Kat drove carefully back into town, the streets still quiet, snow banked high in the hedgerows. She parked outside Mydworth Police Station.
The steps up to the front door had been swept and salted, but were still dotted with treacherous icy patches.
Inside, as she pushed open the door and entered, she saw the portly figure of Sergeant Timms at the desk, pipe in one hand, mug in the other, and a newspaper open in front of him.
Hard at work fighting crime!
A compact fire blazed in the hearth.
“Aha, um, Lady Mortimer!” said Timms, hurriedly pushing the paper to one side, standing and dragging a ledger across in its place.
“Sergeant Timms, good morning.”
“How may I be of assistance, m’lady?” said the police sergeant, slipping round the desk and pulling out a chair for Kat to sit in.
As he retreated to his side of the desk, Kat saw a couple of faces peer out at her from the back office, then retreat out of sight.
Timms’ two constables, she guessed. One of them perhaps the chap who’d found the body?
“Brisk morning,” said Timms. “A cup of tea, perhaps?”
“Kind of you, sergeant, but I’m not stopping,” said Kat, sitting and unbuttoning her coat in the warm room. “I have a favour to ask.”
“Oh yes?” said Timms. “Anything at all that the Mydworth Police can do to assist, m’lady.” Though – from Timms’ grumbling tone – it sounded to Kat more like “oh dear”.
The sergeant’s patience with Kat and Harry’s little investigations – which certainly didn’t show him or the department in a competent light – had grown thin in recent months, she knew.
“You will have heard that Oliver Brown’s appeal has been dismissed?” she said.
“Yes, m’lady. Good thing, too,” said Timms. “Waste of everybody’s time, that was.”
“Wheels of justice,” said Kat, with what she hoped was a sympathetic shrug.
“Ah yes, though those wheels do come off sometimes, don’t they?”
“Indeed they do,” said Kat, knowing that she and Timms were now talking about two completely different things.
Which suddenly seemed to dawn on the sergeant.
“Er, you’re surely not here to look into the Brown case,” said Timms. “Are you?”
“Just a review, Sergeant Timms,” said Kat. “For a friend. You know – dotting i’s, crossing t’s. Man’s life in the balance, so to speak.”
“Really,” said Timms. “And, forgive me for asking, but what precisely does that mean?”
“Speaking to witnesses. Examining the scene of the crime. Talking to the constable who found the body, perhaps.”
Kat watched as Timms did his best to put on his full-on disgruntled face.
“And on whose behalf are you doing this?”
“The WVS.”
“Oh. I see. Brown’s wife – poor lady – putting her oar in again, is she?”
Kat smiled. “Not terribly sure what that means. Oar? But I’d guess you’d agree that Mrs Brown certainly has a right to try and save her husband?”
“To the bitter end, it would seem,” said Timms, his voice rising. “All rather useless, as I am sure you understand. Doesn’t mean we all have to ‘jump’ when the woman says ‘jump’.”
“Of course not,” said Kat calmly, refusing to respond in kind. “But we all want justice, do we not?”
“I dare say you wouldn’t be questioning ‘justice’ if you’d seen the state of that poor lad Carter. Trust me. In this case, justice is the hanging of Oliver Brown, and a hanging there shall be, I am glad to say.”
Timms is in rare form this morning, thought Kat, smiling to herself. “So – to be clear, sergeant – we can’t discuss this?”
She saw Timms slide the ledger closer and remove his pen from the inkwell.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Far too busy, as you can see. And, as we say in this country – perhaps yours too – case closed!”
Kat nodded at that. This was proving challenging indeed.
“What about the constable who found the body? Bert Loxley, I believe? You think he might be able to give me five minutes?”
“The new lad? Oh, I don’t think so,” said Timms pointedly. “He’s filing reports. Learning the ropes.”
“Tomorrow perhaps?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Let me guess. More reports to file?”
“A policeman’s lot, as the song goes.”
Kat watched him, said nothing. She wondered if ‘Sir Harry’ were here, making the request, would he have gotten the same treatment? She doubted it.
She knew her crime in Timms’ eyes.
Being a woman. Yes – then being American. And probably being an interfering pain in the—
“Lady Mortimer,” he said, sitting back and folding his arms. “May I be frank?”
“Go ahead.”
“Nobody wants this case opened up again. It was a nasty thing that happened, and now it’s over. We all want to forget. Oliver Brown murdered Ben Carter. He was tried and found guilty. And on Friday morning he will hang for it. End of story.”
Kat remained motionless. Timms was not going to be persuaded. Time to move on. The clock was ticking.
She stood and buttoned her coat.
“Thank you for your candour, Sergeant Timms,” she said. “Let’s hope you’re right.”
Then she turned and left.
*
Outside, the sky was still grey – ominous and threatening – but it hadn’t started snowing again.
The solicitor’s office, had to be the next port of call, so she turned to head towards the square.
But she’d only gone a few yards before she heard a voice from behind her.
“Lady Mortimer.”
She turned – to see one of the constables, hurrying from the side door of the police station, shrugging his coat on over his shoulders.
A quick look backwards over that shoulder as if checking to see if anyone might have spotted him.
“Sorry. I heard what you were saying to the sergeant,” he said, coming close. “And I was thinking... maybe I can help?”
“Yes?” said Kat.
“Name’s Loxley.”
“Ah – you found the body?” said Kat.
“That’s right.”
She examined him more closely. Young, clean features. Determined looking.
“Can you tell me where that was?” she said.
“I can do more than that,” he said. “I can show you.”
“I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble,” said Kat, shooting a glance back at the station.
“Ha, don’t worry about that,” said Loxley, grinning. “Old Timms won’t leave that chair until he’s had at least two more cups of tea.”
Kat laughed. Already she liked this young policeman. “All right then, constable – what are we waiting for?” said Kat.
And together they walked up the snowy road towards Hill Lane.
To the scene of the crime.