The Scene of Crime team were a group who knew each other’s ways and were led by Inspector Heathcote, an aspiring type who lived in the undying hope of solving something big before the main body arrived. He had solved any number of little cases in time to save the investigating officer any work, but so far they had all been too unimportant for a commendation.
Heathcote and his satellites were hard at it when the main body, in the person of Grimshaw, pulled into the drive of the Old Tollhouse. Men were dusting for dabs, measuring the ten-inch depth of drop, photographing the carpet, taking coffee-dregs for analysis and labelling plastic bags that contained, among other things, a short length of rope, a bundle of bed-sheets and various wisps of hair.
“Her bed appears to have been slept in by two people,” Inspector Heathcote said, “although I’m given to understand that the lady lived alone.”
“Have you talked to anybody? How old was she?”
“Late sixties, that’s local opinion.”
“Some people are never past it, so I’m told,” Grimshaw said, his own sex-life inevitably crossing his mind: unexciting, definitely not moribund, though somewhat depressingly predictable. “Don’t forget dog-ends and so forth. Might come in for saliva tests.”
“Already attended to, sir.”
That was the trouble with all this ancillary teamwork that they had to go in for nowadays: it was all too easy for the mastermind to be made to feel superfluous. Grimshaw went outside to cast his eye over the surroundings. No pleasure would have come more welcome to him than the chance to call Inspector Heathcote and draw his attention to a print in a flowerbed or reversing tyre-marks in the gravel. But he found nothing—unless—
Grimshaw moved closer so as to be able to examine a window-pane from an angle that he had not been able to manage yesterday.
“Inspector Heathcote!”
“Sir!”
“Curious-looking smear on the window here. Take a swab of it, will you, and put it in with the rest of your samples.”
“Will do, sir.”
And at that moment a large and overfed tabby cat came out from behind a pile of yard-rubbish and rubbed herself against Grimshaw’s ankle, her tail quivering vertical.
“Oh, how do you do?” Grimshaw greeted her, always at his best with strangers whom he could trust not to be rude to him. The cat miaowed piteously and changed ankle and angle.
“Oh dear. Hasn’t anyone thought of giving you anything to eat? I suppose with all that’s going on people have lost all sense of priority. Now I wonder if that milkman bothered to leave anything, things being as they are?”
It had been mentioned in the first telephone call that it was a milkman who had found the corpse. This was important: the person reporting the discovery of a body was, according to statistics, a very likely suspect.
“Inspector Heathcote!”
“Sir!”
“There’s a cat here requiring to be fed. We must always behave sympathetically towards the bereaved—it’s in standing orders.”
“Sir, I’ve done my best. I can’t get the animal to come in.”
Grimshaw looked over his shoulder, and true enough the cat had stopped a couple of feet short of the threshold and was glowering in at the open door with her back arched, her upper lip curled back and the decision to spit quite obviously close to the surface of her mind. Grimshaw stepped forward with his hands on his knees, bringing himself down to sympathetic cat-level.
“Puss, puss!”
The creature put a brave paw forward, then suddenly snarled, spun about and shot streak-like behind the rubbish from which she had emerged.
“Makes you wonder if animals sometimes know things,” Grimshaw said. “Inspector Heathcote—did that milkman leave anything?”
“Milk and cream on a corner of the kitchen-table, sir.”
Grimshaw went and found a saucer in one of Mrs. Cater’s cupboards, filled it with cream, carried it out and set it down by a corner of the junk-pile.
“Inspector, I’m going to make some enquiries in the village. When you’ve finished, or if you want me for anything, I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty in locating me. My every movement will be a local event. And if Detective-Sergeant Beamish arrives, send him after me.”
He drove slowly towards the Upper Marldale nerve-centre, but seeing a milkfloat parked fifty yards short of the High Street, pulled up and waited for Ernie Hurst to come out.
“Good morning. Am I to understand that you are the man who discovered the unhappy scene at the Old Tollhouse?”
“Correct, sir.”
“Detective-Superintendent Grimshaw, Bradburn Headquarters. And you are?”
“Ernest Hurst, Pringle Model Dairies.”
“Is it normal procedure for you to enter premises to deliver milk, Hurst?”
“I’ve already explained that, sir.”
“Well, explain it again, to save any possible delay in communications, Hurst.”
“I only open the Tollhouse door when Boudicca wants to be let in, sir. That’s the cat—”
“You mean the outside door is not locked?”
“Mrs. Cater unlocks it before she goes to the toilet, sir. She is a woman of regular habits and always goes—went—at five to seven. When Boudicca hears the toilet flush, she comes out from the shed where she sleeps for the night. Then it depends whether Mrs. Cater or I gets—got—to the door first. I’ve already gone over this, sir, with Sid Bowman and—”
“We’d better have it in writing, all the same.”
“I’ve got to go and sign a statement in Pringle police station when I finish my round, sir.”
“PC Bowman told you to do that?”
If so, it was, unusually, one up to Bowman.
“No, sir, Inspector Mosley.”
“I beg your pardon? When did you see Inspector Mosley?”
“Just as I was leaving the Tollhouse, sir. He came in and asked Sid Bowman what all the fuss was about.”
“And where is Inspector Mosley now?”
“Dunno, sir. He went off somewhere in the village.”