Christmas Clue (eBook)

Nicola Upson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
144 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
9780571395033 (ISBN)

Infos

'A perfect Christmas crime story.' Elly Griffiths A Christmas murder mystery featuring the real-life couple who invented Cluedo 'An ingenious plot' ????? 'A great read for Christmas . . . nostalgic and thoroughly entertaining.' ????? 'Unexpectedly emotive, engaging and sweet.' ???? Christmas Eve, 1943. Anthony and Elva Pratt arrive in a snowy English village to run a murder mystery game - and instead discover a real murder. The Pratts had planned for festive cheer, despite the wartime shortages: with Elva's map of the hotel and Anthony's prop weapons to use as clues, the guests in their parlour game would move through the rooms to figure out whodunnit. But when Anthony discovers the cook's sister Miss Silver beaten to death, they instead find themselves investigating a shockingly real crime. The hotel manager Mr Browning is trying to keep the peace but the guests are agitated, Colonel Colman is about to take over the hotel for the war effort - and the mysterious Mrs Threadgold hasn't been seen at all. In games, there's only one victim - but this is real life. Can the Pratts puzzle out this Christmas mystery before it's too late? 'A true Christmas cracker!' Andrew Taylor 'What fun!' Lynne Truss Praise for Nicola Upson: 'Always a delight.' Sunday Times 'Upson [. . .] gives new life to a classic murder setting.' Spectator 'Wonderful writing.' Ian Moore 'A talented author of historical crime.' Scotsman

Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. Her debut, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels to feature Josephine Tey - one of Britain's finest Golden Age crime writers - and was dramatised for BBC Radio 4. Several of Nicola's novels have been listed for the CWA Gold and Historical Daggers, and Sorry for the Dead was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. She is a member of the Detection Club, and in 2024 curated the acclaimed exhibition Murder by the Book: a celebration of twentieth century British crime fiction at Cambridge University Library. She is also the author of Stanley and Elsie, a novel about the painter Stanley Spencer, and lives with her partner in Cambridge and Cornwall.

Textauszug

The snow had fallen steadily overnight, bringing its gentle grace to the quiet suburban street. Elva drew back the curtains in the living room and looked out across the garden, as still and timeless as if it were a photograph fixed in a frame. It must be five or six years since Christmas morning had arrived with such picture-book perfection, she thought, then mocked her own vagueness; she knew exactly when the last white Christmas had been, and she would never forget it. Reluctantly, she allowed her eyes to stray to the row of houses a little further down Stanley Road, built to look older than they were, handsome with their beams and tall chimneys. It was unsettling that reminders of Tudor Close – no matter how small – should follow them to their own fireside. There was a time when both she and Anthony had aspired to a house like that, but she was glad now that they had settled for the solid, more dependable semi across the road, free from pretensions and neither more nor less than it claimed to be.

In his excitement at getting home for Christmas Eve, Anthony had forgotten to put the car away in the garage; it stood forlornly in the drive, smothered in white, and Elva knew that it would never start in time to get him to the office on Tuesday. She went to the front door to fetch some logs from the stack in the porch, catching her breath as the cold air hit her face. Next door, the Bulls’ children were playing on the lawn, thrilled by the virgin snow, and she could still hear their cries of excitement as she took the logs through to the kitchen to warm by the stove. Anthony was moving about upstairs now, whistling the ‘Harry Lime Theme’ that had been on his lips since the film came out, so she put the kettle on and took some tea and toast through to the living room, impatient for him to come down and start the day.

Despite her good intentions to do something different with the décor each year, the room invariably settled into the homely, festive feel that both of them preferred. The cards lined up on the piano varied little from year to year – robins chirping hearty greetings, a Dickensian street scene that her cousin had sent them at least twice before – and the tree resisted any attempt to move it to another corner, nestling perfectly between the hearth and the bookcase and dressed with the decorations they had bought for their very first Christmas together. Somehow, the cat had managed to get at the tinsel, even though they’d left the bottom branches bare, and she bent down to tidy it, then straightened the rectangular parcel that sat in pride of place under the tree. She had wrapped it as soon as it arrived, leaving the brown paper on so that the box itself would remain a surprise, and now she had a terrible moment of doubt. What if it wasn’t what she thought it was? What if some well-meaning relative had sent them a lavish box of chocolates? Anthony would be so disappointed if the long-awaited parcel turned out to be something different from the one they were expecting.

‘Happy Christmas,’ he said from the doorway. ‘Everywhere looks lovely. You look lovely.’

She smiled and gave him a kiss. ‘Not bad, is it? I think we’ve remembered everything.’

‘I’m sure we have.’ He glanced across the room to the collection of bottles on the sideboard. ‘I still think we should have got some port in for your father, though. You know how he likes it.’

‘We can’t afford it, especially when we don’t even drink it ourselves. It’ll just sit there going off until next year. Anyway, we’ve bought him a bottle for Christmas,’ she added, nodding to the presents under the tree. ‘If he’s desperate, he can open that.’

Anthony grinned. ‘Shall I lay the table?’

‘In a minute. Isn’t there something you should do first?’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’

He moved to pour the tea and Elva laughed in exasperation. ‘That’s not what I meant!’ She picked up the parcel and handed it to him. ‘Kids all over the country will be playing their new board game by now, and the man who invented it hasn’t even set eyes on the finished product.’

‘It wasn’t just me. We created it together.’

‘Then all the more reason why we should open it now, while it’s just the two of us. Go on.’ Still he hesitated. ‘What’s the matter?’ Elva asked. ‘You were awake most of the night, so don’t pretend you’re not excited.’

‘Of course I’m excited, but now it’s actually here I’ve lost my nerve. What if there’s something wrong with it? What if people simply don’t like it?’

‘People will love it, just like we do – just like Waddingtons did from the moment you showed it to them.’ She took his face in her hands. ‘Anthony Pratt, what do I have to do to make you see how clever you are? It’s a brilliant idea, and you’ve worked so hard to get it right. People will be playing this game for years to come, so stop worrying and enjoy the success. You’ve earned every bit of it. Now, get that damned box open.’

He did as she ordered, ripping the layers of paper off in a flourish, and they stared down at the bold black-and-white box. ‘Well, you wouldn’t miss that in a shop, would you?’ Elva said wryly. ‘It’s wonderful. Very classy.’

Anthony looked at the name splashed flamboyantly across the box, the ‘C’ dramatically enlarged by a magnifying glass and embellished with a bloody fingerprint. ‘I wonder if anyone will really understand why they’ve called it Cluedo? I still think Murder at Tudor Close would have been a better title. Not many people play Ludo these days.’

‘I’m sure they know what they’re doing, so we’ll just have to trust them. Anyway, after what happened at Tudor Close that year, it might be in poor taste to call it that.’

His face clouded over. ‘Yes, of course. I wasn’t thinking. When you put it like that, perhaps we shouldn’t have done it at all. A board game about murder – people might take against it.’

Elva sighed, wishing she hadn’t said anything. Anthony’s kindness was one of the things she loved most about him, but sometimes his ability to see all sides of an argument infuriated her. ‘Why on earth shouldn’t we do it? It’s just a game, like all those crime novels you read. Have you taken against Agatha Christie?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well then, and she sells thousands of books. Quite frankly, if people turn against us like that I’ll be very happy. Go on – have a look.’

She watched him lift the lid, his eyes bright behind his glasses, an excited child on Christmas morning. He was ten years her senior but it had never felt like that, and suddenly she realised how much she had missed that little boy in their life, the mischievous sense of fun that had brought so much joy to their marriage. He had been a musician before the war, a talented pianist who played for some of the greatest singers and entertained the rich and famous all over the world; his creativity hadn’t so much been extinguished by the war as put on hold, sacrificed like so many of the things that ordinary people had given up. He never complained about it, and sometimes Elva wondered if she missed the unpredictability that his music had brought to their lives more than he did, but she longed for him to have something more to look forward to than a desk at the Ministry of Labour. She hadn’t said as much to him, reluctant to raise his hopes if the idea didn’t take off, but Cluedo wasn’t just a game to her; it was an investment in their future, a chance to get back the freedom they had loved.

He was unfolding the board now, and she was thrilled to see her own design laid out in front of her, inspired by the room plan of the hotel at Tudor Close. ‘This is what makes it, you know,’ Anthony said, looking at her with such pride that she felt herself blush. ‘It’s so bold – exactly what we needed.’ He took the miniature weapons out of their bag and started to place them in the various rooms. ‘They’ve done these nicely, too. This piping’s made of real lead. Feel the weight of it.’

She picked it up. ‘Not bad, but I wish they’d kept the syringe. That was the most sinister thing we came up with, I thought. I always imagined Mrs Peacock carrying it round in her handbag, ready for the right moment.’

‘And I had a soft spot for the bomb.’

‘Although I suppose that would have made it fairly obvious which room the murder took place in.’ She expected Anthony to laugh, but he had begun to glance through the character cards and obviously wasn’t listening. He paused, distracted now by one of the colourfully drawn faces, and she didn’t need to see the card to know which one it was. ‘They’ve done the whole thing beautifully, though, haven’t they?’ she said brightly, not wanting...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Historische Kriminalromane
• ISBN-13: 9780571395033 / 9780571395033