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  ‘As to why she hasn’t arrived,’ said the clergyman, ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. I think,’ he added, smiling faintly, ‘it would be fair to describe her as her own woman.’

  ‘That, Crosby,’ remarked Sloan as they walked away from the rectory and back to the car, ‘usually means that the person they have in mind does what they like when they like.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m sure.’

  ‘Right, Crosby, go ahead and get some copies of that picture blown up and see what the sandwich shop has to say.’

  ‘I can guess,’ said the constable gloomily, ‘that they serve dozens of old ladies every day …’

  ‘Or,’ Sloan completed the litany for him, ‘that they can’t remember yesterday, let alone three weeks ago.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Crosby.

  ‘Don’t forget we’ve got to find Norman Potts too. We’ll try somewhere near the Railway Tavern pub in Berebury, down by the viaduct, first. That’s where his wife thought he was living.’

  ‘No, sir, I won’t forget. He sounds a right bounder to me and the sooner we’ve got him, the better.’

  ‘A policeman should not make judgements too early in an investigation,’ Sloan reminded him. ‘A prejudiced mind,’ he added sententiously, ‘is no good to an officer, and don’t you forget it. Juries don’t like it either. And in case you don’t know it, they can detect a police prejudice half a mile away.’

  ‘I won’t forget, sir.’ Crosby’s face assumed an expression more commonly found on those of schoolboys reprimanded by their schoolteachers.

  ‘And after we’ve started to look for the aforementioned Norman Potts, Crosby, you can check up with the bus company about how many tickets they sold on the ten to ten bus from Pelling into Berebury that morning.’

  ‘But Enid Osgathorp didn’t catch the bus, sir.’

  ‘So it has been said by Anthony Berra,’ pointed out Sloan, ‘but we don’t have any other witnesses to this yet. But anyone waiting at the bus stop might have seen or spoken to her and perhaps seen her being given a lift. Detection, Crosby, is largely a matter of checking every single thing. Remember that.’ Sloan didn’t know whether or not his attempts to train the constable in proper procedures would help in his own appraisal or not but there was no harm in trying. Surely Brownie points of any sort would help? On the other hand, on a bad day the superintendent was quite capable of blaming him for not catching Jack the Ripper.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And find out how many of those at the bus stop used an old person’s bus pass. Any other oldies there would have known Enid Osgathorp for sure.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, the whole village would know her if she had worked for the doctor.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then, Crosby, you can see how far the railway people have got digging out their CCTV cassettes for us and how long they’ll be about it.’

  ‘They’ll be semi-fast, I expect, sir.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘That’s what they call their slow trains,’ said Crosby, switching on the car engine.

  ‘What you have to do, Sloan,’ said the superintendent crisply ‘is to make up your mind exactly what you’re trying to do out at Pelling.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Sloan, reminding himself that the upside of being back at the police station was the canteen there and he was hungry. The downside did not dare speak its name.

  ‘The “in word” if I remember correctly,’ the superintendent added, heavily sarcastic, since the idea that he would remember anything incorrectly was supposed to be thought risible, ‘is prioritise. I just call it making up your mind.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Sloan cautiously.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I have. Made up my mind, I mean.’ The detective inspector reminded himself to be careful with his choice of words. The superintendent was unpredictable at the best of times. ‘The damage to the contents of the greenhouses out there and at Capstan Purlieu has been noted and I have been interviewing all those customers whose plants might have been targeted, but Enid Maude Osgathorp is definitely a missing person and perhaps at risk. Especially as some person or persons unknown would seem to have been in her cottage at some time,’ he added carefully, ‘and only presumably when she wasn’t there.’

  ‘Someone looking for something,’ pronounced Leeyes swiftly.

  ‘Or her,’ said Sloan soberly.

  ‘Or her,’ agreed Leeyes.

  ‘Twice,’ said Sloan.

  ‘You’re not very clear, Sloan,’ complained Leeyes.

  ‘Presumably two people looking for something, sir,’ said Sloan. ‘But it would seem at different times and perhaps looking for different things. I don’t know what. I think that both entries were probably effected after Enid Osgathorp had left but I don’t know that either.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve got a date for that, have you?’

  ‘And her photograph, which we shall now be circulating,’ said Sloan. ‘We’re on our way next to interview the last person known to have seen her and then I want to find out a bit more about a man called Benedict Feakins.’

  ‘Leaving no stone unturned, Sloan, that’s what I like to hear. Don’t forget those damaged plants in the greenhouses out that way, even so. I don’t like the sound of them. Not your run-of-the-mill damage.’

  ‘I won’t, sir.’ He was tempted to say that that particular problem could be downgraded since no one was at risk but decided against it. Tackling vandalism was always high on the superintendent’s list of police priorities and so he definitely wouldn’t want that put on the back-burner. The public probably found vandalism more threatening than the odd missing elderly party: they – and the newspapers – were certainly more vocal about it. ‘I’ve got Crosby seeking the whereabouts of a man with a possible grudge about at least one of the parties concerned and the Scenes of Crime people are going over Canonry Cottage as we speak.’

  ‘You have good reasons for saying all this, I take it?’ said the superintendent, adding waspishly, ‘Such as evidence.’

  ‘I have, sir. Entry to Enid Osgathorp’s cottage was clearly effected by two different methods – a key and a broken window.’

  ‘So what stage are you at?’ asked Leeyes, changing tack with disconcerting speed.

  ‘Waiting for a report from the Scenes of Crime people,’ Sloan answered automatically – and immediately regretted his speedy response. He should have taken more trouble with it: the superintendent favoured the considered reply. Being a bit late back with him was definitely preferable to an instant response.

  ‘And what else?’ his superior officer snapped.

  ‘Replies to our enquiries, sir,’ said Sloan, reaching for his notebook, ‘including …’

  ‘I don’t want every last detail, Sloan,’ he said testily, changing tack once again. ‘Fill me in when you’ve got something concrete to report. I’ve got a meeting with the Assistant Chief Constable about staffing before I can go home.’

  Retreating as speedily as he could, Detective Inspector Sloan achieved his own office with relief. Crosby was waiting for him there.

  ‘I’ve tracked Norman Potts down, sir,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t difficult. He’s listed as living just where his wife …’

  ‘His ex-wife,’ Sloan corrected him.

  ‘Where his ex-wife said he would be, and that garden design bloke you wanted to talk to – the one who gave the missing party a lift into Berebury – he’s over at Pelling Grange with his customers there just now …’

  ‘I think he prefers to think of them as clients,’ murmured Sloan, ‘but never mind. Let’s tackle him at his place of work first. I’d rather like to take a look at the garden at the Grange myself. It sounds interesting.’

  Not only was Anthony Berra at Pelling Grange but his employers were in the garden with him when the two policemen arrived there. He was standing in the middle of a large flower bed that was empty save for a heavy plinth that he was lugging from place to place with some difficulty.

  �
��Further to the right, Anthony,’ called out Mrs Lingard, turning to the two visitors and saying plaintively, ‘he will go on about the Golden Mean whatever that is.’ She slipped effortlessly into hostess role as soon as Sloan explained his and Crosby’s presence, while Anthony Berra lowered the plinth back where he had wanted it in the first place.

  Charmian Lingard was now dressed in a suit of a mixture of light brown and blue coloured material, the lapels of the jacket of which hung so artfully that even Christopher Dennis Sloan, working husband, realised the whole ensemble was expensively understated. He made a mental note to remember it to describe it in detail to his wife, Margaret, and then just as quickly he made another decision not to. There was something about the fine cloth that bespoke of a different world.

  ‘Anthony here,’ Charmian Lingard went on, waving an arm, ‘was just explaining his thinking about the new Mediterranean garden he’s planting for us. It sounded so interesting. What was it, Anthony? Tall plants at the back, medium in the middle and short plants at the front …’

  Crosby started to say something under his breath about rocket science.

  ‘After that,’ continued Charmian Lingard, who hadn’t heard this, ‘you have to choose flowers that flourish best in full sun, semi-shade and deep shade. Then flowers for spring, summer and autumn … and Buddleia at each end for butterflies.’

  ‘All I really mentioned, Charmian,’ protested Berra, ‘was that the new Bergenias made good summer and winter foliage.’

  She was undeterred and swept on. ‘There was something you were saying about colour too, Anthony, wasn’t there?’

  The landscape designer looked embarrassed. ‘Blues and yellows together, Charmian – hot colours massed in big clumps.’

  Mrs Lingard said in a proprietary fashion, ‘That wasn’t all you said, Anthony.’

  ‘This year, next year and five years on,’ he said, rolling his eyes, man to man, in Sloan’s direction.

  ‘This year, next year, sometime never,’ chanted Crosby. ‘Cherry stones,’ he explained to a bewildered audience. ‘You know: tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor.’

  ‘That will do, Crosby,’ said Sloan repressively.

  Charmian Lingard swept into the conversational void with a charming smile. ‘Not, Inspector, that I am a five years ahead woman. It’s this year for me, not even next.’

  She would have been surprised had she known it how much she slipped down in Detective Inspector Sloan’s estimation at this. In his credo, all good gardeners planned ahead. ‘Quite so,’ he said politely.

  ‘But you say it’s Anthony you’ve come to see, Inspector,’ she said, turning to her husband. ‘Come along, Oswald.’

  ‘No need for you and the major to go, Charmian,’ said Anthony Berra lightly. ‘I didn’t do it, Inspector, whatever it was, but I’ll come quietly.’

  ‘You took a Miss Enid Osgathorp to the station,’ said Sloan.

  ‘That’s true.’ He relaxed. ‘So I did. I told you. Was that a crime?’

  ‘Can you tell us again?’ asked Sloan.

  Charmian Lingard gave a tinkling laugh. ‘It doesn’t exactly sound like the Third Degree, Inspector.’ Her only interaction with the police in life so far had been in the matter of fines for speeding (dealt with by the family solicitor) and parking tickets (paid for by an indulgent father). Her misdemeanours at boarding school had invariably been referred to the headmistress, a prudent woman very conscious of Charmian’s family’s worldly wealth and social connections. Somehow Charmian’s transgressions there had therefore always managed to get left in the pending file. Any stepping over the line at her Swiss Finishing School had gone unrecorded.

  ‘You see, we can’t find Miss Osgathorp,’ explained Detective Inspector Sloan, keeping his thoughts on the Third Degree to himself.

  ‘Oh, I know her,’ said Charmian Lingard, surprised. ‘She was the funny old biddy who worked at the doctor’s. What do the police want her for? Has she done something wrong?’ She raised her eyes dramatically. ‘Don’t say she’s a drug dealer?’

  ‘She’s been reported missing,’ said Sloan baldly. ‘And what we would like to do is to take some DNA material from your car, Mr Berra. With your permission, of course.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Berra. He waved an arm. ‘It’s over there.’

  ‘How would that help,’ intervened Charmian Lingard, ‘if you haven’t found her?’ She examined Sloan’s face. ‘You haven’t found her, have you?’

  ‘No, madam. Not yet. We will, of course.’

  ‘And I gave her a lift to the station,’ said Anthony Berra to Charmian Lingard, abandoning his spade and leaping back onto the grass. ‘And told the police so. She dumped her luggage on the front seat and sat on the back seat behind it. I think,’ he said solemnly, ‘she may have felt safer there. She has, I may say, always struck me as the archetypal spinster.’

  ‘You can’t be too careful if you’re a woman on your own,’ chanted Crosby sententiously. ‘That’s what we always teach the ladies.’

  ‘That’s what I tell my future intended too,’ said Anthony Berra. He grinned. ‘Not that she listens, I’m sure.’

  ‘Where did you go after you’d dropped Miss Osgathorp off, sir?’ asked Sloan.

  The garden designer wrinkled his nose in recollection. ‘A bit of shopping and then the bank, I think. Yes, of course, that’s why I was going into Berebury that day anyway.’

  ‘That would be the Calleshire and Counties, would it?’ asked Crosby. ‘On the Parade?’

  ‘It would,’ said Berra. ‘My worldly wealth, such as it is, is in their hands.’

  ‘Then where on earth did you manage to park?’ asked Crosby with genuine professional curiosity.

  ‘You may well ask, constable. In the Bellingham Hotel car park, actually,’ said Berra. ‘It’s about the only free place but if you park there you have to eat there, so I did.’

  Detective Constable Crosby nodded knowledgeably. ‘That’s what the notice in the car park says. “Park here, eat here”.’

  ‘So I did both,’ said Anthony Berra neatly.

  Detective Inspector Sloan raised something else on his agenda. ‘Mrs Lingard, we are also looking into the break-in at Jack Haines’ nursery. Just for the record, do you know of anyone who would have had a vested interest in the plants being raised for you not being available in time to be planted out properly?’

  ‘I haven’t offended anyone here that I am aware of,’ she said stiffly, ‘and Oswald’s first wife is dead, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan denied that it was.

  ‘People can be quite jealous,’ she went on with surprising bitterness, ‘and of course one never knows with the old guard in any village.’

  Sloan wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on the meaningful look that Anthony Berra had cast in Oswald Lingard’s direction at his wife’s last remark. That old soldier, though, was taking good care not meet the other man’s eye.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Detective Inspector Sloan was still sitting in his office when Charlie Marsden, ‘F’ Division’s Chief Scenes of Crime Officer, arrived back at the police station from Canonry Cottage at Pelling. Both Superintendent Leeyes and Detective Constable Crosby had long gone off duty. When Sloan had rung his wife, Margaret, to say he would be late back from work she had pointedly enquired the whereabouts of the other two.

  ‘Gone home,’ he admitted. ‘Both of them.’

  ‘The man in the middle,’ she said, ‘that’s all you are, Christopher.’

  ‘Someone’s got to carry the can for the top and the bottom,’ he responded, half-joking.

  ‘Oppressed by those above and depressed by those below, if you ask me,’ said his wife.

  ‘So call me Common Man,’ he said lightly.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ Margaret Sloan said, adding resignedly, ‘it’s a casserole, anyway.’

  Not introspective, he decided that this did describe his state quite well. It described Common Man even bett
er. Charlie Marsden, though, another man late for his supper tonight, could only be described as an enthusiast. Sloan found him cheering to listen to.

  ‘Interesting little trip, Seedy,’ reported the Scenes of Crime Officer, one professional to another. ‘Challenging too. Gave the boys something to get their teeth into.’

  ‘Tell me more, Charlie,’ invited Sloan, leaning forward. ‘All we had was a quick look.’

  The man pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Sloan. ‘You were quite right about there having been two entries. I can confirm that there have also been two quite separate searches in that cottage too, big time. With gloves on. That’s what made it so interesting.’

  ‘Big time for what, Charlie?’

  ‘At a guess I should say papers of some sort. No sign of much disturbance in what we call domestic goods except that they’ve obviously been turned over by someone looking for papers. No ripping of sofas or cushions apart or anything flashy like that as you know …’

  ‘Carpets not lifted?’

  ‘Not that we could see but I would say that every single book has been opened and shaken about and then been put back on the shelf quite carefully by one of the intruders. Must have had plenty of time.’

  ‘I think he or she …’

  ‘They …’

  ‘They probably had as much time as they wanted, Charlie, which is a worry in itself,’ he admitted.

  ‘Someone got in there with a key,’ agreed Charlie Marsden tacitly.

  ‘But you found no sign of actual theft, did you, any more than we did?’

  ‘Not that we could spot. Nothing all that much worth taking there I should say …’

  ‘Unless it’s gone already,’ put in Sloan automatically. ‘We can’t be too sure about that.’

  ‘True, but there was nothing to suggest that there might have been great valuables there in the first place. You can always tell, you know.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan did know. You only had to step into a house to get the feel for its owners. Just as his friend, Inspector Harpe, from Traffic Division, could tell a lot about the driver from a look at the car, he himself could usually tell what a house owner was like from the garden too. He leant back in his chair. ‘So what was your take on the bungalow itself, then, Charlie?’