“Take a butcher’s in the grotto, miss.”
Pauline glared at the girl, a six-year-old by the size of her, with gaps between her teeth and a dark fringe like a helmet. A green anorak, white corduroy trousers and red wellies. She’d been a regular visitor ever since the school term ended. Her quick, sticky hands were a threat to every toy within reach. But she had shining brown eyes and a way with words that could be amusing at times less stressful than this.
“I think Santa’s stiffed it, miss.”
“For the last time...”
A man held out a green felt crocodile, and Pauline rolled her eyes upwards and exchanged a smile. She rang up the sale, locked her till and stepped around the counter to look for Mark Daventry, the head of the toy department. The child had a point. It was 10.05 and Santa’s Grotto should have opened at 10.00. A queue had started to form. There was no sign of Zena, the “gnome” who sold the tickets.
It was shamefully unfair. Mark hadn’t been near the department this morning. No doubt he was treating Zena to coffee in the staff canteen. When blonde Zena had first appeared three weeks ago in her pointed hat, short tunic and red tights, Mark had lingered around the grotto entrance like a six-foot kid lining up for his Christmas present. Soon he’d persuaded her to join him for coffee-breaks: the Mark Daventry routine familiar to Pauline and sundry other ex-girlfriends in the store. However, Zena wasn’t merely the latest temp in the toy department. She wasn’t merely an attractive blonde. She happened to be the wife of Santa Claus.
Big Ben, as he was known outside the grotto, was a ready-made Santa, a mountainous man who needed no padding under the crimson suit, and whose beard was his own, requiring only a dusting of talc. On Saturday nights, he could be seen in a pair of silver trunks, in the wrestling-ring at Streatham. This time, Mark was flirting dangerously.
“Coming, miss?”
Pauline felt her fingers clutched by a small, warm hand. She allowed herself to be led to the far end of the grotto, the curtain that covered the exit.
“Have you been sneaking round the back, you little menace?”
The child dived through the curtain and Pauline followed. Surprisingly, the interior was unlit. The winking lights hadn’t been switched on and the mechanical figures of Santa’s helpers were immobile. There was no sign of Ben and Zena. They generally came up by the service lift that was cunningly enclosed in the grotto, behind Santa’s workshop. They used the workshop as a changing-room.
“See what I mean, miss?”
Pauline saw where the child was pointing, and caught her breath. In the gloom, the motionless figure of Santa Claus was slumped on the throne where he usually sat to receive the children. The head and shoulders hung ominously over one side.
It was difficult not to scream. Only the presence of the child kept Pauline from panicking.
“Stay here. Don’t come any closer.”
She knew what she had to do: check whether his pulse was beating. He might have suffered a heart attack. Ben was not much over thirty, but anyone so obviously overweight was at risk. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.
She discovered that he wasn’t actually wearing the costume. It was draped over him. Somehow, she had to find the courage to look. She reached out for the furry trim of the hood, took it between finger and thumb and lifted it. She gave a start. She was looking into a pair of eyes without a flicker of life. But it wasn’t Ben.
It was Mark Daventry. And there was something embedded in his chest — a bolt from a crossbow.
Pauline rushed the child out of the grotto and dashed to the phone.
She called Mr Beckington, the store manager, but got through to Sylvia, his secretary. Even suave Sylvia, supposed to be equal to every emergency, gave a cry of horror at the news. “Mark? Oh my God! Are you sure?”
“Is Mr Beckington there?”
“Mr Beckington? Yes.”
“Ask him to come down at once. I’ll make sure no one goes in.”
When she came off the phone, Pauline looked around for the small girl. She’d wandered off, probably to spread the news. Soon the whole store would know that Santa was dead in his grotto. Pauline shook her head and went to stand guard.
She told the queue that Santa was going to be late, and someone made a joke about reindeer in the rush-hour. This is totally bizarre, Pauline thought, standing here under the glitter with these smiling people and their children, and “Jingle Bells” belting out from the public address, while a man lies murdered a few yards away. Her nerves were stretched to snapping-point.
Fully ten minutes went by before Mr Beckington appeared, smoking his usual cigar, giving a convincing impression of the unflappable executive in a crisis. He liked customers to be aware that he managed the store, so he always wore a rosebud on his pinstripe lapel. He nodded sociably to the queue and murmured to Pauline, “What’s all this, Miss Fothergill?” as if she were the cause of it.
She took him into the grotto.
They stopped and stared.
The winking lights were on. The model figures were in motion, wielding their little hammers. Santa was alive and on his throne, dressed for work. Zena the gnome was powdering his beard.
“Ho-ho,” Ben greeted them in his jocular voice, “and what do you want in your Christmas stockings?”
Mr Beckington turned to Pauline, his eyes blazing behind his glasses. “If this is some kind of joke, it’s in lamentably bad taste.”
She reddened and repeated what she’d seen. Ben and Zena insisted that everything had been in its usual place when they’d arrived in the lift a few minutes late. They certainly hadn’t seen a dead body. The Santa costume had been on its hanger in the workshop.
She gaped at them in disbelief.
Mr Beckington said, “We’re all under stress at this time of the year, Miss Fothergill. The best construction I can put upon this incident is that you had some kind of hallucination brought on by overwork. You’d better go home and rest.”
She said, trying to stay calm, “I’m perfectly well, thank you. I don’t need to go home.”
Ben said in the voice he used to his infant visitors when they burst into tears, “Now, now, be a sensible girl.”
“If it’s all my imagination, where’s Mark Daventry?” Pauline demanded.
Mr Beckington told her, “He’s down with ’flu. We had a message.”
“Darling, I think some meany played a trick on you,” Zena suggested. “That kid with the teeth missing is a right little scamp. Some practical joker must have put her up to it.”
Pauline shook her head and frowned, unwilling to accept the explanation, but trying to fathom how it could have been done.
“If you’re not going home, you’d better get back to your position,” Mr Beckington told her. “And let’s get this blasted grotto open.”
She spent the rest of the morning in a stunned state, going through the motions of selling toys and answering enquiries while her mind tried to account for what had happened. If only the small girl had returned, she’d have got the truth from her by some means, but, just when the kid was wanted, she’d vanished.
About 12.30, there was a quiet period. Pauline asked Zena to keep an eye on her counter for five minutes. “I want to check the stock-lists in the sports department.”
“Whatever for?”
“To see if a crossbow is missing.”