Battered to Death

Book 0: Briefcases

by Andrea Frazer

Genres: Short Stories; Cozy Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

The third of a series of short stories covering the elapsed time between the books in The Falconer Files series. This story covers events that occur between the books 'Pascal Passion' and 'Murder at the Manse'. DI Falconer and DS Carmichael are both enjoying a well-earned rest day, when they are summoned to a most distressing incident that has occurred at a chip shop on the parade of shops in Upper Darley. It was obviously murder, but was it something to do with the robust behaviour of some of the more aggressive customers from the night before or was it closer to home?

Release date: February 6, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 56

Sample

Friday 16th April

It was after ten o’clock on a mild evening, and the rather pathetically-named shop unit called Chish and Fips was doing its usual roaring trade for a Friday night. The shop was packed with customers being served and waiting to be served, with even one or two customers standing outside, waiting for the queue to get a little shorter, so that they could join it on the other side of the door.

The heat in the little unit was furnace-like, the faces of the customers nearest to the counter a bright red as the fryers belched out heat and clouds of steam. From outside, the little unit was a beacon of smeared colours, like a work of abstract art, behind its condensation-clouded and dripping plate-glass window. The face behind the counter, trying to cope on its own, was of a similar hue to that of its closest customers, but with the features down-turned and cross. The owner, Frank Carrington, had promised to come in at half-past nine to give her a hand, and had still not shown up.

‘Who’s next?’ queried the cross-faced figure, Sylvia Beeton by name, trying to serve, wrap orders, rescue cooked food from the fryers, take money, give change, and put fresh food on to fry, all at the same time, and getting mighty fed-up with the gargantuan effort she was putting in for what was just a smidgen over the minimum wage.

As a voice shouted out for two cod and chips, and to make it quick, she shouted back, without diverting her gaze in the voice’s direction, ‘You wait your turn like everyone else, Sanjeev Khan. Just because your dad’s on the council doesn’t give you priority over anyone else.’

‘Two cod and chips, one double battered sausage and chips, and one meat and potato pie and chips,’ the next customer called out, while she was still adding up two burgers and chips, two pickled onions, a pineapple fritter, and a portion of chicken with extra chips.

‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can. I’ve only got one pair of hands, and I’ve not taken for this lot yet, she called out, handing over a bulging carrier bag and taking, in exchange, a high denomination note. ‘Haven’t you got anything smaller, sir?’ she asked. ‘Oh, well, can’t be helped.’ She sighed, then raised her voice to the rest of the gaggle in the shop, ‘Correct money if you can, or as near as possible. I’m not a bank, and I’ve nearly run out of change. If you can’t, I may have to refuse to serve you.’

As she got on with serving the next order, throwing an extra load of chips into the fryer and pulling a dozen pieces of fish out of the batter tray and throwing them into another receptacle of boiling fat (for everything was fried in lard in this establishment, in the old-fashioned way), there was a muttering amongst the customers, and some, who knew each other, got wallets out and rummaged around in pockets to see if they had the exact money, or could help out friends, who looked woebegone, when they flashed a twenty-pound note at them, and felt devastated at possibly having to forego their supper just because of lack of change.

The queue shortened slowly, as the lull before ‘chucking-out’ time at the pubs arrived and from the flat upstairs there suddenly boomed an almighty racket of drum and bass music, shaking the fluorescent light fitting on the ceiling and causing some customers to cover their ears.

‘It’s all right,’ Sylvia shouted. ‘I’ll just go up and give them a blasting. I can’t take orders with this racket going on,’ and with that, she was off, through a door at the . . .