’t
… I saw the cracker with the acorn and the death threat and knew what it was that was wrong with the letter Minerva had been sent. I thought about Regent Street and the bullet that had come so close it had drilled a hole in Harold Chase’s coat. I knew exactly what job Reginald had been hired for – it could only be one job – and I also knew what was going to happen at twelve o’clock that day. I looked at my watch. It was five past eleven. We had less than one hour left.

“We have to get to Harrods, Tim!” I said.

Tim shook his head. “This is no time for Christmas shopping, Nick.”

“We’re not going shopping. We have to find Minerva.”

“Why?”

A taxi drove by. I reached out and flagged it down.

“She’s going to be murdered, Tim. And I know who by.”

We were on the wrong side of town. We had to cross the whole of London to reach Knightsbridge, and with Christmas just weeks away the traffic could hardly be worse. As we sat in a traffic jam on the edge of Hyde Park I could feel the minutes ticking away. Worse than that, I could see them. The taxi meter was running and Tim was staring at it in dismay, watching as the last of his earnings disappeared.

We finally made it with about five minutes and ten pounds to spare, but even so it was going to be tight. Harrods was a huge place and the grotto was right up on the fourth floor. Worse than that, the entire store was heaving – not just with shoppers but with the usual crowd of fans and policemen who had turned out to see or to protect Minerva. There were security men on all the doors and more photographers waiting in the street, although you’d have thought by now the papers would have had enough of her. I certainly had.

And what nobody knew was that the killer was already inside the building. He would smile at Minerva and he would murder her … and she wouldn’t even know it had happened until she woke up dead.

“This way, Tim!”

We had plunged off the street and into women’s handbags, then into cosmetics, then food. Harrods was every Christmas present you could ever imagine – more presents than anyone in the world could ever want. It was Christmas gone mad: hundreds of miles of tinsel; thousands of glittering stars and balls; enough Christmas trees to repopulate a forest. Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas and I’ll tear open as many presents as I can get my hands on. But as I ran for the escalators, past the groaning shelves and the grinning sales assistants, I couldn’t help but feel there had to be something more to it than this. Maybe something less, if you know what I mean.

We reached the escalators and began to fight our way up. I had a strange sense of déjà vu as I went. Suddenly I was in another department store in a different part of London almost two years before. I’d been running then too – to escape from two German assassins who’d been trying to make sure that the only way I saw Boxing Day was from inside a box. But that was another time and another story and if you want to know about it, I’m afraid you’re going to have to buy another book.

We got to the fourth floor and there was a sign pointing towards Santa’s grotto, “Jingle Bells” blaring out of the speakers and little kids everywhere, dragging their mothers to see the man in red.

I stopped, panting. “I hope we’re not too late,” I gasped.

“Yes,” Tim agreed. “Santa may not have any presents left!”

Sometimes I think Tim doesn’t belong in the real world. Maybe he’d be more comfortable in a nice white room with padded walls. But this was no time to argue. It was twelve noon exactly. Somewhere in the clock department down below, a thousand clocks would be chiming, bleeping or shooting out cuckoos. The grotto had just been opened by Minerva. And the way ahead was blocked.

There were toys everywhere. Vast Lego castles, cuddly toys, jigsaw mountains and Scalextric cars buzzing round in furious circles. Children were pulling and pushing in every direction. In the far distance I could see the green, plastic entrance to a green, plastic cave with a long line of people waiting to go in. That was where we had to be. But our path had been closed off by a sixteen-stone store security guard with the body of a wrestler and the face of a boxer at the end of a particularly vicious fight. At least, I assumed he was a security guard. It was hard to be sure. He was dressed as an elf.

“You can’t go this way!” he told me. “You have to go to the back of the queue.” So he
was
a security guard. I should have known. How many elves do you see carrying truncheons?

“Where’s Minerva?” I demanded. I was afraid I was already too late – and this brute in green tights was only making things worse.

“She’s in with Santa Claus, opening the grotto. You’ll have to wait in line if you want her autograph.”

“I don’t want her autograph. I want to save her life!”

But it was no good. I might as well have argued with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (there was a mechanical version next to the cave). I had to stop myself pulling out my hair. I was expecting a gunshot at any moment and here I was trying to reason with an elf. I looked around me, wondering if I could bribe him with a cuddly toy – or if not, hit him with one. That was when I saw Detective Chief Inspector Snape, standing grim-faced with Boyle next to him, the two of them surrounded by Barbie dolls.

“Snape!” I shouted out, and before the security guard could stop me I had run over to the two men.

“What are you doing here, Diamond?” he snapped the moment he saw me.

Boyle curled his lip and looked ugly – which in his case wasn’t very difficult. Once again he lumbered forward and grabbed hold of me.

“Don’t worry, Boyle!” I said. “I haven’t come here to steal your Barbie doll.”

“Then why are you here?” Snape demanded.

“You’ve got to find Minerva,” I began. “She’s in danger.”

“I know she’s in danger,” Snape replied. “Boyle and I are on special duty. We’re looking after her.”

“You don’t understand…”

How could I tell them what I knew? There wasn’t enough time and with all the noise in the place – the children screaming, the music playing, Rudolph singing and all the rest of it – I’d have been hoarse before I got to the end. But just then Minerva appeared, coming out of the grotto with her manager, Jake Hammill, next to her. There was no sign of her husband, but somehow I wasn’t surprised.

I twisted out of Boyle’s grip, and with Tim right behind me I ran over to her. As usual, Minerva was looking drop-dead gorgeous in a slinky, silver number, and despite everything I was glad that I had arrived in time and that she hadn’t, after all, dropped dead. She was holding a present, about the size and shape of a shoe box. Santa must have just given it to her.

She saw me. “You!” she snapped – and unless that’s Greek for Happy Christmas, she wasn’t too pleased to see me.

I stood in front of her, my eyes fixed on the box. I didn’t want to touch it. To be honest, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. I had a good idea what was inside.

“Did Santa give you that?” I demanded.

“Yes.” She nodded.

“Do you know what it is?”

Minerva shrugged. She didn’t really care. She was only here for the publicity. “No,” she said.

“I think it’s a clock,” Tim chimed in.

“Why?”

“Well … I can hear it ticking.”

Snape leant forward and took the box. “What’s all this about?” he demanded.

“Chief Inspector,” I said, and suddenly my mouth was dry. “I’d be very careful with that unless you want to spend this Christmas in six different parts of London all at the same time.”

“What are you talking about?” Hammill demanded.

“There’s probably an oak leaf or two in there and maybe some acorns. But I’ll bet you any money that the rest of it is a bomb.”

Maybe I said the word too loudly. Somehow the crowd caught on to what was happening and suddenly the entire department was filled with hysterical mothers dragging their screaming kids off to the nearest escalator. I ignored them. I just wanted to know if Snape was going to believe me. And to be fair to him, just this once he gave me the benefit of the doubt. Very gently, he lowered the box to the ground, then turned to Boyle. “Have you got a knife?” he asked.

Boyle reached into his pocket and took out first a cut-throat razor, then a bayonet and finally a flick knife. He pressed a button and ten centimetres of ugly steel leapt out to join in the cheerful Christmas atmosphere. Snape took it. Very carefully, he cut a square in the side of the parcel and peeled the cardboard back. He looked inside.

“He’s right!” he said.

He didn’t need to tell me. Looking over his shoulder, I could just make out part of an alarm clock, some loops of wire and something that could have been Plasticine but definitely wasn’t.

Snape looked up. “Plastic explosive,” he whispered. “It’s connected to an alarm clock. It’ll blow up when the bell goes.” He squinted through the square he had cut out. Then, very slowly, he handed the package to Boyle. “All right, Boyle,” he said. “This is timed to go off in forty minutes. You’d better get it down to the bomb disposal squad.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a forty-five-minute drive away.”

Boyle stared at him.

“See if you can find a short cut,” Snape advised.

Boyle disappeared – in a hurry. Snape turned to me. “So what’s this all about?” he demanded.

“Santa just gave me that!” Minerva rasped. She was standing there dazed.

“Have you been a bad girl this year?” Tim asked.

“It’s not Santa!” I said. “Come on…”

The five of us – me, Tim, Minerva, Jake Hammill and Snape – dived into the grotto. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the security guard talking into his radio, presumably calling for reinforcements. There was nobody else left on the fourth floor – as far as I knew, there was nobody left in Knightsbridge. White plastic snow crunched underfoot as we followed the path into the cave. White plastic stalactites hung down and white plastic stalagmites pointed up – or maybe it was the other way round. I can never remember. We passed a couple more mechanical singing reindeer and arrived just in time to see a familiar red figure, about to leave by a back exit.

“Hold it right there, Santa!” I shouted.