Ann Granger - Mitchell and Markby 09 - A Touch of Mortality p.03

*8*
It was around seven when Alan Markby reached Meredith's modest end-of-terrace cottage in Station Road.

He got out of his car, bearing the box with the pizza and a supermarket carrier bag. She'd heard him. He saw her cur­tain twitch. The front door opened and she stood on the step, hugging her arms.

"You'll catch cold," he said. "Go indoors."

"I'm all right. There's no need to fuss."

It occurred to him she was feeling better! She was still on the step, peering past him into the darkness.

"You haven't seen the cat hanging around out there, have you? He hasn't been around for a couple of days. Because I was laid up again, I wasn't able to look out for him. He may have taken offense and left. It's very cold at night. Did you bring the catfood?"

"I brought a dozen tins in a box. It was cheaper that way. But now I've lugged it over here, you tell me the animal's vanished. Not, mind you, that I'm surprised. It was probably just a wandering torn, passing through. Here, I also brought some ice cream." He handed her the carrier. "You'd better pop it straight in your freezer. It's the one you like, rum and raisin."

"He might come back," she insisted, as she took the pack­ages. "Rum and raisin? Lovely, thanks."

"The pizza's seafood. That OK?"

"It's fine. I only said not pepperoni because it's on the spicy side and I made a poor showing at Ahmed's the other evening."

"I hope that wasn't what upset you." Alan looked con­cerned.

She shook her head. "No. Pringle thinks my resistance is low because of the 'flu and I was extra susceptible to any other bug around. Whatever it was, it really did knock me out for a couple of days."

They were proceeding down the narrow hall. "Actually," she said over her shoulder, "I'm pretty hungry now and look­ing forward to all this! Like to open the wine?"

"Not been eating?" Markby asked severely as he busied himself with the corkscrew.

She was stowing the ice cream in the freezer compartment of her fridge. "You sound like a kindly aunt!"

Meredith sighed as she stacked the tins of catfood in her cupboard. She hoped the wretched animal had found shelter on this cold night.

"I went to Bailey and Bailey's sale. I told you about the Victorian glasses?''

"You did. Get them?"

"No. I left a sealed offer but someone outbid me on the day. I mean, he offered more and I wasn't there to offer again. I hadn't felt quite a hundred percent before I went. But I started to feel much worse while I was there. Sally gave me some of her herbal tea. It was the final straw—no pun in­tended. I started to feel awful after that and couldn't wait for Austin to reach the glasses. I just came home here and took to my bed. But I'm all right now."

They returned to her tiny sitting room with a glass of wine a-piece while the pizza reheated. Meredith curled up on the sofa before her electric fire. Alan stretched out in the nearby armchair and surveyed the room with pleasure at being here again and with being with her. She was wearing jeans and a baggy white knitted sweater which didn't disguise that she'd lost quite a bit of weight. She hadn't been able to get to the hairdresser either, and her hair had grown quite a bit, nearly reaching her shoulders. He rather liked it like that, longer, and said so.

"Makes me feel like a hippy." She scratched the top of her head. "I may keep it for a bit but I think it'll have to be chopped off eventually."

The television set flickered in the corner, the sound turned down. It was showing Channel Four news.

"Bodicote was at the sale that day," Meredith said. "Sally explained to me about the goats and the turnips and why he made such a fuss."

"Yes, she gave me a call about it after you'd mentioned it to her. I didn't think Bodicote had got it right."

The television screen jumped to a new subject, a piece of film. Figures surged to and fro around a lorry, an animal transporter. People were displaying banners against live ex­ports. It must be at one of the ports. Markby leaned forward. Then he jumped up, dashed to the set, and turned up the sound.

The newscaster's voice blared forth, echoing around the room, informing them that the scenes they were now seeing had taken place early that morning. Ignoring the noise, Alan jabbed a finger excitedly at the screen. "See that? That chap there? Long hair, carrying a banner, look! That one!"

"I see him. Who is he? Must we have it so loud?" she asked plaintively.

"Sorry!" He turned the sound down marginally. The news­cast had moved onto a fresh subject. Alan returned to his chair. "I was talking to that chap this afternoon. Tristan Goodhusband. He lives out at Castle Darcy. I actually called on his mama, a formidable lady who organizes an animal welfare pressure group. I thought young Tristan seemed pretty whacked. No wonder, if he was out at crack of dawn down at the quayside. He could only just have got back when I saw him."

"Well, at least he wasn't arrested."

"No. There were a lot of people there. He may have been cautioned." Markby's gaze had grown thoughtful. "I'll get Prescott to contact the local police at—where was it—Dover? In case he was one of those whose details were taken."

A buzzing noise from the kitchen announced that the pizza was ready. A little later when they'd eaten and were finishing the last of the wine, Meredith asked, "This chap Goodhusband, has he got anything to do with what happened to Liam and Sally?"

"Not that we know of, although Liam's had a letter from Yvonne Goodhusband, suggesting she call and discuss mat­ters. He's had another anonymous one as well. Keep that to yourself. Although, when you see Sally, she may tell you. It got Liam pretty agitated."

Alan couldn't disguise his satisfaction at this memory. "As for Mrs. Goodhusband, she turned out to be acquainted with a distant relative of mine. Mind you, someone like that knows people all over the place in every walk of life. It was a bit awkward, though." He grimaced. "I shall get a phone call from Annabel now, wanting to know why I took my police boots around to her chum Yvonne's place."

"Pulling strings?'' Meredith grinned at him.

"Not quite. Although Yvonne would do that if she thought it'd get her anywhere. I gather it's her preferred modus operandi. She calls it lobbying." He put down his empty glass. "I'm not going to talk shop. Usually you won't let me."

Meredith looked serious. "This time it concerns Sally and I am worried about her. I haven't seen her since the auction, so I didn't know about these new letters. I meant to ring up, but I didn't want to talk to Liam and the phone's in his study." She paused. "I ought to spare a thought for Liam, I suppose. He's the one the package-sender was after. Whoever it was, may try again. What do you think?"

Alan chased the last of the wine around the bottom of the glass. "Yes, I think the sender will try again. But something dif­ferent, since everyone is now watching out for packages. It may be a booby-trapped car, that's a favorite. Both Caswells have been told how to check their cars every morning. The cars are garaged overnight, not left outside, which is a help. They've had a new padlock put on the garage door."

Alan tossed back the last mouthful of the wine. "The word garage is a bit of a misnomer. It's a barn. Have you been in there?" When she shook her head, he went on, "Plenty of room for both cars and a lot of old furniture."

"Aunt Emily's." Meredith uncoiled from her chair. "Shall I fetch another bottle?"

"Please, no! I've got to drive home tonight!"

"You don't, actually," she pointed out.

He smiled. "Yes, sweetheart, I do. Wish I didn't. But I've got to be at work first thing and all bright-eyed et cetera."

She was watching his face. "You're worried too, aren't you?"

"Yes, I'm worried. No use pretending otherwise. No other part of the country has reported any similar incidents. That may be because the effect of the explosion was greater than the sender anticipated and whoever it is is thinking again. On the other hand, I'd have expected there to be other packages. These things are often sent out in batches. Then there were the letters. We don't even know if they're connected and Caswell being so bloody uncooperative doesn't help. Although getting another anonymous letter this morning has given him a fright, reminding him that they won't give up."

"Until someone dies?" Meredith's newly long hair fell for­ward around her face.

"Yes, someone could die." Alan sat up and added briskly, "But not if I can prevent it! That's my job!"

"I'm glad it's you in charge," she told him. "I feel Sally's safer because of it—and Liam, too, of course!" She glanced at her watch. "It's just on ten. Did you want to see ITV news in case they show that piece of film again?"

They watched it again but it had been cut down and the shots of Tristan had been edited out. The national news ran onto the end and the local news items followed.

"There's Wilver Park," Meredith pointed.

Wilver Park was a minor stately home some fifteen miles down the road. They were shown a brief shot of the Palladian exterior and then taken inside to an oak-shelved library where a gloomy man stood indicating, for the benefit of the camera, ominous gaps on the shelves.

"Mostly first editions!" he was saying, adding with a note of wrath, "Considerable ingenuity was used to disguise the thefts! In some cases, remaining books were spread out to be less tightly packed. But in others, old but worthless books were substituted. Here, for example..." He picked up a book. "Here is an eighteenth-century book of very little value—not part of the library stock—which the thieves must have smuggled in and very cleverly substituted for an early English translation of Plutarch's Lives."

The camera landed briefly on the book in his hand. Mer­edith leaned forward. "How odd!"

"Nifty idea, I should have thought"

"Oh drat, it's gone!" She sat back. "The book he was showing the camera, the ringer, it was very like one I saw over at Bailey and Bailey's sale preview. A Clergyman's Wade Mecum, it was called."

"Hundreds of books like that printed between 1700 and 1900. Those were the days of the great sermon, lasting hours. Good preachers filled churches. Being a clergyman must have been more like being a solo variety act in some ways. If a preacher wasn't particularly gifted, he looked it all up in a book."

"Yes, I dare say. Hundreds of books like it about." She sounded only partly convinced.

The camera moved to the interviewer, an earnest, eager young woman. "It is not known exactly when the books were taken," she informed them. "Wilver Park was closed only at the end of last week for the winter after a busy season of visitors. It will not reopen to the public until spring. In the meantime, necessary maintenance and cleaning will be carried out and the general inventory checked. It was the start of this annual check, here in the library—"

The camera left her face to pan around the book-lined shelves and dwell briefly on a marble bust of Shakespeare on a desk.

Back to the girl with the mike. "—which led to the loss being discovered yesterday. That means the books could have been taken any time over the last months! It is not even known whether they were taken singly or in batches, or by how many thieves."

Back to the gloomy man. "Security will have to be in­creased, but we haven't the resources to take on more per­sonnel. Possibly a surveillance camera might be an answer. Or access to some of the rooms may have to be limited on certain days."

"Robbery to order," said the earnest girl to the camera, "a problem for our days, has reached the world of antiques which, of any kind, have never been so vulnerable." She obligingly gave them her name and reminded them that she spoke from Wilver Park house, before returning them to the studio.

A final shot of the library and then the exterior of the house and a few bars of Mozart faded in to the next news item.

"I don't know about antiques being more vulnerable than ever before," Markby said. "They were pretty vulnerable when the Pyramid tombs were raided by Carter and others, weren't they? But it's true the art theft squad is kept busy."

"Shame," said Meredith. "Wonder what's happened to the books. There were plenty of other old books in Bailey's sale. I don't mean anything as interesting as the ones pinched from Wilver Park."

"The salerooms will be asked to keep an eye open," Alan said. "But the books have probably been taken to order, as the presenter suggested. A collector somewhere." He glanced at his wristwatch. "I should be going."

"So you said." She raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"I did. But perhaps not yet, not for another hour."


Tristan was unaware that he'd made the evening newscast. At the time it was beaming into the nation's homes, he was standing at the front gate of The Tithe Barn with a girl named Debbie Lee.

It was dark there beneath overhanging trees and surrounded by the shrubbery. There was a single street-light, a poor fitful thing. From time to time it uttered a depressed buzz. A bough, caught by the breeze, moved and allowed the yellow gleam to flicker over the couple. It made their faces look wan and since both wore dark clothes, they gave the impression of a pair of specters lurking there.

Debbie was a local girl, aged sixteen, not especially pretty nor especially bright. Tristan didn't know whether he felt sorry for her or was simply exasperated by her. He was care­ful to show neither of these emotions, always treating Debbie with a show of restrained affection.

Debbie, for her part, thought Tristan the man of her dreams. She worked at the chicken farm, in the egg-packing plant next door to the units housing the layers.

She shivered in the cool night breeze and fumbled in her padded jacket for the envelope. "I got it, Tris." She had a lisp. His name came out as "Trish," like a girl's.

Tristan, who hated this abbreviation of his name anyway, even without it being mangled and undergoing a sex-change, said, "Well done, Debs."

Debbie didn't mind what version of her name he used. Just to hear it on his lips was enough. To hear him say "Well done" was bliss.

"I took an awful risk, Tris. It'd cost me my job if I was caught. I mean, I'm really lucky to have this job, near home. There's no work in the village except at the chicken place. My dad would have my hide if I got the sack."

Tristan knew her father, the landlord of the local pub, and believed it. "You won't get caught, Debs. Not a clever girl like you. And it's for the cause."

"I don't do it for the cause," she said simply. "I do it for you."

Tristan was embarrassed when he heard her say this. He had no qualms at using her. But her loyalty and devotion, so artlessly expressed, never failed to make him cringe. Luckily it was dark and she couldn't see it.

She had something else on her mind, however, tonight. "Tris? I want to help you, but I don't want to do nothing which would close the place down."

"It won't!" he told her shortly.

"I hope not."

"I told you, it won't! It might make them sharpen up their act and stick to the regulations better than they do now."

"That's all right, then. You see, people like you and your mum, marching up and down outside and posting leaflets through doors, you might put it out of business. But people like me, we need the jobs. And anyway, they're only birds."

"They should be kept in humane conditions, even so!" Tristan snapped. "And not turned into egg-producing ma­chines!"

"I suppose so, Tris. I did ask when I started what happened to all them birds when they didn't need them any more. Someone told me they go for petfood. All them tins of chicken dinners for cats and dogs. They get worn out, those chickens, very quick. They're all egg-producers. They don't raise no table birds. They're thinking of starting up a unit, though, for the broilers. The boss says they'd have to extend and that means putting in for planning permission. It'd mean more jobs for the village."

"Are they?" Tristan asked her eagerly. "If you hear any more about that, Debs, let me know at once!"

Privately he was asking himself if his mother knew anyone on the planning committee. The outlines of a new leaflet formed in his head, this time against the introduction of broiler houses. Noise, extra traffic on country roads, smell, destruction of greenbelt. Start a petition, he thought.

Aloud he added, "And don't worry about the place closing down. We're not trying to do that, I promise."

"Don't you want this, then?"

She was still holding out the envelope. Tristan took it and the reel of film it contained. "We do appreciate this, Debs. I've tried to get in there and get pictures but it's damn dif­ficult. What I really need is some proper film, not just snaps. I'd like to get in there with my camcorder."

"I can't do that!" she wailed in alarm. "They'd see me. Anyway, I'm no good operating one of those things, cam­corders. I can't seem to get the hang of them."

Tristan believed this, too, and hadn't the slightest intention of letting her anywhere near his expensive new equipment.

"Don't worry about it, Debs. Leave it to me."

She was waiting expectantly, her face turned up to his in the moonlight. This was her price—that was how Tristan thought of it. Debbie thought of it as romance.

He drew a breath, seized her in his arms and kissed "in a masterly way" as she liked to tell her friends at the egg-packing plant.

Usually, during this pleasurable experience, she sagged in his arms and muttered incoherent endearments. But tonight, without warning, she jumped away from him and squealed.

"What the hell—?" Tristan exploded.

"There!" she pointed behind him. "Someone's watching us!"

"Oh God, not Mother?" Tristan gasped. He whirled around. Behind him the bushes rustled in the night air but were empty, as far as he could see. He glanced nervously toward the lights of the house, but no vengeful figure of his mother hove into view. Yvonne didn't approve of her son's relationship, such as it was, with Debbie.

"The girl has expectations, Tristan. You oughtn't to en­courage them. You asked her to take those photographs and she could make things very difficult for us."

Lately, Tristan had begun to suspect his mother was right. Debbie was talking of taking him home to meet her parents. Mr. Lee had for many years been anchorman of the pub's tug-o'-war team. Mrs. Lee was a gravel-voiced, bottle-blonde who had no difficulty making herself heard from one end of Castle Darcy to the other and had, when roused, an astonish­ing vocabulary.

"There's no one there," Tristan said now in relief. "You're imagining it. It was the breeze."

"It wasn't!" she insisted. "The trees moved and the light shone right over there and I saw eyes! And I heard breathing! Someone was in those bushes and watching us!"

Tristan edged to the bushes in question. He parted some sprays and peered into the darkness. Faintly, in the depths, he heard a rustle.

"All right!" he shouted. "Come out of there!"

"It's not me dad, is it?" whimpered Debbie.

"I hope not!" Panic seized Tristan who renewed his efforts at a search. "I know who you are!" he blustered. "So you might as well show yourself!"

A louder rustle made them both jump. One of the cats ran out and scuttled away into the farther darkness across the drive.

"A cat!" Tristan said in disgust. "Honestly, just for a mo­ment ... It was just one of the cats, Debs."

She was unconvinced. "I saw eyes! Not low down, like a cat's would be. Higher up, a man's. I saw him over your shoulder." A thought struck her. "Could it have been—"

"If it was," said Tristan, interrupting, "I'll have a word with him when I see him next, frighten him off. But it was a cat. You'd better get on home, Debs. Your dad will be look­ing out for you."

"You'll walk me home, won't you, Tris? You'll walk me to the pub? I'm scared."

So was Tristan, but not of the dark. He was worried that people would see him with Debbie and it would reinforce whatever romantic tale she'd been telling her friends about him. But she'd got the film, as she'd promised, and she was his eyes and ears inside the egg-production complex.

"I'll walk with you to the car park. You'll be all right from there. The pub's lit. There will be people about. It's best if we're not seen together, because of your job. Someone might tell your boss. It'll blow your cover, Debs, and you might get the sack. We don't want that, do we?"

She took his hand gratefully—and tightly. She didn't re­lease it until they reached the edge of the pub car park. He bid her a hasty goodnight, wondering whether the whole thing hadn't been a ploy on her part to get him to march through Castle Darcy with her hanging on his arm.

But before they parted, she whispered. "I really saw some­one, Tris. Honest."


Meredith set out after breakfast the following morning for the salerooms. She was almost sure that Sally would be working there today. It was a nice morning, sunny and relatively mild. After so much cold and damp, it was pleasant.

She was walking down the narrow road toward Bailey and Bailey's front entrance, when she heard her name called.

Turning, she saw Dave Pearce. "Hullo!" she said in sur­prise. "What are you doing here, Inspector? I thought they'd got you over at Regional HQ."

Pearce grinned. "They let me out on my old patch occa­sionally. I'm on my way down to the Bamford Gazette of­fice." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I could have sent my sergeant, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to nip home. We've just moved, Tess and I, to a new house. Not brand-new, but new to us. She's got busy decorating this morning."

"Nice to see you, anyway. And congratulations on the pro­motion!"

"Never thought I'd get it," Pearce said frankly.

"Why ever not? You deserve it."

"Thanks." He grinned again, reddening. "But you know how it is. Everyone's got a university degree these days. Even in the police. Times are changing. I feel like a survivor from the past." Pearce was in his early thirties. "How are you keeping, then?"

"I'm fine. Getting over the 'flu, but OK now. You're work­ing with Alan again. I know he's pleased about that."

Pearce grew even redder. "Is he? Well, I must say it's nice for me to be back with him again. Mind you, he doesn't change." Pearce broke off and they both laughed. "He's the best, though, you know," Pearce went on. "You can ask anyone. They'll tell you. The superintendent is the best."

They parted, Meredith to Bailey and Bailey's and Pearce to the Bamford Gazette.

There was no one in the front office. Following the sound of voices, Meredith traversed the silent auction rooms, oddly empty in the wake of the recent sale. She found Sally and Austin, their heads together before the computer, earnestly discussing something on the screen.

They were too engrossed to have heard her approach. Mer­edith cleared her throat tactfully.

Both started and jumped round. Austin's hand went out and tapped the keyboard. The parallel blocks of figures on the screen were wiped away. Meredith didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed. She wasn't here to spy. Whatever they'd been discussing, it was unlikely it would have meant anything to her, in any case. She probably wouldn't even have looked at the screen. Now, of course, she was left wondering what it had been that she wasn't allowed to glimpse.

"Meredith!" Sally sounded delighted. "I'm so pleased to see you!" She threw out her hands. "And I feel so guilty. I should have come around but Austin and I have been so busy and I don't like to leave Liam alone at the cottage more than I have to."

"It's all right, don't apologize. I haven't been in the mood for visits, but I'm fine now and obviously, so are you. No more alarms?"

"None." Sally glanced at Austin. "We were just planning ahead. We have to start thinking about the next sale already."

"I saw the item on the news last night," Meredith told them. "About the books stolen from Wilver Park. You have to keep an eye open for that sort of thing, I suppose, Austin?"

Austin took off his spectacles, pulled out his spotted hand­kerchief and began to polish the lenses assiduously. "We get the usual lists circulated around the antique trade. But we've never been affected. Touch wood." Gravely he tapped his forehead.

"I think I'd recognize a rare book," he went on. "We do get old books here, but generally of modest value. People who've got real rarities take them to a specialist if they want to dispose of them. That's what I'd advise if one was brought in. They just wouldn't get the price here. Paintings too. Any­thing special I'd recommend they take up to London, to Christie's or Sothebys', Phillip's ... the big auction houses.

"Now, maps or botanical illustrations. That's another mat­ter. People sometimes cannibalize books for those and try to sell the pictures. Always a terrible tragedy. But if something really rare and valuable turned up here. I'd want to know who was selling and why, on what authority. Bailey and Bailey's got a reputation to keep up."

He shrugged. "If you're talking about other kinds of stolen goods, then I understand the favored means of getting rid of anything hot nowadays is the car trunk sale. Fake labels, pirated software, proceeds of opportunist burglaries. But not here, not us."

"We do lose things," Sally put in tentatively.

"Quite," said Austin bitterly. "People are more likely to pinch things from us than bring pinched things to us!"

Sally murmured, "A couple of books disappeared from the last preview."

Austin glanced around as if the missing volumes could be spotted from where he sat. "They came in a crate of mixed books. We split them into several lots. Much of it was cheap, tattered stuff. The missing ones were a couple of volumes of Dickens, Victorian and in good condition, but not particularly valuable. Some people are on the lookout for leather bindings. They strip them and make them up into ghastly false fronts for drinks and TV cabinets." He shuddered. "Anyhow, all those books together weren't expected to raise more than forty quid. In fact, if I recall, the soiled lots remained un­sold." He put away the handkerchief. "Would you—er—care for some tea or coffee, Meredith?"

There was a hesitation in his voice which indicated he would rather she refused. Obviously she'd interrupted some­thing.

"No, thanks. I've got some shopping to do. I really wanted to ask Sally if she'd like to meet for lunch?"

"Come back to Castle Darcy for lunch!" Sally invited her promptly. "I'll be finished here just after twelve. Meet me here."


Pearce had proceeded to the offices of the Bamford Gazette. They were in a low-lintelled old building and the cramped interior was a hive of activity. It was some time before Pearce was able to secure the undivided attention of the editor, Mo Calderwell.

"Right, Sergeant Pearce!" said Ms. Calderwell at last, rec­ognizing her visitor.

Pearce cleared his throat and diffidently explained about his promotion.

"Gone up in the world, eh?" said Mo. "We'll put it in the paper. Item of local interest. Still live locally, do you? Jeff! Fix us a cuppa, will you?"

A faint roar in the background indicated that Jeff was stuck on the phone and they could fix sodding coffee themselves.

"He'll be a coupla ticks," said Mo serenely. "He's chasing up advertising subscribers." She swiveled her chair and stretched out her Doc Martens. "Keeping the show on the road, as you might say."

Pearce admitted that he did still live in the locality.

"Got any interests, hobbies?" She was scribbling hiero­glyphics on a notepad.

"Started to play a bit of golf," Pearce said self­consciously. "Um, got a new garden..."

"We'll send a photographer out and get a pic of you and your wife. Good public relations for the police. Human in­terest item for our readers. I was short of copy this week. Glad you came in."

"I didn't come to be interviewed," said Pearce, aghast that she seemed to think he'd come bent on self-publicity. "I came to consult your records. It's an item about a demonstration by animal welfare activists outside a local battery chicken unit. About six months ago."

"Back in the summer?" Mo squinted at him. "Remember that. Hang on. She punched at the keyboard of her computer, peered at the screen, muttered, "July!" and got up. "This way!" She led him into an even more cramped back room. "July!" she said, pointing at a thick file on a shelf. "OK? Shout if you can't find it!" She disappeared.

It took him little time to find the article and even less to read it through. But although it offered only basic information in text, there was a valuable accompanying picture. Pearce gave a grunt of satisfaction as he peered closely at it, taking out his notebook. The names of the demonstrators were oblig­ingly given underneath and he jotted them down. They hadn't objected to being photographed or, presumably, named, but had lined up for the camera and were smiling and waving their banners brightly. Tristan Goodhusband was far left. His mother, Yvonne, mid-center, was orchestrating her little band. The only person whose face was disguised was that of a dem­onstrator dressed up as a chicken. His—or her—identity was only given as "A. Bird." The chicken's head was uninhab­ited, fixed atop the body of the creature, which contained the—one hoped—human within. The effect was to give the beast increased height. Studying the photo with his nose prac­tically on it, Pearce could make out a slit at the top of the bulbous body through which a pair of eyes peered anony­mously. When in doubt, study the legs, especially ankles, he told himself. But Pearce was foiled again. The legs were shapeless in wrinkly woollen tights and gave no indication of sex.

Nevertheless well pleased, he went to find Mo. "Could we have a copy of the picture?"

"Sure, get on to our photographer. Send it over soonest, OK?"


Pearce, as he'd told Meredith he intended, took the opportu­nity to call home.

As he'd also told Meredith, he and Tessa were in a new house, new, that was, to them. His promotion and Tessa's having also obtained a better-paid job, had encouraged them to upgrade their housing situation, as current jargon had it. Move, in other words, into something slightly bigger than the tiny flat they'd had. They'd at first considered a brand-new house on an estate under construction on the outskirts of town. But, as Tessa pointed out, the rooms in those houses were so small that, frankly, they'd be very little better off.

There was, however, a semi-detached turn-of-the-century villa for sale. Run down, for sure. Needing complete rewiring, redecoration and an updated heating system. But it offered two large reception rooms, proper kitchen, three decent-sized bedrooms, just enough room to park the car at the side of the place (Pearce would have preferred a garage but you can't have everything), and even a garden. It was, the estate agent had said, eyeing this keen young couple, a "family home." Well, said Tessa, there was that to be considered, too. Not that they planned any children just yet. But in a year or two. Then they'd need the garden, and it was near a primary school, too.

So they'd bought. Then they'd started work on the place. It had immediately become clear that a lot more was involved than they'd naively imagined. An entire new kitchen and bathroom had to be installed before the place was even hab­itable, they'd known that from the start but the work had mopped up what little money they'd had left. So now every­thing was being done by themselves, by hand, on the cheap. Tessa, on a week's holiday, was spending it up a ladder with a paintbrush. Pearce felt guilty. Hence the visit home to see she was all right.

He took with him the unexpected tidings that the local press would be arriving at some point to photograph them both in their new surroundings.

"What?" shrieked Tessa, nearly falling off her ladder. "Not today? I haven't even got the new curtains up in the lounge!"

The puppy, already excited by Pearce's arrival, was in­fected with the alarm and began rushing around in circles, perilously close to tins of paint, jars of soapy water and white spirit and other paraphernalia of redecorating. Tessa wasn't expert, but she was keen.

"I don't know, love," admitted Pearce. "I suppose fairly soon if it's going to be in the next issue of the local rag."

"Everyone will see it!" howled his wife, echoed by the now demented puppy. "Everyone we know!"

She leapt from her ladder and rushed into the bedroom to stare in a mirror. "My hair!"

He left her feverishly stowing away paintpots and ladder, and preparing to clean every corner of the house.

"And no staying late at work tonight, Dave!" floated after him. "I need you back here to move the furniture!"

Pearce started off back to regional HQ, regretting in many ways that he hadn't sent Prescott on the original errand, after all.

It wasn't strictly necessary for him to take a route via the Spring Farm estate, but somehow, he found himself doing that.

There was no immediate need, he knew, to visit Michael Whelan again. As he'd already reported back to Markby, his opinion was that they could cross Whelan off the list as far as explosive packages went. But he hadn't been able to get that gaunt pale figure out of his head. It wouldn't do any harm, he thought, just to call by and see how Whelan was getting along. After all, one never knew.

He drew up before the flat and got out, slamming the car door. The sound echoed around the treeless waste. Some boys kicking a ball around stopped to watch him, then whispered together. One of them set off at a run—to warn his parents, no doubt.

Pearce didn't like leaving the car here unattended, but at least he'd be able to see it from the flat. He went into the smelly familiar entrance and rang at the bell. No one came. He rang again. Nothing.

Fair enough, Whelan was out. Pearce wasn't going to hang around here nor leave the car any longer. Those kids were on the prowl. They'd strip windscreen wipers and anything else removable in seconds. He went outside and was about to get into the car when, from the corner of his eye, he saw the grimy net curtain move.

"Whelan!" he shouted. The curtain trembled. Pearce went to the window and tapped on it. After a moment, the net was drawn back and Whelan's unshaven face appeared, twitching nervously.

He pushed open the window a little way and asked, "What do you want?"

"Inspector Pearce, remember me?"

"Yeah..." Whelan licked his lips. He still had the sore. "I remember. I told you, I can't help you."

"Can I come in and talk to you?"

"S'not convenient."

There was a distinct sound of someone else moving in the room behind Whelan.

By now all of Pearce's instincts were on the alert. It was just possible that he'd interrupted something illicit. It might be drugs. If so, he ought to radio for back-up. On the other hand, by the time he'd done that, any evidence would have been spirited away.

"Let me in!" he ordered and went back to the front door. Technically he ought to get a warrant unless invited, but Whe­lan wasn't likely to lodge a complaint. Besides, Pearce could claim with some justification that he'd had reason to suppose something illegal was going on in there.

Whelan was opening the flat door as he arrived, slowly and with manifest reluctance. He looked as unhealthy as on the previous occasion, if not worse.

Pearce stepped briskly past him and walked into the sordid kitchen. Whelan and his visitor had been drinking beer out of cans. The two lager tins stood on the table by an ashtray of stubs, and a polystyrene box of the kind take-away food is packaged in. This one looked as if it had contained chips. An unpleasant red smear was presumably tomato sauce. A man, who had been sitting at the table, stood up. Pearce knew him at once. Not because they'd ever met, but because only a short time before he'd been looking at the same face in a newspaper picture.

"Mr. Goodhusband, I presume?" he said politely.

"A copper," said Tristan bitterly, "and a humorist, too!" He stared belligerently at Pearce. "What do you want? And how the hell do you know me?"

The ferocity of his tone took Pearce aback. The more so because Tristan Goodhusband, as described by Markby, had been a singularly laid-back figure. Pearce dealt with him now by ignoring him. He turned to Whelan.

"Perhaps we could have a word, Mr. Whelan? In private." He glanced back at Goodhusband.

Before Whelan could answer, Tristan had spoken for him. "He's got nothing to say to you! And you don't have any right to come and badger him like this. Can't you let the poor bloke alone?"

"I don't know..." Whelan whispered.

"Just a five-minute chat, Mr. Whelan."

"You can get lost. You forced your way in here. Do you have any kind of warrant?" Tristan pushed forward, causing the kitchen chair to topple back and land with a crash on the greasy floor. "Mick's done his time and his life's his own now."

"Mr. Goodhusband," Pearce said with rising anger, "would you stop interrupting me?"

"No. If you've got something against Mick, let's hear it. If you haven't, then you can clear out. This isn't a bloody police state!"

"You are obstructing me in my inquiries!" Pearce snapped. "What inquiries?" Tristan's voice and look were insolent.

"Mr. Whelan," Pearce said. "It might be easier if we took an unofficial ride down to the station. Nothing to worry about. But we might get some privacy there!"

"You don't have to accompany him, Mick," Tristan in­structed. He turned back to Pearce. "He's entitled to have a friend with him if he wants. Someone with an interest in his welfare, right? If he wants me here, I stay. You want me here, don't you, Mick?"

The unfortunate Whelan uttered a croak.

"I can," snarled Pearce, "take anyone in and hold him for twenty-four hours if I think it necessary!" He emphasized the "anyone" with a meaning look at his tormentor.

"And I," said Tristan, "will get a lawyer down there so fast, you won't have time to switch on the tape. But you haven't come to take anyone in, have you? This is a fishing expedition, right?"

As Pearce's face reddened, Tristan looked satisfied and nodded. "I thought so. Right, Mick, you say nothing at all to this copper! If he takes you in, I'll see you get a lawyer. Then and only then, with your legal adviser present, can the in­spector here, ask you anything! And remember, you've asked for your lawyer. Anything the copper might now get you to say before the legal eagle gets here, will be inadmissable ev­idence. Police and Criminal Evidence Act."

"You seem to have studied a few lawbooks yourself!" Pearce snarled.

"Getting shirty, Inspector?" Tristan grinned evilly. "Tut, tut! Don't like it if someone pushes the rulebook under your nose, eh?"

"Mr. Whelan has not been cautioned," Pearce said, breathing hard. "He is not under arrest. This is a purely in­formal call. He's not in a police station but in his own home. Nothing is being recorded. There is no need for a lawyer—or for any dispute about admissable or inadmissable evi­dence."

"That's right, his own home." Tristan nodded. "And I'm his guest, invited in here by him. Which is more than could be said of you."

"Are you a frequent visitor here?" Pearce turned his ques­tioning on Tristan, since it was a waste of time trying to talk to Whelan.

"What if I am? It's no concern of yours. I brought Mick over something to eat." Tristan indicated the empty polysty­rene carton. "He's not been well. Hasn't been able to get out to the shops, right, Mick?"

"Had a touch of 'flu," Whelan muttered hoarsely. "It hangs about. Going though, getting better." He gave Pearce a shame-faced look. He seemed embarrassed by Goodhusband's vehement defense of his interests.

"Shopping for him?" It was Pearce's turn to resort to sar­casm. "A four-pack of lager and a take-away? That's not going to see him on very far, is it?"

Tristan's grin was positively triumphant. He walked to the grease-spotted fridge and silently opened the door. Inside could be seen cartons of soya milk, something in a foil tray which looked like a sort of nut loaf and gleaming dully through the plastic front of the vegetable compartment, the reds, greens and oranges of assorted salads.

A vegan, thought Pearce. Tessa's sister had a spell of that. All nuts, lentils and tofu. Fortunately it hadn't lasted long. It made sense, however, for Whelan to be averse to animal fats in any form.

He managed, with superhuman effort, not to swear aloud. He turned to Whelan. "I'll call and see you some other time. As for you, Mr. Goodhusband," he glared at the other man. "I'm sure we'll meet again!"

"Look forward to it, Inspector!" Tristan slammed the fridge door with a casual flip of his hand.


The car drew up before the cottage and Sally switched off the engine. "I don't suppose Liam will have got any lunch so we'll have to wait a few minutes. I didn't have time to prepare anything before I left this morning. I went in to work early, just after eight."

"Honestly," Meredith said. "We could have eaten in town."

"No, it's all right. It won't take me a jiff. Oh, there is Liam."

Liam had heard the car. The door of the cottage opened and he appeared, stared and then sauntered to the gate.

"Hullo, Meredith." He sounded quite welcoming.

"Hullo," she returned. "Everything all right?"

He shrugged. "As well as can be expected. No insulting letters in the mail, at least. I didn't know you were coming back with Sal."

"I'll get us something to eat. You've not eaten already, have you?'' Sally asked him.

He shook his head. "No, been working on the book. It's going a bit better." So that was why he was in such a rare good mood, Meredith thought. Liam glanced at her. "See you in a minute. I'll just go and back up what I've got on disk this morning."

"And I'll go and root through my fridge. Tell you what," Sally pointed at the barn-garage. "Why don't you take a look in the barn, Meredith? I've got what's left of Aunt Emily's things in there. We got rid of most and I picked out what I wanted to keep. Austin was supposed to be coming out and giving me a valuation but he's not got around to it. I'll have to remind him and get the things in the next sale. But there might be something there of use to you. If so, you're welcome to have it."

She was pulling open the door as she spoke. They went inside.

Meredith's eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. It was as Alan described it, a roomy place, more than ade­quate for the Caswells' two cars. The barn origins were clear in the rough stone walls. Above their heads, stout, rough-hewn rafters crossed the ceiling. At the far end were the small holes in the masonry which marked where medieval scaffold­ing had been dismantled when the original builders had fin­ished their job. Liam's car stood at the front, by the door. Behind it was stacked a mixed lot of furniture, all kinds, dust-covered but obviously in good condition.

"Just a pity," said Sally, "that there wasn't a kitchen table amongst it! It's mostly chairs, sideboards, a couple of ward­robes, that sort of stuff. Old-fashioned and not much to any­one's taste now. But then, you might just see something. Take a good look. Don't worry about pulling stuff out. I'll see you indoors when you're ready."

"Sure." There was always something fascinating about be­ing let loose on a pile of junk. Treasure-hunting, thought Mer­edith. She didn't really have much room at home for more furniture. But the chance to obtain, for example, a set of good oak dining-room chairs, wasn't to be passed up lightly. Or that dear little corner cupboard. Now she could just squeeze that in. She imagined it, snuggled into her living room. She pushed past other pieces to reach it, opened its door and stooped to look inside.

It was as she was like that, bent double with her head half in the cupboard, that she realized she wasn't alone. First of all, she heard the breathing, an odd snuffling breath. There followed a scrape of furniture pushed aside, tapping of feet and, even as she struggled to extricate herself and turn to confront the intruder—biff!

Meredith shot forward, propelled by an undignified and painful blow on the backside, and hit her head on the cup­board door.

"Oy!" she yelled. She scrambled out and up and whirled to face her assailant.

It was a billy-goat. A large brown animal with curved horns and an expression of undisguised glee on its hairy face. It lowered its head and made a butting gesture, as if to demonstrate what it had just done. Aren't I clever? it seemed to be asking.

"You wretched monster!" Meredith told it, rubbing her backside.

The billy took a step forward, reaching out its neck, snuf­fling.

"Don't you dare!" she threatened.

But she realized that it was not violent in the sense of being bad-tempered. It was playful. Her rear end, presented to the animal as it wandered through the open door, had been just too much to resist.

"You," she said, "must be Jasper."

And he must have come through the hedge from Bodicote's. Neither Liam nor Sally could have spotted the intruder yet. When they did, there would be ructions, certainly on Liam's part.

"Come on, let's get you home." She took hold of Jasper's leather collar. "And just cooperate, quietly!"

Jasper seemed encouraged to think this was some kind of game. He trotted beside her amiably enough as she led him across the front of the cottage and down the far side, in order to avoid the kitchen.

She couldn't see either Liam or Sally but there was a faint sound of running tapwater and the clang of a pot or kettle.

"Maa-a..." offered Jasper suddenly.

"Shush!" she ordered. He rolled a disconcerting chalky blue eyeball at her, with a slit of a pupil. There was something of the satyr about him and not just his goat's legs and wispy beard. There was a wickedness of expression and a knowingness which left one not quite sure what was going on in his head. He was also rather less than fragrant, she realized. When she got back, she wouldn't be surprised if Sally didn't guess what company she'd been keeping.

The gap through which he'd come had been stopped by an old brass bedhead. Such bedheads, she knew, were not with­out value. But Bodicote had put it to purely practical use. Unfortunately it had become dislodged and fallen flat to lie on the ground on Bodicote's side. Jasper had simply walked through. She couldn't see the other goats but there was a considerable litany of goat complaint coming from a long hut at the far end of Bodicote's land. The goat-house. The door was ajar but something prevented them from coming out. There was no sign of their owner.

Meredith grew curious. She released Jasper on his own turf and he cantered away. With some effort Meredith picked up the bedhead and re-wedged it in the gap. Then she went up to Bodicote's kitchen door.

It was open. Meredith looked inside. No one and no sign of recent activity. She called his name but there was no an­swer.

He must, she supposed, be down at the goat-house. She began to walk down there. Jasper, seeing her, trotted over and kept her company. This, he'd evidently decided, was a friend.

The goat-house door, which opened outward, creaked to and fro in the breeze as she approached and her nostrils were assailed by a strong smell of the assembled nannies within. They sounded distressed. Meredith began to feel uneasy.

"Mr. Bodicote?"

Jasper trotted ahead, rounding the swinging door and stopped to snuffle at something on the ground. He uttered another loud "Maa-a!" and jumped back, kicking up his heels and skittering around the object.

It was then that Meredith saw the foot. Rather, she saw a stout mud-caked boot of old-fashioned design, with nail-studded sole. It was just visible under the creaking door, twisted sideways on the ground and emerging from a grubby corduroy trouserleg. She walked around the door and pushed aside Jasper, who had pranced up to her.

Bodicote sprawled on the trampled turf on his stomach, his head by the goat-house and his feet pointing back at his cot­tage. He was wearing a thick dark jacket. His cap had fallen off. His face was turned toward her, and rested against a siz­able chunk of rubble. The uneven surface was smeared with a dark, sticky substance. Bodicote's visible eye was open and bulged up at her, filmed over. His thin cheek had collapsed inward like a crumpled sheet of parchment. His mouth was open wide in a grotesque yawn so that his long yellow teeth protruded like a rodent's. One of the old man's hands was flung out and the fingers had spread stiffly in onset of the rigor which had first affected eyelids and jaw muscles. It was as though he grasped at something, forever now beyond his reach.

The nannies, aware of a human presence, were bellowing their displeasure. They must be in need of milking. Jasper was standing nearby, watching Meredith intently. When she didn't move, transfixed with horror, the billy grew impatient. He moved forward and sniffed at the prostrate body of his owner.

Meredith was jerked into action. She grabbed at the billy's collar and hauled him away.

"Now now, old chap," she said. "He can't play with you now. He's dead, Jasper."



*9*
Pearce put his head around Markby's door and found the superintendent glowering at a report held in one hand. In the other, Markby gripped one of the familiar polystyrene tubs which held the unidentifiable liquid disgorged by the machine in the corridor downstairs.

Pearce cleared his throat. The superintendent looked en­grossed, even to the point of not noticing how awful the nameless brew was.

Markby looked up, blinked and saw Pearce in the doorway. "Good, glad you're back. Any luck?"

"I've got a couple of things." He searched for his note­book, found it and thumbed through to find his notes. "I called in the office of the local rag and found that article. There was a picture of them all and Mo—the editor—is send­ing a copy over. All their names and faces are there except one, who's dressed up as a chicken—" Pearce grinned. "And called A. Bird."

"Let's see..." Markby put down the report and the cof­fee. He held his hand out for the notebook and quickly scanned the list of names. "Ask someone to run 'em all through the computer." He returned the notebook to its owner.

"I—ah—" Pearce took pleasure in springing a surprise. "I've met Tristan Goodhusband."

Markby was gratifyingly startled. "In person, where? At the Gazette offices?" He set down the tub.

"No, I called on Mick Whelan, just on the off-chance, and there he, Goodhusband, was, likewise doing a spot of visit­ing."

Pearce summarized the encounter. "He's a stroppy blighter, Goodhusband. A bit like that Caswell character. I'd love to know why he's so thick with Whelan. As for the good Samaritan routine, fair enough, maybe." Pearce gave Tristan grudging acknowledgment of a good deed. "But why so pally in the first place? The Goodhusband group has nothing to do with the more violent activists. Or so Mrs. G. told you, didn't she, sir? So why's her son hobnobbing with Whelan? And him just out of clink, too!" Pearce clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Tell you what, I bet young Tristan's mum doesn't know what kind of company he keeps."

Markby was scowling, turning the news over in his mind. With evident regret, he put it mentally on one side.

"We'll follow it up later. It's intriguing, certainly. Here's the lab report on that cut-and-paste letter Caswell received." Markby picked up the report he'd been reading, discovering, when he did, that he'd inadvertently set the polystyrene tub down on it, leaving a wet brown ring. He gave a grunt of annoyance and then shrugged.

"All the newsprint used would appear to have come from the Daily Telegraph. Not the sort of paper generally read by extreme action groups. That doesn't mean they didn't buy a copy—or used it in an attempt to put us off."

"Bet they read the Telegraph at The Tithe Barn!" growled Pearce, the memory of his encounter with Tristan rankling.

Markby swept on, ignoring him. "The glue is a common paperglue sold everywhere. The paper likewise. The envelope is more interesting. It's a brown business envelope of the sort sold in bulk by office stationers. Fifty or a hundred envelopes at a time. Not the kind you'd usually buy in your corner shop. The postmark is central London again, that could be in an attempt to put us off."

"Have to wait and see if he gets another one," Pearce observed. He wondered how Tessa was getting along. He hoped she didn't go quite overboard with tidying up. The chances were the Gazette photographer would only want a snap of them at the front door. Wait till the elder Mrs. Pearce heard about it! She'd be buying up umpteen copies of the Gazette and posting them all over the place to friends and relatives.

Footsteps could be heard approaching rapidly. An urgent knock on the door was followed by Prescott erupting into the room. "Sir!"

"Can it wait?" Markby interrupted. "We're in the middle of something—"

"I think you'd want to know, sir. There's been a fatal accident—out at Castle Darcy!"

"What!" Both the superintendent and the inspector leapt to their feet, momentarily staring disaster in the face.

Dave Pearce gasped, "Ruddy Caswell? You mean, they got him?"

He paled at the implication of this and all that would fol­low.

Prescott looked taken aback and then embarrassed as he realized the considerable consternation he'd caused was due to a misunderstanding over identity of the victim.

"No, not at that cottage. Next door. The old bloke, Bodicote. He had a fall or something and bashed his head. Dead as a dodo, I'm afraid. Already a stiff when he was found."

Pearce uttered a gasp of relief, followed by a spurt of anger. "For God's sake, why didn't you say so straight away? I thought we'd lost Caswell and there'd be hell to pay!"

"Sorry," Prescott's face turned a deep red, clashing with the greenish-yellow which had developed around his bruised eye. "I didn't mean it was a development in our case. It's actually only a local matter. Bamford are handling it, treating it as an accident. Sergeant Jones is in charge there. She thought you'd want to know, even though there's no sign of foul play, so she called through and asked me to tell you. She's out there now."

"Get hold of her!" Markby exclaimed. "Tell her not to let them move the body! I want to see it for myself!"

"Yessir. But she did stress there's nothing suspicious—"

"Move!" yelled his superintendent.

Prescott moved.

"Come on, Dave!" Markby said grimly. "When bodies start dropping in this business for any reason, I want to see things first-hand!"


The sun was beginning to go down in the early winter evening when they reached Castle Darcy. Word had got around and several villagers stood watching from the side of the road opposite Bodicote's cottage. An ambulance waited at the gate, its driver and his partner indulging in a quiet cigarette.

Markby and Pearce nodded at them as they passed, and made their way toward a windswept chilly little group gath­ered around a sheeted form on the ground at the far end of the plot of land. From the open door of a long hut came a furious maa-ing and stamping of hooves. Even more angry bleats came from a large brown billy-goat. The animal was tethered to a clothes-post by what looked like the clothes-line. It didn't appreciate its activities being curtailed, nor the pres­ence of so many strangers on its home turf. It rushed at the two newcomers, head lowered, but was brought up short by the tether. It bucked in rage.

"Hullo Jasper!" called Markby, identifying it as Meredith had.

"Who?" Pearce was unaware of the billy-goat's name.

Sergeant Jones was already advancing to meet them. "Hullo there, Gwyneth," Markby said. "What have you got here?"

She smiled her welcome and attempted to push back a strand of curling fair hair which the breeze blew across her face.

"We were called just after one o'clock, sir. The doctor's been and certified him dead. He said he thought he'd been dead a few hours, probably since early morning."

Jones indicated the ground at their feet. "All the hard frost has left this ground as hard as iron and slippery. It's pretty cut up, as you can see, from the goats, and frozen in ruts. All in all, very tricky to negotiate. As I see it, the old man came down to see to the animals, slipped and hit his head on that lump of rock." Jones pointed again.

The sheet over the body didn't quite cover the piece of rubble. The rock itself was composed of concrete in which small stones were embedded. Nor did the sheet disguise the dark stain on its rough surface.

Jones was still talking. "Either that, or the billy-goat came up behind him and butted him so that he lost balance. It does that, apparently, the billy. We had to tie it up. It chased us all over the field!" She allowed herself a brief grin. "We tried to drag it into that pen over there, but it dug in its hooves and wouldn't budge. Then Constable Whitmore had the bright idea of tying it to the clothes-post."

"Where did the chunk of rubble come from?" Markby asked.

"It's a lump from a pile left over from foundations to an extension to the cottage next door." Jones gestured, widely encompassing the paddock. "There are pieces of it all over this field. It seems the next-door neighbor, a Dr. Caswell, was in the habit of lobbing chunks of it at the goats. They kept getting into his garden."

"You've had a word with him, then?"

"Yes." Jones gave Markby an arch look. "And with Miss Mitchell."

"Meredith?" He was startled and couldn't disguise it.

"Yes, sir. She found the body." Jones nodded at the cot­tage next door. "She's still there, with the Caswells, if you want a word with her. I thought, as soon as I saw Miss Mitch­ell, that you'd want to know about it. She told me about the goat butting people. It butted her, apparently. Came up behind her while she was bending down looking at something, and sent her flying!"

"Did it?" Despite the somber situation, Markby sup­pressed a grin.

"Yes—so it might have done the same thing to the old man, mightn't it?''

Pearce had been studying the layout of the ground. "If that piece of stone got over here originally from next door by Caswell throwing it at a goat, all I can say is that it's a bloom­ing big lump of rock for anyone to chuck about!" he ob­served. "Caswell must be an Olympic class shot-putter to get it as far as this! We're about as far from the boundary fence as we can be here. I reckon no one could throw that more than six, seven feet, and that's without getting much elevation on it." He glanced at the Caswell cottage and as he did, a light came on in the kitchen. It was already getting dark in­doors.

"So I suppose that lets him out, I mean, as far as throwing it at a goat and hitting the old man instead goes."

"I did consider that and discount it," Jones said. "As you say, it's too big a chunk to go throwing around." She hesitated. "Anyway, I asked him and he doesn't reckon he threw that bit, sir, not today, not ever. Much too big, as you say. The smaller pieces around the field, yes. He admits he shied a few of those at the goats. But although he agrees that piece must have come from his property, he doesn't offer any ex­planation other than that the old man pinched it and brought it here. He says the old man was apt to wander on and off his property, much as the goats did."

"What would he want it for?" Pearce asked.

Jones smiled in triumph. "See the door of the goat-house here?" She pointed. "It opens outwards. It looks as if the old man had helped himself to a lump of the rubble, a big lump, in order to use it as a door stop here."

"Makes sense, Gwyneth, certainly," Markby agreed. He'd always had respect for Jones. She'd been a constable over at Bamford when he'd been there. She deserved to have made sergeant and to go further. He'd had a good team all around at Bamford. He missed them and those days still.

The goats in the hut were still stomping and the smell was getting stronger.

Pearce had noticed it too and observed, "Those things are crapping all over the place in there. Someone's going to have to clean them out and generally look after them, like."

"The door of the hut, that was open when you got here?"

Jones nodded.

Markby went to the door and glanced in. It was a roomy hut with a raised platform at one end. The nannies were penned behind a lattice, a movable, temporary structure. It looked homemade and would have enabled Bodicote to con­trol the goats within the hut. But for that, he thought, they'd have got out of the door and strayed all over the place.

Seeing him, they'd stretched out their necks and were bleat­ing in a cacophony of sound. He met the nearest baleful goat eye.

"All right, girls, won't be much longer. Someone will see to you," he promised.

Markby went back to the others and asked Jones, "Has any relative been informed?"

"Yes. A niece, a Mrs. Sutton. She's on her way over."

"Right," Markby dropped onto his heels. "Let's have a look at him."

The sheet was turned back. Bodicote lay as Meredith had found him. His head was toward the door of the goat-house and his feet roughly pointing toward his cottage. Markby touched the outstretched hand. It wasn't as stiff as he'd an­ticipated. Experimentally, he tried to raise Bodicote's middle finger. It was awkward, wooden, but still movable. In the failing light, the features were gray-blue and shriveled. He looked almost mummified.

"Take the sheet away completely," Markby ordered.

It was removed and the entire body revealed. Markby stud­ied it, noting the position of all the limbs, its distance from the goat-house and the surrounding earth.

"Anything been moved?"

"No, sir. The doctor had to touch him but he was clearly dead and it didn't involve actually turning him over or any­thing like that."

"How about his clothing? Any of that disarranged?''

Gwyneth Jones shook her head, her eyes curious. "Got something in mind, sir?"

"What?" Markby turned his head to look at her. "Oh, no. Just checking. How about his cap? That was there when you first saw him?"

Jones looked at Bodicote's cap which lay near his head. "Yes, sir. As far as I know—I mean, I haven't moved it." She raised her voice and called to one of two constables nearby, "Neither of you moved his cap, did you?"

They denied it.

"What's worrying you, sir?" Pearce asked quietly.

"Nothing. I like to get a clear picture. Talking of pictures, the photographer's been out and got shots of all this?"

Jones nodded.

Markby heaved a sigh. "Fine, you can tell the meat-wagon to take him away. I just wanted to see it as it was."

Jones asked hesitantly, doubt in her voice, "It does look like an accident, sir, doesn't it? Have I missed something?"

Before Markby could reply there was a shout. They all looked up.

Striding across the ground toward them was a woman, accompanied by a constable. She was a tall and rangily built person, clad in drab work clothes, grubby jacket, slacks and gumboots. She looked as if she'd been called from the farm herself. She was, however, made up in a hit or miss way, rather as though she'd dispensed with the use of a mirror. Scarlet lipstick was applied lopsidedly and mascara smudged above her eyes in two uneven patches.

"Maureen Sutton!" she announced as she came up. "What's this about Uncle Hector? I've had to drive thirty miles." At that point she saw the shape on the ground. "Is that him? Is that the old chap?" She sounded shaken.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Sutton," Gwyneth Jones said. "We will require a formal identification, but that can be done later, at the morgue."

"Might as well take a look now," Mrs. Sutton rallied. "Get it over with. What happened? Heart attack?''

"We don't know exactly, Mrs. Sutton. There will have to be a post-mortem. He may have slipped."

The sheet was turned back. Mrs. Sutton stared down si­lently. She nodded and the sheet was decorously replaced.

"Uncle Hector," she said. She searched in her pocket and drew out a grimy square of linen with which she rubbed at her face, smearing the mascara and lipstick even more. "Poor old bugger."

"Mrs. Sutton," Markby said gently, "we don't want to distress you with questions, but I wonder if you recognize that lump of rubble."

She gestured at the door. "He used it to prop that open."

"So it's in its normal position?"

"The rock? Yes, I suppose so. What's the matter with those nannies?"

Mrs. Sutton marched past them and into the goat-house. "Bloody hell!" she was heard to exclaim in a disgusted tone. She reappeared. "Couldn't you milk them?"

"We were more concerned with your uncle," Sergeant Jones protested. "And we're not goat experts."

"You're not deaf, are you? Poor brutes are bellowing their guts out! How would you like it if your udder was bursting with milk and no one did anything about it?"

Jones reddened. The constable put his hand to his mouth. Pearce stared up at the sky.

"Well, I'll do it," said Mrs. Sutton. "Since someone's got to."

"Is it possible," Markby asked her, "for you or someone else to arrange for them to be taken care of for the immediate future?"

She stared at him. "Gary—my son—will bring the trailer over tomorrow and move them over to our place." She pointed at the sheeted shape. "And how much longer are you going to leave my uncle lying there? It's not exactly decent, is it?"


Bodicote's body had been removed, watched by silent villag­ers. Pearce and Markby walked across the paddock, through Bodicote's scrap of garden, much mauled by goats, to the open kitchen door.

"There's an empty mug here, had tea in it." Pearce was inspecting the draining board. "It looks as if he got up and made a cuppa. Then went down, let out the billy, and was going to let out the nannies, got the door open, when he slipped, or the billy butted him. Or he had a heart attack perhaps and just dropped?"

Markby was nodding. "Well, it's Gwyneth's problem. But we'll just go next door and have a word with the Caswells—and with Meredith, since she apparently found him."

And how did that come about? he wondered.


Both Caswells and Meredith were in the Caswell kitchen, sitting around the table, fortifying themselves with a dram apiece of malt whisky. A sizable dram, by the look of it. Each of them had a slightly squiffy look.

Apart from that, Meredith was looking pale but composed enough. Nevertheless, clear signs of relief appeared on her face as she saw him. She exclaimed, "Oh, Alan! Thank goodness!" sounding, Markby thought, rather like a frontierswoman in a Western who has spotted the arrival of the cavalry just as the last box of ammunition has been broken open. Still, it was nice that she was pleased to see him, what­ever the circumstances.

"There you are, Superintendent!" Liam hailed the new­comers after his own fashion. "And the inspector, too? Everyone turns out for the old man!"

"Liam..." Sally whispered.

"All right, all right!" Liam waved a hand at his wife to calm her protest. "I won't behave badly! I am sorry, really, for the old chap. It's no way to go."

"What isn't?" Markby asked politely.

Liam gave him a suspicious look. "What's this? Quiz time? I mean, dropping dead in your back garden—or in your goat-pen, whatever you care to call Bodicote's backyard."

"Won't you both sit down?" Sally asked. "I suppose you don't drink on duty?" She picked up the bottle of malt. "I'm not a drinker ordinarily. But what with all that's happened recently, I think I'll finish up a candidate for AA!"

"Oh, I'm not on duty," Markby told her amiably. "Ser­geant Jones from Bamford station is in charge of this matter."

"In that case," Sally got up. "I'll fetch a couple more glasses. There's water in the jug. It's Scottish spring water, from a bottle, not plain old water from the tap."

Pearce had cheered visibly. Markby settled himself in his chair.

"I just came over, with the inspector, to take a look. Nat­urally I was interested, since I interviewed the deceased re­cently in connection with your problem, Dr. Caswell. It's contiguous to my inquiries, shall we say?"

Liam hummed the tune If you want to know the time, ask a policeman! Then he met his wife's eye and said, "Sorry, I've had a couple of whiskies. After your Sergeant Jones came over and cross-examined us all. All this—anonymous mail, exploding letters, bodies in the backyard. It's got to my nerves, I'll admit. I was taking refuge in a spot of graveyard humor."

Markby, knowing that police officers saved their sanity by doing likewise, was not unsympathetic. For once, Liam's manner was understandable and to be excused.

"You were here all morning, Dr. Caswell, I understand? Thank you, Mrs. Caswell." Markby accepted a generous measure of whisky. Pearce did the same.

"All morning." Liam nodded. "We both of us made an early start today. Sal had got behind at the auction rooms and wanted to go in early. She brought me my flask of coffee as usual. I was already in my study, been there since six. I'm so behind with the book I've had to put in all the hours I can get." He looked moody.

"Ah yes. You don't go and make yourself coffee. I re­member. Yet it's only a step, surely, from your study to the kitchen here?" Markby asked him mildly.

Liam flushed. "It's a disruption, if the book's going well. Having to break off, get up, go out and boil water. Easier just to unscrew the vacuum flask and pour out a cup if I want one. But, as it happens, this morning the book went so well, I didn't even bother with the coffee. The flask is still in my study, still full. Sally left around eight, didn't you, Sal? I just carried on working until I heard her car come back. That was just before one, say twelve-forty-five? I got up and looked out the window and saw that Meredith had come back with her to lunch. I went out to meet them. Prior to that I hadn't left my desk. No, not even to pee, Superintendent, in case you want to know that, too!"

"In all that time, you didn't hear the goats? They were kicking up quite a row when I got there."

"I didn't. Not consciously, anyway. I was engrossed in my work. Also the windows are shut. Cold weather. Superinten­dent, I've already told that woman sergeant all this!" Liam's voice rose and became aggrieved.

Markby ignored the protest. "There are windows on both sides of the extension, I noticed. Facing the road and facing the back of the property."

Liam smiled thinly. "Yes, but I didn't look out. Even if I had done so, I can't see Bodicote's goat-house. There's a fairly high hawthorn hedge growing on a low bank which divides the lower half of these two properties."

"Mmn." Markby finished his malt, rolling it appreciatively around his tongue. He turned to Sally. "How about you, Mrs. Caswell? You didn't notice anything amiss when you left the cottage this morning?"

"On Bodicote's side of the fence? No, but I wouldn't. It was still quite dark. I didn't go around the back of the cot­tages. I went out of the front door to the garage, checked over my car as we were told to do—" Sally winced "—and drove into work. These cold dark mornings are so unpleasant, I don't think anyone takes much notice of anything. Liam had got up early to work on the book as he told you. I didn't feel like breakfast. I've been feeling queasy in the mornings. As Liam had said he didn't want to stop, once he got going on the book, I decided to give breakfast a miss and didn't make any. I know that's bad for you." She sounded apologetic.

"I frequently don't have breakfast," Markby told her, which was true. "The lump of rubble on which Mr. Bodicote appears to have struck his head, that came from your property, it seems?"

"Probably." Liam took up the narrative. "Go around the back of my garage and you'll see a whole pile of it. It went into the foundations of the extension." Liam leaned forward. "Look, I know I threw the odd bit of it at the goats. But only small bits. I didn't heave a great boulder! He must have come over here and helped himself to a piece at some time or other. He was like that. He wandered about, all over the village. He was eccentric. Dotty."

It had been Markby's opinion that Bodicote had been re­markably in possession of his senses. But that, alas, was no longer here nor there. He turned to Meredith.

"You found him?" he asked sympathetically. It was a pity she'd had to be the one. But knowing her as he did, she'd cope. She had an ability to deal with the unexpected and keep her head which never failed to earn his admiration.

"Yes." She sat up and tossed back her thick brown hair, her manner practical. "I was in Sally's barn, looking at some furniture when the goat snuck up on me!" She looked ag­grieved. "Just for the purpose, I'd got my head stuck in a cupboard and I must have presented a wonderful target! It got me amidships and sent me flying! I know Liam—" She glanced at Caswell. "—doesn't like the goats getting through into this garden. So I thought I'd better take the goat home. I saw where it'd got through the hedge. I looked in Bodicote's kitchen. He wasn't there. I went down to the far end of his plot of land and—and found him."

In a nutshell. Markby asked. "Did you move him?"

"Of course I didn't, Alan!" She was indignant at the very suggestion.

"All right, I'm sorry. Had to ask. What did you do?"

"Raced back here and raised the alarm. Liam went down and took a look, didn't you, Liam?"

Liam grimaced. "Yes. I didn't touch him. I came back and phoned the police and ambulance."

Markby thought for a while. They all sat and watched him. At last he asked, "The door of the goat-house, Meredith. Did you touch that, open it or shut it?''

"No, left it. It was open. The nannies were bleating. But I didn't have time for them."

"But Jasper was loose!" Markby muttered to himself.

Sally spoke. "He always let Jasper out first. Jasper has a house to himself, to one side of the main goat-house. A sort of little hut and pen. Bodicote was rather fond of the billy. It was a kind of pet. It used to kick up a fuss of a morning until he went down and let it out." Her voice trembled. "It's so sad. He was an awkward old man in some ways but harm­less."

Markby gestured, dismissing this. Harmless or not, Bodi­cote was dead. At the moment, he wanted to concentrate on Jasper. "I didn't see any gap in the hedge where the animal could have got through."

"Oh, there was!" Meredith replied quickly. "It's up near this end of the back garden. It's blocked with an old bedhead. But that had fallen flat. I picked it up and wedged it back in again."

"Completely flat?"

She looked puzzled. "Yes. Just fallen out, on Bodicote's side. It was heavy. If it was dislodged by the billy-goat push­ing at it, it would just collapse, I suppose."

"I see." Markby got up. "Well, I'm very sorry you've got this to deal with now, Mrs. Caswell—Dr. Caswell. I under­stand Mrs. Sutton, who is Bodicote's niece, will be making arrangements to remove the goats tomorrow."

"Thank God!" Liam said.

Meredith was getting to her feet. "Can you give me a lift back into Bamford? Will it be out of your way? I came out here in Sally's car."

"I can run you home!" Sally said at once.

"I'll take you home." Markby smiled at her. "Got to drop Inspector Pearce off, anyway. Hope you won't find the press besieging your house, Dave!"

"Oh blimey!" said the stricken Pearce. "I'd forgotten that!"


Tessa flew out of the front door as they drew up.

"Dave! Where on earth have you been? Oh, sorry, Super­intendent, didn't see you there!" She stooped, peering into the car, allowing them to see that her normally loose-flowing hair was tortured and sprayed fast into some sort of topknot with corkscrew strands framing her face.

"Have they been?" Pearce asked, scrambling out.

"No, they rang to say the photographer's calling tomorrow morning, nine o'clock. I said we'd both be here. It will be all right, won't it, Superintendent? I mean, if Dave comes in to work a bit later? Only, the Gazette—"

"I've heard all about it, Tessa. Of course he must be here for the press! Goodnight!"

Markby drove onto Meredith's terraced home. "Here we are. All right, are you, now?"

"I'm fine. It was a shock. I can't say he was a dear old man. But he was a character. It's a great pity. I think Liam's upset too, only he doesn't know how to show it. I mean, to know the poor old chap was lying dead all morning, perhaps. What do you think happened?"

"Post-mortem will tell us."

She had opened her door and swiveled to put one leg out of the car. Now she twisted back to face him. His face was shadowy in the street lighting. Meredith asked, "It was an accident, wasn't it? Sergeant Jones seemed to think so."

"Oh, I dare say. Sort of thing happens all the time. Do­mestic accidents account for any amount of injuries, some quite serious. People fall off ladders, down the stairs, trip over the dog..."

"Or goat. I hope it wasn't Jasper." Meredith prepared once more to get out of the car. "But he did creep up on me and butt me into that cupboard. He's playful. It would be awful, though, if he were responsible for the death of his owner. Mr. Bodicote was rather proud of that goat."

A voice echoed in Markby's head.

You do what's important to you first, don't you? Like I ran down to see if old Jasper was safe...

A wave of great sadness swept over Markby. Aloud he said softly, "A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box."

"Alan?" Meredith was staring at him.

"Nothing," he said.

"Are you coming indoors?"

He shook his head. "No, get yourself an early night. You've had an upsetting day. I'll call you. Goodnight."

Meredith watched him drive away, but didn't go indoors at once. She walked down the road looking over walls and under hedges, occasionally calling out, "Puss!" and making the sort of noises people make to attract cats. She called up a couple of neighborhood felines, but not the one she was looking for. When she'd checked the entire block, she went through the house and checked the backyard. She even col­lected a tin of catfood from the cupboard and stood outside tapping it with a spoon and calling, all to no avail.

Chilled and feeling slightly foolish, she went indoors. It was a disastrous day in every way. Bodicote dead. Sally upset again. No cat.


Alan had reached his own Victorian villa. The click of his key echoed in the empty hall. It was, as always, untidy, lonely, looking more like a place half-packed up for someone to move out than a place where someone lived. The chances of ever getting Meredith to move into it seemed pretty remote. She prized her independence and he respected it. But he en­vied Pearce.

As he settled down before his TV with a mug of coffee and a plate of hastily grilled sausages, he felt, as Meredith had done, that it had been a bad day. There was something evil at work out there, and he had failed so far to track it down.

As for Bodicote, that was probably just a sad accident which had occurred at a difficult moment.

"But I don't like coincidences around death!" he said ob­stinately aloud into the deserted space around him. "I've been a copper too long!"

Perhaps he had, at that, and saw mysteries where none ex­isted. He sawed furiously at a lump of sausage. Either it was tough or the knife was blunt. Nor could he remember whether the packet had claimed the contents to be pork, beef, or a mixture of the two. They didn't taste particularly like any of these. At least, he could presume it wasn't goat.

"Jasper," he mused. "You could tell us exactly what hap­pened, I dare say. If you could speak."



*10*
"And what brings you, Alan?" inquired Dr. Fuller. "No murder cases on the table at the moment, are there?"

Markby reflected grimly that when the pathologist said "on the table" he meant it literally. Fuller's detached interest in cutting up bodies was something which elicited both admi­ration and repugnance from the superintendent. It was the regard due to someone who did a job one knew one couldn't do oneself, whatever the circumstances. Not that Markby was squeamish. He'd long got past that. It was that people, for him, remained people, even when dead. They didn't become mere anatomical specimens.

Perhaps—and he'd often wondered about this—his cling­ing to the belief in the innate humanity of a cadaver, was a way of clinging to a belief in the essential humanity of all mankind, however depraved. Each of us had to be more than a clever piece of biological engineering. This seemed to him self-evident. After all, he'd reasoned, as a policeman, what would be the purpose of inquiring into any death if the ces­sation of a life were only akin to a machine being switched off.

Fuller himself was apparently untroubled by metaphysics and relentlessly cheerful. But then, he had to be, thought Markby. If it ever got to him, he'd have to give the job up. He acknowledged Fuller's welcome, adding, "No murder perhaps. But a body. An elderly man, Hector Bodicote. I thought that the autopsy might have been carried out by now."

"Oh yes, head injury, right?" Fuller looked over his glasses. "Want to see him?"

"No, thanks." Not in the state Fuller would have left him. Although, in due course, the body would be patched together so that the relatives could have Bodicote laid out tidily in his coffin.

"It's not a murder inquiry," Markby said. "At least, not as far as I know. Nor is it strictly my concern. He was a peripheral witness to something I've been looking at. How about cause of death? There's a suggestion he might have slipped and hit his head. You'd go along with that?"

"Tsk, tsk!" Fuller smiled happily. "Now when did I ever commit myself completely to any theory, eh?"

"Never that I can recall," Markby admitted.

"I am not a detective!" announced Fuller. "I'm a doctor whose patients are already dead. I can diagnose the damage which caused death, but not the circumstances in which they came by it, since I can't ask 'em about their symptoms, or how they came by their bumps and bruises. I'd inevitably be led into the realms of guesswork. Unless, of course, some­one's obligingly left a dagger sticking out of their backs! Even then, one has to be careful not to be misled. But you know that." Facetiously, and with an excruciating attempt at a Cockney accent, Fuller added, " 'E was strangled, guv. Hit wiv a blunt instrument and stabbed—before he was shot!"

He looked apologetically at Markby. "Only he wasn't, if you see what I mean. Wasn't poisoned, strangled or shot."

"So, what was he?" Markby allowed impatience to show.

Fuller, unfazed, beckoned. "Follow me!"

Markby followed him down the corridor. The smell of death lingered here together with mixed odors of various chemicals and disinfectants. He hated this place, always had.

Fuller's office was cluttered, warm and relatively sane in appearance. At least the charnel-house atmosphere was bless­edly absent.

"Heard about our faith, have you?" Fuller asked jovially.

Markby hesitated. It was certainly some time since he'd seen Fuller and it was possible that the pathologist and his wife had become reborn spiritually in the meantime, but he hadn't heard of it.

"You remember Faith, don't you?" Fuller was pointing at a framed photograph of his formidable trio of daughters. "On the left."

Of course! He'd nearly put his foot in it there! Gratefully, Markby exclaimed, "Yes, of course I do. Plays the violin."

"Clarinet, old chap. Miranda plays the violin. You haven't been to one of our musical evenings for ages. I'll give you a call when we arrange the next."

Markby mumbled thanks with a sinking heart. He wasn't blessed with a musical ear. It all sounded screechy and squeaky to him. Miranda on the violin especially...

"She's decided to take up medicine and has got a place at Oxford. It's a pity she couldn't have gone in for music, but making a living at it is difficult. Not that making a living out of any branch of medicine is very easy these days. However, Faith is thinking along the lines of medical research."

Like Liam Caswell. It brought Markby back to the matter in hand.

"Bodicote..." he murmured.

"Got it." Fuller had dived into a filing-cabinet and emerged with a folder. "Only just put this in here. These are my preliminary notes. Someone's typed them up and should be sending down a nice clean copy to Bamford. I thought they were handling it?" Fuller peered over the tops of his spectacles.

"They are. I'm trespassing. But I'd like a copy of your final report, for my own interest."

"By all means. I'll send one over to you. Where are we—ah, here we are. I remember, anyway. Carried out the autopsy last thing yesterday. Had to rush it a bit, we were going out to dinner. But there were no problems. The old man was very fit for his age. No sign of heart disease. Joints beginning to stick. He'd sustained a severe blow to the head and it killed him. I can give you that in technical jargon, but it amounts to that. Severe fracture, shock, internal damage, a lot of bleed­ing into the brain."

"So you'd go along with a fall out of doors, occasioning a blow to the head?''

"No reason to suppose not. What you've said is more or less what I concluded. I understand he was found with his head resting on a lump of concrete."

"A chunk of rubble he'd used as a doorstop for his goat-house. You had a chance to match the wound and the rock in question?"

Fuller nodded. "Yes. It was a good match."

"He'd have died instantly?"

Fuller pursed his lips. "Instantly? Yes, he may well have been killed outright. If not, he certainly died fairly quickly. It was a mortal blow, certainly. He'd have been unconscious and lying out there in the open, early in the day, hypothermia would have played a role. Post-mortem hypostasis suggests the body had lain undisturbed for some time after falling to the ground and the reddish color of the affected area suggests cold conditions."

"So a fall rendering unconscious, followed by a prolonged period lying on frozen ground."

"That would be a safe diagnosis. I can't tell you exactly when he died. I never can. You know that. From the outward signs, I'd say he died early yesterday morning."

Markby thought it over. "Had he breakfasted?"

"No. Several hours since his last meal. Small quantity of milky liquid in the stomach. Had a cup of tea."

"I touched his hand. It wasn't all that stiff. I'd have thought, being elderly and so on, dead for several hours, rigor would have been more advanced, especially in the extremi­ties."

"Oh, rigor." Fuller shook his head. "The cold might have played a part in delaying it. I had a body in here a few weeks back, found in cold conditions out in the open, been lying there two days, still as limp as a haddock."

"There's absolutely nothing else you can tell me?"

Fuller scanned his notes. "He'd been handling animals shortly before his death, or that would be my guess. Animal grease on his hands and animal hair under his fingernails. I sent the scrapings over to the lab but I'd expect them to con­firm that."

Fuller looked up. "The smell, you know. I'm particularly sensitive to the odor of goats. I had an aunt used to keep the brutes. She made a particularly awful cheese from their milk. Although, they tell me, it's the latest fashion in eating fads and people pay the earth for it. But as soon as he came in, I thought to myself, hullo! Goats!"

Markby sighed. "Fair enough." He thought of Jasper. "What color goat hair—supposing you to be right and that's what it is?"

Fuller looked surprised. "Er—white, mostly."

The nannies. They were mostly white, Markby recollected. He'd check with the lab but Fuller, always careful not to commit himself, wouldn't have suggested goats if he hadn't been sure.

He brought out a photograph with which he'd armed him­self before coming. "This is the scene of the accident with the body in position as it was found. Perhaps you've already seen it."

Fuller studied the photo. "Ah, yes. It's what I'd expect. I don't see a problem, to be frank. Not unless you can be spe­cific." He peered over his spectacles. "That's the best I can do for you."

"Appreciate it. It's not my case, as I said. I'm just check­ing. I suppose someone from Bamford has been down here?"

"Sergeant Jones. She showed me the same picture. She seemed happy enough with a fall and a crack on the skull. I wasn't able to find any mysterious, unexplained bruises or anything like that. No punctures of the skin from needles, no strange substances in the body. A blow on the head is always dangerous and, at his age, unsurprisingly fatal. It's only in cartoons or the sort of action films where people get hit over the noggin with a bottle, that the victim gets up and walks away." Fuller chuckled.

"Thank you, Malcolm, I'm obliged." Markby rose to take his leave.

"Give you a call about the musical evening," Fuller prom­ised.

Markby hoped he'd forget.


He returned to regional HQ to find that Pearce had arrived, fresh from his encounter with the photographer from the Ga­zette.

"Go all right?" Markby asked him.

"Bloomin' waste of time!" Pearce said in disgust. "He turned up, drank a cup of coffee, took a snap of us on the front doorstep and buzzed off again. Tess was really disappointed. She'd worked herself into a frazzle getting the house in order."

"That's the press for you!" Markby consoled him. "It'll probably look quite good when the picture's printed up."

Pearce didn't look convinced.

"This'll cheer you up," Prescott appeared in the doorway. "I got a print-out on Tristan Goodhusband as long as my arm. The bloke's a professional troublemaker. Never had a regular job as far as anyone can tell. He just goes from one organized protest to another. He fills in the time between with meetings and distributing his pamphlets, either on behalf of his mother's group, which is harmless enough, or others not so aboveboard. He's a familiar in the magistrates' courts all over the country, breach of the peace, causing an obstruction, you know the sort of thing. Gets a fine which he can always pay. Mummy's loaded with loot. He's no fan of the police, forever accusing us of over-reacting, if not worse. He's one of those who lies down in the road in front of cattle trans­porters and has to be hauled away for his own safety. Whereupon he accuses the police of heavy-handed tactics!" Prescott looked aggrieved.

"Depends which side of the thin blue line you're on, I suppose," Markby told him.

This comment clearly shocked Prescott to whom it must have smacked of heresy.

The superintendent nodded to the offended sergeant with a mollifying, "Good work. See what you can run down on his friends and acquaintances."

Prescott retreated. Pearce observed, "Someone like that, who keeps getting himself picked up and charged with minor offences, probably isn't into clandestine bomb-making." He sounded regretful. However Tristan felt about the police force, as far as Pearce was concerned, the dislike was mutual.

Markby dismissed Tristan for the time being. "I've been following up the death of the old man. Even though it appears to be just an accident, one of those unfortunate but not unusual things. I've been down to the morgue. Fuller is content with a fall, striking the head on the lump of rubble."

Pearce cast him a sidelong glance. "But you're not happy about that, sir?''

Markby glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly twelve. "Tell you what, Dave, I'll buy you a pint. That place of Fuller's leaves its smell in my nostrils."


There was a pub not too far away which did a line in baked jacket potatoes at lunchtime. It being lunchtime, Markby and Pearce ordered a potato a-piece at the bar and settled themselves in a convenient corner with their pints. It was an old place. The fire roared cheerfully in the inglenook hearth and the horse brasses nailed along the oak beams gleamed. Warm and comfortable, Markby settled back and relaxed as Pearce expanded his account of Tessa's disappointment with regard to the press, something which was obviously going to dom­inate conversation in the Pearce household for some time to come.

"One prawn, one ham and cheese!" The two baked po­tatoes appeared before them.

"Thanks, Jenny." Markby acknowledged her brisk deliv­ery of their lunch, even though she'd put them down the wrong way round.

He exchanged the prawn, which was Pearce's, for the cheese and ham, which was his. He liked seafood, but not in baked potatoes. It seemed to him a needless affectation. A baked spud was a rural dish, the laborer's hot lunch in days gone by. Where, this far inland, had a son of the soil been able to get himself prawns?

"So, sir," said Pearce some minutes later when both po­tatoes were pretty well demolished. "What's worrying you? Is it something about the old fellow, Bodicote?"

"Oh, Bodicote." Markby drained his glass. "Care for an­other?"

"My shout," Pearce said. He returned shortly with the fresh pints.

When he'd set them down, Markby began, "This is just a chat over a pint, Dave. There's nothing to go on. It's just that I feel dissatisfied about it. You know the feeling?"

Pearce nodded. Sometimes it was all a police officer had to go on, that instinct which warned all was not well. It sel­dom let the experienced copper down. If Markby wasn't happy about Bodicote's death, Pearce was prepared to listen carefully.

"There's nothing," Markby was saying, "which can't be perfectly well explained. I'm nitpicking, as they say. Look­ing for little oddities which don't quite fit. But then, if every­thing did fit exactly, that would be suspect in its own way, wouldn't it? I mean, this world's full of imperfections. Every bit of evidence has its weak point. That's where defense law­yers earn their exorbitant fees. If everything's too perfect, then I start smelling a different sort of rat. The careful crook, checking every detail."

"I've been thinking about it, too!" Pearce said unexpect­edly. "I don't like coincidences, either. I mean, the old man choosing just this time to fall over in his own field. How many times had he gone down there of a morning and let the goats out? Hundreds. Every day of the year for God knows how many years. And now..." Pearce sighed.

"Every day, regular as clockwork," Markby muttered. "A routine which never varied."

A shout of laughter came from a group of young men at the farther end of the bar. They were sharp-suited and pale of complexion. They appeared to be celebrating something.

"One or two of them are going to be over the limit!" Pearce said. He'd been keeping a wary eye on the group.

"His cap."

"What?" Pearce put down his glass.

"The old man's cap." Markby clenched his fist. "See, this is Bodicote's head. Right? And this," he placed his open hand flat over his fist, "is his cap. Use your imagination. Bodicote comes a purler. Falls absolutely flat and hits his head. The cap falls off, thus..."

Markby turned his open hand, representing the cap, over and let it drop on the table, palm uppermost. "You see what I mean? I'd have expected his cap, in falling off, to have turned over and landed with the lining facing upwards. But it was lying with the lining downwards, on the turf."

"Ah," said Pearce doubtfully.

"Of course, you can say, and you'd be quite right, that I'm only supposing that it would fall off in that way. It could have landed the other way. It did, to all appearances."

Pearce was silent, sipping his beer and thinking it over. "Anything else?" he ventured. "I mean, with respect, it's not much."

"No, it isn't." Markby agreed. "How about this? The goat-house door was open. So why was he lying with his head toward the goat-house and his feet toward his cottage? That indicates he was walking from his cottage to the goat stable when he fell. But evidence suggests he'd already been in the goat-house. If he'd left it and fell, his head would have pointed the other way."

"He went back to his kitchen for something and was re­turning to the goat-house," objected Pearce.

Markby plowed on determinedly. "Fuller reckons, and we expect the lab will confirm it, that the old chap had been handling the goats. Grease on his hands and hairs beneath the fingernails. He'd been in the goat-house. They needed milk­ing. Why suddenly break off?"

"He let Jasper out first," said Pearce. "The dirt on his hands came from Jasper."

"White hairs, the nanny-goats."

"Jasper's not all brown. He's got some white hair." Pearce paused in playing devil's advocate to observe, "Funny, you can't help talking about that goat as though it were a person."

Markby put down his glass with such violence that the contents spilled. "I talked with Bodicote. He was an eccen­tric, I agree, but a genuine one and despite what Caswell says, Bodicote was both sharp and literate. He liked to read Conan Doyle and could identify a quotation at the drop of a hat."

"Bit of a joke, that," Pearce observed. "Drop of a hat. The old man's cap puzzling you and so on—sorry!" Hastily he added, "What did you make of that beefy woman, that Mrs. Sutton? Reckon she inherits? I mean, how much would the old boy be worth?"

"Land might be worth something. The cottage—renovated it would be highly desirable, I expect. But at the moment it's almost fit to be condemned. Just held together by the grime of ages. Other than that? What's the price of goats on the market?''

"Old blokes like Bodicote," said Pearce wisely, "keep their wealth in notes between the mattress and the bedsprings, or under a loose floorboard. They don't trust banks." He paled. "Hey! Did Gwyneth check that cottage to see if any­one had turned it over?"

"I think," Markby looked ruefully at the spilt beer and signaled to the barmaid to bring a cloth, "that I'll go over to Bamford and have a word with Sergeant Jones. In the mean­time, Dave, how well do you know your Sherlock Holmes?"

"Seen the telly version."

"Recognize this? ... the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. The dog did nothing in the night-time. That was the curious incident..." Markby raised his eyebrows.

Pearce shook his head. "Got me. I think I remember it but I couldn't tell you which story it's from."

"Silver Blaze. Silver Blaze is a racehorse. What we've got here is a goat. Drink up. We're on tax-payers' time!"

"Dogs, horses, goats," muttered Pearce into his glass. "Bloomin' Noah's Ark!"


It was one thing to tell Pearce he meant to have an informal word with Jones, but quite another actually to carry out this apparently simple objective. So Alan Markby reflected as he drove to Bamford police station the following day.

He was a member of the regional squad and, so far at least, not involved with inquiries into the sudden death of Hector Bodicote. That was so far something which had happened by chance next door to the scene of an investigation in which he was involved. Jones wouldn't mind. She'd be happy to chat about it. But Jones wasn't in charge of Bamford station. Apparently an Inspector Winter now was.

Markby hadn't met Winter. All he knew was that Winter held the job which he himself had held for so many years, running Bamford. It filled him with a mild resentment toward Winter—but nothing, he suspected, so much as the resent­ment Winter might hold toward him. To Winter, if Markby wasn't very careful, it would look as if the former Bamford chief was returning to his old haunts to tell them how to run their business. In Winter's shoes, he wouldn't like it.

But he couldn't avoid Winter. Simple courtesy demanded he call on the inspector first and inform him that Markby intended talking to a sergeant on his staff concerning an in­cident Winter's team was investigating.

Winter turned out to be a terrier of a man. Not particularly tall for a police officer, his bullet head was crowned with bristling gray spikes. His small, sharp eyes were sunken in permanently puffed and scarred flesh, and his nose was bat­tered flat. He was also almost completely square, having ex­traordinarily broad shoulders and a way of walking with his muscular arms held away from his sides like a gunfighter. To Markby, the suggestion was that a lack of stature—compar­atively—had led Winter to compensate with a devotion to muscle-building exercises and brute-force sports. Markby judged him the sort of football player who left the imprint of his studs on his opponents.

Today, clearly, Winter considered this visitor from the re­gional squad to be the key player in the opposing team and meant Markby to leave, metaphorically, dotted with boot-marks.

"We're honored!" He didn't trouble to hide the sarcasm. "A visit from the regional force! Thought you were all busy chasing twenty-quid notes!"

This was a reference to a recent investigation into a forgery case they'd carried out.

Markby smiled thinly, choosing to share the humor of the greeting, such as it was. "All cleared up as far as we're con­cerned—until it gets to court!"

Winter grunted. Anything could happen when cases got to court.

"I've already spoken to Sergeant Jones," he said gruffly. "I've had a look at her report. I've also been down to the morgue myself, since you expressed an interest. I've seen the stiff and spoken to the pathologist. Everything points to an accident. Cold frosty morning. Elderly man. Old-fashioned footwear. Slipped. Can't see what's bothering you—Sir."

Markby looked wistfully around what had once been his office. There were no longer any plants, carefully nurtured in their pots along the windowsills. Winter hadn't replaced them with any other personal item. Not so much as a photograph of his dog. But wait, wrong! There was something. A small framed certificate awarding the honors to a youthful Winter in a long distant inter-force boxing championship. Oh dear.

It offered a bridge, however. Markby remarked on it.

Winter squared his shoulders even more so that he now looked as if he'd forgotten to take the coat-hanger out of his jacket. "Fine discipline, boxing! Teaches self-defense while understanding your opponent. Quick mind, quick feet! Find his weakness!" Winter made an automatic feint with his fists, apparently unaware, and ducked his head.

Getting worse. Markby, in his mind, grouped Winter with Uncle Denis and probably a future Tristan Goodhusband, des­tined to be forever prisoners of their youth.

Markby plunged on and explained his reasons for wanting to talk to Jones about the circumstances of Bodicote's death. His reasons had sounded tenuous when he'd told Pearce. Now they sounded so thin that they appeared little more than a concocted excuse for his presence.

Winter clearly thought so, glaring at him. "And you want to talk to Jones because of the position of the old man's cap?''

"Well, I—" Markby gestured. "I had interviewed Bodicote with regard to the Caswell incident. So naturally, when the old man is found dead, I'm interested."

Winter's head sank into his collar-bones, his neck collaps­ing like an Edwardian opera-hat. "You've got reason to think Bodicote sent the poison pen letters or the explosive pack­age?"

"It's possible the explosive device was posted in London," Markby admitted. "As was the only anonymous letter in our possession. We've no evidence yet Bodicote ever went up to London. He had animals to care for."

"So where's the problem?" Winter was aggravatingly ob­structive.

"I just want to run through a few things with Jones, if you've no objection!" Markby contrived a theatrically con­spiratorial air. "For all that the old man was a village resident of long standing, I can't just exclude him from my inquiries. There was a good deal of bad feeling between him and his neighbors. He may have got a bee in his bonnet, you know."

"I understand," Winter was impressed by the theatricals. "Pity he's dead, then, isn't it? Nothing a corpse can tell you."

"The inspector's been breathing down my neck," said Jones gloomily. "Ever since you said you were coming over here, Mr. Markby. I haven't missed anything, have I, sir?"

"Shouldn't think so, Gywneth. I just don't like sudden deaths occurring around a case I'm looking into. Did you talk to any of the villagers about Bodicote?"

She brightened. "Several. He was obsessed with the goats. He took them to local agricultural shows and gave demon­strations of milking and general goat-care. But otherwise he never even went into the local pub for a drink on a Saturday. If it hadn't been for the goats, he'd have been a recluse. Or at least, that's the impression I got from everyone."

"Long-time resident?"

She laughed. "And how! He was born in Castle Darcy. His parents lived in that cottage. Although he was just on eighty when he died, I met a couple of very old gents who'd been to school with him, if you can imagine it! Do you know, they even remembered Mr. Bodicote's parents? They were sort of unusual. I gather they'd kept the village shop for a while. His father was a local lay preacher and since he had the gift of the gab and knew a lot of long words, he was called on when­ever anyone wanted someone to make a speech. Bodicote's mother was also well-educated for those days and her mother before her had been the first schoolmistress in Castle Darcy."

This was going back to the 1880s or 1890s. Village mem­ories were long. An image of a Victorian rural school formed itself in Markby's head, the schoolmistress in her long skirts teaching all ages, all grades, in one room, to help her, the brightest of her older pupils, pressed in to oversee the little ones.

"Once I got the old chaps talking about the Bodicotes, I couldn't get them to stop! In fact, I encouraged them to ram­ble on a bit because I got interested." She shrugged. "I wasted rather more time on them than I should, I suppose."

"Nothing's wasted, Gywnny."

So Bodicote's parents had been literate, numerate, and more bookish than most villagers. So much so that they'd become something of a legend in their own time and were still remembered by the old. Though there would have been little money for extras when Bodicote was a child, there would have been books in the house. Bodicote had early ac­quired his taste for "good yarns."

Good Lord! Markby thought suddenly. When Bodicote had started reading as a boy, Conan Doyle had still been alive and writing. As for Bodicote's mother, a bright young woman with a head for business, perhaps she'd used books to escape, at least in her mind, the confines of her village life. And what a wonderful pool of literary talent had been available to her for a shilling or so!

Markby remembered the bookcase in the corner of Bodi­cote's parlor, and the venerable examples of popular literature on its shelves. A tingle ran up his spine.

Gwyneth was still talking. "Local people knew he was odd but they respected him for what they call his learning. It was the way they'd respected his parents before him. I can tell you, sir, talking to those old chaps was fascinating! Anyway, Bodicote was a loner, never let anyone into the cottage, other than perhaps just inside the kitchen if it was someone he knew very well. Lately he'd taken to chaining the front door and wanting to know who was outside before he opened up. But no one thought that was significant, only that he was getting odder as he got older."

"Seems I was privileged to be invited in!" Markby re­marked. Had Bodicote been afraid? Or had his caution been intended to protect something?

"Check the bookcase, Gwynny!" Markby said suddenly. "In the parlor. A first edition, clean and in its original wrap­per, is sought after by collectors and dealers. Individually not fetching vast sums, perhaps, but a whole bookcase of them might tempt someone! Check disturbed dust! Talk to Mrs. Sutton! Make sure nothing's been taken!"



*11*
Alan Markby, had he but known it, was not the only one to whom the estate of the late Hector Bodicote was a cause of concern, or about to become so.

Sally Caswell sat before the computer in her tiny office the following morning. Her mind was currently given to the tem­poral affairs of Bailey and Bailey. She frowned at the col­umns of figures on the screen and pulled a thick accounts ledger toward her and ran her finger down a page, pausing occasionally, to check the entry against the screen. When she reached the end of the sheet, she closed the ledger and leaned back in the chair, turning her head away from the flickering screen. You weren't supposed to work at these things for more than short periods of time. It did awful things to your eyesight and froze your joints.

The thought of such a thing made her get up and stretch. She was stiff, getting overweight with all this sitting about, and just a little bored. Of course, it didn't have to be like this, not if she went along with what Austin suggested. He had made it seem quite feasible. Then the job—indeed, life itself—would be much more interesting. It was tempting. But there was Liam. Sally sighed and sat down again. The prob­lem was Liam. The problem, now she considered it, had al­ways been Liam.

She rested her chin in her hands. It was stupid to think this way, because after all, the truth was—

Someone had come into the outer room and was walking toward the office door. It wasn't Austin, she knew his step, and although a decided tread, it wasn't heavy enough for ei­ther Ted or Ronnie. It wasn't a viewing day, either, so not a browser. Sally spun the chair to face the door and called out, "Hullo? Can I help you?"

A figure filled the doorway and she recognized Mrs. Sutton.

Bodicote's niece looked much as she'd done the day of the old man's death, except that she didn't wear gumboots. In­stead she wore down-at-heel cheap slip-ons and snagged tights beneath a skirt, the pleats of which had been badly laundered so that they had more or less flattened out. With this, Maureen Sutton wore a hand-knitted Guernsey pullover of mannish style. Her hair was unkempt and her make-up no better applied than the day before. Nevertheless, Sally had the impression that Mrs. Sutton had done her best to make herself presentable. This was a business visit.

"Do sit down!" Sally invited her hastily, realizing she'd been staring. "How are you today? We're all so sorry about your uncle."

Mrs. Sutton sat gingerly on the designated chair, as if not sure that this was a good move.

"He was getting on," she said brusquely. "Couldn't last forever."

Sally was taken aback. The shock was two-fold. In the first place, it seemed an unkind and matter-of-fact dismissal of the old man. The second shock lay in Mrs. Sutton's hands which the woman had folded on her lap as she spoke. The fingers were workworn and the nails untrimmed. But in honor of the visit, Mrs. Sutton had donned her jewelry: a huge emerald cluster engagement ring, a veritable knuckle-duster of an eter­nity ring, her wedding ring, and sundry other rings, all inset with large, undoubtedly genuine, stones.

"I've seen all sorts in this saleroom," Austin had once told Sally. "Never let appearances lead you astray."

Mrs. Sutton wasn't poor, obviously, not sitting there with two or three thousand pounds on her fingers. Sally wondered whether the awful clothes were a deliberate attempt to mislead, or whether Mrs. Sutton just liked dressing in that bag-lady fashion.

"I've come about Uncle Hector's cottage," she said loudly. Her manner was such as would brook no argument. "I'm his executor, of the estate, you understand? Named in the will. You can check that with the lawyer. You'll see it's all right. So that's why I'm here."

"But he only died—" Sally bit the words back.

Mrs. Sutton wasn't troubled by tactlessness on Sally's part, nor, it appeared, by any finer feeling on her own. "I know he's not buried yet. We've got to wait for the inquest and the coroner to issue a certificate. But that's all routine. The in­quest is tomorrow and it won't take long to make arrange­ments afterwards. But there's other things got to be done sharpish, and I'm the one to do them!"

"What sort of things?" Sally asked in some trepidation.

Mrs. Sutton's expression became grimmer. "You don't know my family!"

"No," admitted Sally thankfully.

"Grabbers and scroungers! You've got to keep one step ahead of them! That's why Uncle Hector made me executor. To stop them getting up to their tricks."

"I see." Sally didn't but Mrs. Sutton had paused as if expecting a comment. She decided it was time to get to the reason for this increasingly unpleasant visit.

"So how exactly can Bailey and Bailey help you, Mrs. Sutton?"

"You're valuers, aren't you?" the woman demanded. "It says you are, outside over the door. I want you to go over to the cottage and value everything over fifty pounds."

"For probate?" Sally was startled. "Is that necessary? I think you ought to have a word with your solicitor, Mrs. Sutton. Generally valuations are only called for when a con­siderable estate is left. A stately home or a private art collec­tion." She thought of the cow-creamer. "I'm sure Mr. Bodicote had his valuables, little ornaments and such. But I don't think they'll interest the taxman. In fact, although please check with your solicitor, if Mr. Bodicote has only left very little, the formalities can virtually be dispensed with."

Mrs. Sutton was shaking her head. "It's not for probate. It's for me! To give me some ammunition when the guns start firing from the family's side! I want you to put a number on every item that's got a value over fifty pounds, and write down what it's worth. It won't take long. He's not got that much. But the furniture might fetch something. That old stuff does nowadays. Can't think why."

"If it's antique and in good condition," Sally stipulated hastily, lest Mrs. Sutton be expecting unrealistic sums for fur­niture which was probably in the same sort of shape as Bodicote's kitchen table. Old, yes. Worth doing up, yes. Of interest to a dealer, very likely. But expensive—no, not in the sort of shape it was in.

Mrs. Sutton said impatiently, "It's so that when it comes to sorting things out, everyone will get his fair due. Uncle Hector, you see, left it to me to divide it all up. He gave a general sort of instruction. Everyone to have one item of his choice, and all that's left over, comes to me. The solicitor suggested I just let them all go in the cottage and pick out one item each. I told him, it'd be like the battle of Waterloo! They'd all be squabbling about the value of things. They'd be reckoning this one had got something worth more than the other one, do you know what I mean? Or that I persuaded them to take the rubbish and kept the good stuff for myself."

"Sounds awful!" said Sally frankly.

Unexpectedly, her visitor grinned. "It is awful. I told you. Terrible crowd they are. Uncle Hector couldn't stand them. It was only me he liked. Only me he trusted. But blood is blood. He wouldn't leave them out when it came to the will. But I'm in charge."

It seemed an extraordinary idea, but the woman clearly meant it. "I'm not sure we should—at least, not until after the inquest," Sally protested.

"It's tomorrow, I told you, ten o'clock in the morning. You'll be there, will you? Coroner's verdict'll be accidental death, bound to be. He'll issue a certificate for burial. I'll bring the keys with me and give them to you after proceed­ings so you can go out there. I'll nip along to the funeral parlor and make the other arrangements. I can't hang about. I want someone to get there and value it all before they do, the family!"


The following day's inquest proceedings were blessedly brief but a highly unpleasant experience. Sally sat miserably lis­tening to Meredith's evidence. She could only admire Meredith's competence and apparent sangfroid as she described the body. All that practical consular training, thought Sally. Nevertheless, it emerged as a pathetic scene as Meredith spoke of the bleating of the nannies inside their house, of her first sight of a hobnailed boot, of the old man's cap lying on the ground, and of the billy, dancing inquisitively around his dead owner.

Then it was the turn of herself and Liam. She had little to contribute but Liam gave a terse account of having been called by Meredith to the scene, viewing the body, returning to the cottage and calling the police and ambulance services.

Sally, listening to him, wished he could have managed to sound a little more sympathetic to the fate of their elderly neighbor.

The coroner summed up. It was a sad but not rare occur­rence. Old people frequently fell and in this case it was pos­sible that old-fashioned footwear on slippery ground had been a contributory factor. He gave his verdict of accidental death.

The Bodicote clan had gathered in a phalanx in the middle of the courtroom. Mrs. Sutton sat expressionlessly, flanked by a pair of equally unattractive women who bore her a strong resemblance and were presumably her sisters. She'd brought along a taciturn middle-aged man and a surly youth. Husband and son, Sally assumed. The two unnamed women also had silent, unattractive menfolk. In much the same way as they'd arrived with various bags and packets of sandwiches which they had to be dissuaded from munching in the courtroom, they'd also brought a very old lady. This tiny bird of a woman, with wispy white hair under a felt hat, wore a grubby winter coat which reached to her ankles, leaving a glimpse of wrinkled lisle stockings and surgically adapted shoes. The beldame was deposited on a chair and ignored by the whole family.

Various other people had taken seats at the rear of the room but it was difficult to tell if they were relatives or interested villagers. The atmosphere was tense, less with grief, than with unexpressed rivalries. At the close of proceedings, Mrs. Sut­ton advanced on Sally and pressed a bunch of keys into her hand.

"Soon as possible!" she rasped.

The others pressed forward, suspicion writ large on their faces.

"Who's she, then?" shrilled the ancient one.

"From the valuers, Gran!" howled Mrs. Sutton into the old woman's ear. "From Bailey and Bailey, you know who they are, don't you?"

"Rogues!" cried the old woman. "Wally Bailey? He never got no one a decent price! He give me five miserable shillings for my mother's chiffonier! Rosewood, it were! With mirrors and all!"

"Not Wally," yelled Mrs. Sutton. "He's dead and gone thirty years or more, Gran! It's his nephew there now, Austin, you remember?"

"Austin? What are you talking about, Maureen? Austin Bailey is Thelma's kid, wears glasses and always got a cold!"

"Ignore her," said Mrs. Sutton, breathing heavily. "Take the keys and go, go on."

"You're never going to let Wally Bailey pick and choose what we gets from Hector's place? Here, you ask him what become of that rosewood chiffonier!" The old lady was be­coming dangerously distraught.

"Listen, don't you think—" Sally tried ineffectually to return the keys to Mrs. Sutton, who merely pressed them back into her hand.

"Don't take no notice," she advised again.

One of the other women said loudly, "They oughtn't to be let in there all alone, they oughtn't. Looking through Uncle Hector's things! You ought to go with them, Maureen."

"Brass drawer handles and bendy legs!" shrilled Gran.

"I've got things to do!" snapped Mrs. Sutton. "And I'm the executor of the will, right? So I decide what's what!"

With that she nodded to Sally and made off rapidly toward the exit.

The other family members gathered into a sullen conclave and glowered at Sally, suspecting they were to be done out of their due inheritance.

"Er—right," Sally backed cautiously away. "I'll—er—see to it, then. Nice to have—er—met you all."

"And a knife drawer wiv green baize lining!" said Gran viciously.

Sally fled.


Later, when Sally recounted subsequent events to Meredith and Alan Markby over a glass of wine, she said, "They were a dreadful family, and it didn't surprise me that Mrs. Sutton wanted to be a step ahead of them!"

"Happens all the time," said Alan. "Nothing like a death to bring out the worst in a family."

He had suffered his own irksome moment at the conclusion of the inquest when Inspector Winter had remarked, "Can't all get exciting cases like you got over at the regional squad with your bombs and paramilitary groups! Just a routine ac­cidental death as I thought it was."

Across the table from him now, Sally took a deep drink of her wine. "All this," she said, "is turning me into a drinker."

"Fine," said Meredith, topping up her glass. "So Austin and I went out to the cottage that afternoon," Sally continued. "Frankly, I also wanted it over and done with, so that we could give back the keys and forget it. At the same time, I can't say I wanted to go into the cottage, not given any choice. I didn't feel in the least bit like it. But then I reasoned that it was next door to me and I was going home, so it was a convenient moment in that way. Austin came along, of course, to do the actual valuations."


The goats had been removed by the Suttons. Sally missed them more than she'd ever imagined possible. Liam was highly delighted to be rid of their sometimes smelly or noisy and always destructive presence. But Sally missed their knowing expressions as they peered at her over the hedge and Jasper especially, with the mischief in his pale eyes.

Bodicote's cottage had the look of a home abandoned. No smoke wreathed from its chimney into the crisp air. An empty, lost feel shrouded it. It made her nervous of approach­ing it down the uneven path. She felt an intruder, as if Bod­icote's spirit still lurked about the place ready to drive off unwanted visitors.

"It seems indecent!" she said to Austin who was locking his car door outside the gate in the precise way he had with everything. "He's not buried yet. Are you sure this is in or­der?"

"She's the executor, I checked." Austin always checked. "There are the usual formalities with the will, such as it is, but there's no reason why she can't start the valuation. Of course, she can't actually dispose of anything, that's some­thing which has to wait for the will to be cleared, now she's set the legal moves going. Nor can we, or anyone else, re­move anything. But we can go in and look it over. It might be wise on her part to get an independent view, especially if there's going to be any dispute. Though, for goodness sake, I can't for the life of me see why she's worrying. We're talking about an old boy who spent his life in this village and kept a few goats, not a country landowner with acres and an ancestral home! The cottage itself has possibilities, but will need complete renovation and you know how much that costs, having done up your place! There's a fair bit of ground. But the building boom's collapsed and I doubt any council now would give planning permission. Failing a new motorway go­ing through—"

"Don't!" begged Sally. "I've got troubles enough."

"Just giving an example. There isn't any such plan, that's my point. The land is just a big garden. Ideally, if it were me, I'd knock the cottage down and build a new one. But, in the first place, it's not detached—it is very much attached to yours. In the second, it'll be listed, right?"

Sally nodded. "Yes, we had awful problems getting plan­ning permission for the extension and renovated kitchen. We had to promise not to move any original beams or partitions, and to put in windows which matched the originals."

"See? As for the contents of the cottage, if the relatives think we're going to find anything of value, they're deluding themselves. Price everything over fifty pounds?" Austin snorted. "Take us five minutes!" he chuckled.

"All right, Austin, if you're sure."

He beamed kindly at her. "Of course I am. Why not? Let's get in there and get out, that's my view."

Sally shared it and said so.

Austin shrugged, the wind which tugged at Sally's full skirt, whipping up his long hair. "Families!" he said. "Noth­ing like a will to breed ill-will amongst your nearest and dear­est!"

The attempt at humor didn't work. She felt just as bad. She handed the bunch of keys to Austin. She wasn't going to be the one to open the door. Liam, who'd come back with them, had disappeared into their own cottage. Back to his book, no doubt. She envied his detachment from this squalid little af­fair.

Austin unlocked the front door with the Yale key.

"New lock!" he observed. "Looks as if the old chap had put new security in place." He peered around it. "New door-chain, too. And a great big bolt at top and bottom. Didn't mean anyone to get by him, did he?"

"Poor old chap," said Sally. "I keep thinking about him. I keep wishing we'd been nicer to him."

Austin smiled down at her. "I'm sure you were nice to him, my dear. You couldn't be nasty to anyone!"

"Well, I was nasty to him. I told him I wished he was dead! Now he is dead. Three hundred years ago, I'd have been burnt as a witch. There are plenty of places, even in Europe, where locals would say I had the evil eye! I even feel as if I did bring it on him!" Sally shook her head. "I'm not looking forward to this at all."

"Don't worry," Austin pushed the front door wide. "It won't take long."


"The smell in there was awful, Meredith. You can't imagine it. It always did smell. But being shut up for several days, it was worse. Old goat mash and old boots, principally. To­gether with that funny smell you sometimes get around old men. But there was something else, too. I couldn't quite name it. A leathery sort of smell."

"Yes," Alan said softly. "I remember it in the sitting room."

Sally glanced at him. "The first surprise was in the sitting room."


"Ah," said Austin genially. "We'll open a window first, I think! Not feeling iffy, are you, Sal? Whiffs a bit in here. Although it's cold enough without an added draught."

"I don't feel sick. But do open the window. Better frozen than suffocated. He's got some very interesting bits of old china. I've seen them in the kitchen. He's got a cow-creamer..."

"We'll get there in due course. Let's have a look in here first. This is his best room and it's probably where the desir­ables are, the ones the Suttons and the Bodicotes are prepared to feud over!" He looked around. "A bookcase! It might be interesting to see what the old gentleman read!"

Austin, having opened the window, had gone to the book­case in the corner. The pale winter sunlight flooded through now that the curtain had been pulled right back, and played on the worn spines of the packed volumes. Austin had eased out the first book on the top row.

"Gawd..." he whispered and then fell silent.

"Austin?" Sally became alarmed.

He didn't reply. He was easing out—very, very carefully—the next.

"Sally?" His voice sounded muffled, suppressed excite­ment spilling out despite his best effort. "Come and see this. It's John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps in original wrapper. And here's Greenmantle. First edition. Well-read, but well cared for. Absolutely intact. And here's the old man's favorite reading, if Markby's right! Sherlock Holmes—hold on!"

Austin's voice expired in a squeak. "This folder contains an 1887 copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual! It's the one with A Study in Scarlet, the first ever Sherlock Holmes' story! A collector's dream! Do you realize, one of these recently cleared Ј20,000 at auction in London! Yikes! There's a man­uscript letter tucked inside this copy of The White Company. That's one of Conan Doyle's historical yarns. The letter's signed and apparently written by Conan Doyle himself! It's addressed to Miss Charlotte Edwards and going by the date, that must have been the old man's mother or grandmother! Probably grandmother. It looks as if Conan Doyle had quite a correspondence going with her because he refers to previous letters and congratulates her on her sterling work bringing literacy to country children! Good God! Do you think there are other manuscript letters around in the cottage?"

"Perhaps," Sally suggested nervously, "we ought to take a look at the other books first."

"Yes, yes—look!" Words failed Austin at this point.

Together they took the books from their shelves and spread them on the table.

"Look at 'em!" Austin said faintly. "Look at all those Agatha Christies. First editions, in wrappers, clean ... collec­tor's delight!"

In a sort of litany he chanted, "Graham Greene. D. H. Lawrence. Somerset Maugham. H. E. Bates. The Americans, too. Faulkner, Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett. All first or early editions! But Conan Doyle, everything the man wrote!" Austin's voice rose in wonder.

"There obviously was a tradition in old Bodicote's family of buying every new title hot off the press and, whenever possible, sending them to the authors with a request they sign them! And they did! They wrote back! There are five or six autographed letters, stuck inside the covers and probably doz­ens hidden elsewhere. The oldest by date are to Charlotte, addressed to her first as Miss Edwards at the schoolhouse and later to her as Mrs. Purdy. The next lot are addressed to Alice Purdy and later to Alice Bodicote. That makes her Charlotte's daughter and Hector's mum. Finally the correspondence is with Hector. Grandmama started this hobby of corresponding with writers. Her daughter and grandson kept it up! And they were just villagers! Who would ever expect it?"

"Charlotte wasn't just a villager," Sally said. "Not if her first letters are addressed to the schoolhouse. She must have been the school mistress here."

Austin ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "Tell you what!" he announced. "We can check this out, but I reckon what happened was something like this. Before 1870 there were church schools, but Castle Darcy probably hadn't got one. The kids walked miles to, say, Cherton? Or they didn't go to school at all. Then Gladstone brought in the Board Schools, from 1870 on. Castle Darcy probably got a new­fangled Board School when such schools were popping up all over the place. Charlotte came here to be its teacher! The date would fit. Poor girl was probably bored to tears and took refuge in books and became a literary groupie, writing all those letters. Then she married a local man, Purdy, and stayed. But she still wrote the letters to her favorite authors and Alice, her daughter, did the same. As did Alice's son, Hector Bodicote."

They stared at one another. Austin said in a strained voice, "I think we ought to take a look upstairs."

They climbed the narrow stair, Austin first, Sally following behind unwillingly.

The first tiny room was Bodicote's bedroom, monastic in its simplicity. Like a medieval hermit, Bodicote had built shelves above his head for his precious books.

"More of 'em," Austin said dully. "I'm getting blase about this now, Sal."

He was to eat his words when they opened the door of the other bedroom.

There was no furniture in it at all apart from crudely con­structed shelving on the walls. Instead, books were stacked from floor to ceiling. They spilled out of ancient cardboard boxes. They were wrapped in lengths of cloth. They packed the shelves. They ranged from the antique to the modern. Some were worthless, some of value, some extremely rare.

"And all of 'em," Austin said, his voice tending now to shrillness, "stolen!"

"What?" Sally stared at him.

Austin spun around and threw out his hand, pointing at the haul. "He was clearly nuts! Crazy, literally, about books! Grandma had started off the love of reading, Mama followed. By the time it got to young Hector, as he was when he started, the whole thing had got to be an obsession! What he couldn't buy, he pinched! Then he hid them up here! A lifetime's collection of purloined tomes! Look, look..." Austin snatched up a nearby volume. "This has got the stamp of the Bodleian library in Oxford in it! How the devil did he get in there to pinch it? And here, these are his recent acquisitions! The stamp of Wilver House library and my gosh! The old lighter! Here are the two missing Dickens' volumes from our sale! The man was totally without a sense of meum and tuum!" Austin's voice cracked.

Sally whispered, "He always came to sales. He used to buy odd bits of rubbish. He always wore that baggy old rain­coat..."

It was difficult to breathe in there. The windows were tightly sealed. The air was thick with the musty odor of old paper and leather bindings.

She picked up a book at random. "In Latin. He couldn't even read it." Sally's face expressed her bewilderment. "Why?"

"Why?" Austin replied hoarsely. He took out his hand­kerchief and mopped his brow. "Because he was crazy!"

"But Austin," she protested, "we can't value these! I mean, how on earth do we tell which ones are pinched and which aren't? I know you can tell the ones with library stamps in them, like those Wilver Park ones. But the others? He could have been stealing them over a period of fifty years! We'll never find the owners!"

"Not our job!" Austin said firmly. "Police job. In fact, it's a job the police should've done already! Didn't they check upstairs? Didn't they realize—" He spluttered and resumed, "The only thing I know for certain, Sal, is that we've been set up, you and I!"

"Set up?" She blinked at him, distressed. "How?"

"By that female Sutton! She wanted us to find these! That tale about having to get in and value before the family got here! Of course she wanted an outsider in here before anyone else! She didn't want to be the one to find all this!" Austin threw out his arms. "She wanted us to find them! She'll swear blind, I bet you, that she knew nothing about any of it!"

"You think she knew?" Sally couldn't take it in.

"Of course she blasted knew—knows! The books down­stairs on show, and possibly the ones in his bedroom, those are legitimate, bought and paid for. That's my guess. The rest, all of these, are stolen! Oh, how I wish I'd been there when she came to the office. I'd have smelled a rat. You weren't to know—don't be upset, Sal!"

Austin sounded alarmed, seeing horror and dismay mingled on her face. He put his hands on her shoulders. "It wasn't your fault. You weren't to realize what she was up to. But I've been in this business years..."

Sally turned her face up to his. "He was a thief! I was feeling so sorry for him! But he was a thief!" Her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, Sal..." Austin said. And there, amongst the stacks of stolen books, he kissed her.


"That's what I could smell," Alan Markby said. "Old leather. I thought of horses. But what I was really thinking of was saddlery. Old devil. I did wonder whether he mightn't have penned the abusive letters to Liam, or some of them. The evening I called on him, he hid something in a drawer before I got into the room. But he was probably gloating over one of his stolen treasures. As for the police, I'm sorry to say they were negligent. I did direct Sergeant Jones to the book­case and she sent a couple of constables to take a look at it.

"They interpreted their instructions literally. They were told to check if anything appeared to be missing. Since the cottage was stacked to the roof with things, they reported that no, on the contrary, everything appeared to be there! It never occurred to them that they'd stumbled on a lifetime's haul of stolen goods! They just thought he was a hoarder as some old people are. If they'd looked inside any of the books up­stairs and seen the library stamps, they might have become suspicious, but they didn't. They thought the cottage and its contents a bit of a joke. I'm sure Winter is making sure nei­ther of them is laughing now!

"Mrs. Sutton—if she knew about the books upstairs—must have cursed the fact that the coppers didn't find the haul. She had no option but direct you to it, Sally. Off the record, I'm sure Austin's right. Mrs. Sutton wanted someone else to find them."

"I was cross at first," Sally admitted. "I thought what a dreadful old rogue. Then I began to be sorrier for him than I was before. He must have just loved books. He bought what he could, but he couldn't afford to buy everything, so he took. Years and years, collecting other people's books. There were public library books in there, you know. Common or garden cloth-bound public library editions. No value except to the libraries which had lost them. He just took anything and everything. There was a tri-lingual seventeenth-century Bible, Latin, Greek and Hebrew in parallel columns! He couldn't even read it! And yet, it's so sad. To think of him, all alone in there, poring over the books. Handling them, touching the bindings, and the pages, peering at the funny old print. Poor Mr. Bodicote!"

But Alan Markby was smiling. "What is it?" Meredith asked him.

"I was just thinking," he said dreamily, "of the unfortu­nate Winter who's got the job of sorting all this out!"