Pandemonium. That’s the only word that could describe it. Children sobbing into parents’ shoulders, parents sobbing into their mobile phones, yet more phones making that awful frog warble. Right in the middle of it: me and Santa. The latter very dead indeed.

The pathologist would later tell me Santa (real name: Roger Duddett) had died from the first wound. The other three holes unnecessary, except to the killer. As acting DI on the case, it was up to me to figure out who and the why.

Going by the book: first item on the agenda: secure the locus. Easier said than done in a cardboard shack at the centre of Churchill Square shopping centre, with only two more shopping days until Christmas.

Christ what am I going to tell the kids when they ask about my day? –‘Santa’s dead and I’m looking for his murderer…’

Next: people at the scene. PCs were taking care of that. An unending curve of benches rapidly filling with Constables and quarry. A quick straw poll: Santa’s elf seen fleeing the scene moments before the unfortunate family who now wished they’d not bothered queuing.

CCTV confirming the elf flight.

‘…and it looks like Santa’s little helper is top of my naughty list, kids…’

A quick word with the manager and I was on my way to Brangwyn Avenue. Impossible to miss my destination: the expression ‘lit up like a Christmas tree’ didn’t even begin to cover the sheer luminescence of the display. Gaudily out of place here: Brighton’s own Kensington. As though I’d gone to the opera and been offered a McDonalds at the interval.

Perhaps better to leave out the murder, leave in the most festive house in the northern hemisphere: cause less tears at bedtime…

Plenty of light outside the house: didn’t see any coming from inside. Still, had to try the door: procedure.

A crackle on the radio: background on the victim had come in. Plenty of previous, a hardened pervert: weren’t they supposed to check backgrounds before employing these people? Damned if I knew. Still, the elf had no previous. In fact, the elf didn’t seem to have a background at all.

‘Guess what kids, my elf didn’t really exist either…’

The elf answered the door on the first ring, extensive bloodstains on his velvet costume. Should have been case closed then and there. On with the handcuffs and down to the station.

Then from a dimly-lit doorway off the darkened entranceway: “You’d better come in.” The baritone rumble resonating in my frame and enticing me.

I followed the elf, mute since my arrival, and somewhere along the way seemed to step into a fantasy. The room dressed in every form of Christmas attire imaginable. From baubles to tinsel, mistletoe to lametta, not a surface remained clear nor perch unhung. The entire scene lit only by a single candle, its flickering light reflected a million times creating an eerie sensation of being submerged in some festive sea.

“Detective Sergeant Cringle” The voice came from the armchair: another Father Christmas. I had been so busy taking in the décor I’d missed him on my first glance around the room. This one much more convincing – cherry nose, jelly belly and a stump of a pipe hung from his mouth completing the picture.

I was going to sound like C.S Lewis: ‘Then the elf lead me into the secret grotto where Santa was waiting for me… Stop laughing, it’s true!’

“Have a seat” he was directing me to the only other free chair, across the table from him, the candle lending an otherworldly glow to his bushy white beard.

To business: “You clearly know who I am, so I guess you know why I’m here.”

He nodded sagely: “Don’t blame Dudley – I sent him to do it.” The pipe between his teeth causing the ‘s’ to emerge as a lisp.

“Sir, with all due respect, you know me, we both know Dudley, but who, may I ask, are you?”

A raucous laugh from his belly: despite myself I felt my spirits lifting in time with each ‘Ho’.

“Why, DS Cringle, Can’t you see?” I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak lest the illogical giggle bubbling in my larynx should escape.

“I’m Santa.”

“Really?” my eyebrow rose.

“Roger was on my naughty list his whole life, you know. Never once had a present from me. Let me and Dudley on our way; and those children you daydream about are yours.”

***

Reindeer hooves on the frozen road almost drowned out my mobile. A text: GOT RESULTS: IVF SUCCESSFUL! MERRY XMAS LUV!

Errant giggle bubbling to the surface as I wondered what I would tell our kids about the night we found out we were pregnant.

‘Pays to be on Santa’s nice list, kids.’