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  Detective Inspector Sloan tacitly agreed with him. ‘And now, Admiral, she’s been missing for three weeks, which is our problem.’

  ‘She’ll turn up,’ said Waldo Catterick. He echoed an old hymn. ‘Jesus can’t possibly want her for a sunbeam.’ Something approaching a grin crossed his weather-beaten face. ‘You’re too young to remember that expression too.’

  ‘I should have worked out where the woman was getting her information from before,’ said Sloan, concentrating on the job in hand.

  ‘It shouldn’t surprise you in my case,’ said Catterick frankly. ‘All admirals have been midshipmen once upon a time, you know, just as all bishops have been curates in their day.’

  ‘What did you do about it?’ asked Sloan, leaving aside this nugget of conventional wisdom.

  ‘Took the tablets.’

  ‘I mean, about Miss Osgathorp.’

  He gave a high laugh just as a nurse approached with a tray with a hypodermic needle on it. ‘Like the Duke of Wellington, I told her to publish and be damned.’

  ‘But she didn’t,’ said Sloan, eyeing the nurse and getting to his feet to go.

  ‘Of course not, Inspector. Then everyone would have known what she was up to with everyone else’s medical records at her fingertips, wouldn’t they? It would have quite spoilt her little game and I counted on that.’ The blue eyes twinkled. ‘I was right too.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell us that she had attempted to blackmail you so that we could have done something about it,’ pointed out Sloan astringently.

  ‘Then everyone would have known, wouldn’t they?’ said the old man simply.

  ‘Just a little prick,’ said the nurse, advancing with her hypodermic syringe at the ready.

  Sloan left hastily before the admiral could catch his eye.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘So every single patient on the doctor’s list at Pelling could have been being blackmailed by this woman?’ barked Superintendent Leeyes back at the police station. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Sloan? And not very clearly, if I may so.’

  ‘Theoretically, sir, but actually it would only be worth her while …’

  ‘If it was her, remember,’ intervened the superintendent.

  Only the prospect of the Annual Assessment and his Personal Development Discussion coming up very soon stopped Sloan from quoting Erasmus in the matter of going where the evidence led – another kernel of wisdom brought to his attention by his philosophical old Station Sergeant. Instead he went on, ‘Quite so, sir. That being so, obviously there would only be any point in her trying it on with those who knew or had reason to believe that there was something discreditable on their medical records.’

  ‘But we don’t know who they are, do we? That it?’

  ‘We don’t know yet, sir,’ said Sloan patiently. ‘And we have no idea how many there are of them either.’ He’d been running over in his mind his own medical history, hoping that it didn’t have anything in it worse than acne. Mind you, as he remembered, that had seemed very shameful at the time. Prompted by this thought, he went on, ‘And we don’t know at this stage exactly what medical information there could have been on their records that made them vulnerable to blackmail.’

  ‘Plenty, I daresay, human beings being what they are,’ said Leeyes, a natural cynic if ever there was one.

  Detective Inspector Sloan, experienced police professional that he was, could only agree. He didn’t need a statistician to tell him that quite a large percentage of the population had something to hide. He knew that already.

  The superintendent drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘But that woman, Enid Osgathorp, would have known all about their little medical foibles by virtue of having access to their records. That’s what you’re telling me as well, isn’t it?’

  ‘If it was her, sir,’ he said, tongue in cheek.

  ‘I take your point,’ said the superintendent loftily.

  ‘And I’m very much afraid that at least two people weren’t like the admiral and didn’t refuse to play ball.’ He was tempted to add that it took two to tango but thought better of it.

  ‘And therefore presumably paid the price of silence instead?’ said Leeyes.

  ‘Just so, sir. Two people who didn’t tell her to publish and be damned, anyway.’ There had been something engagingly straightforward about the old sea-dog at Pelling. Sloan hoped the operation on his hip was going well.

  ‘Two, you said?’

  ‘The SOCO reported that there are signs of two separate break-ins at Enid Osgathorp’s house after she’d left it.’

  ‘Looking to see if she had evidence of their weaknesses there,’ concluded Leeyes, who was wont to equate illness with culpability – and always with failure. ‘And finding it, do you suppose?’

  ‘I don’t think that there would have been any evidence there to find,’ said Sloan, who had been thinking about this. ‘She didn’t need evidence. Such that there was would have been on their medical records anyway or Enid Osgathorp wouldn’t have known about it. Presumably the records – hard copy or computer – were safe enough from anyone else.’ He hoped that this was true. The records were in government hands, which, he thought realistically, wasn’t by any means the same thing as being safe from prying eyes. ‘The victims would have only needed to be sure that she was aware of their medical histories. They wouldn’t have needed proof because they, too, knew it would be there – written on their records.’

  ‘And they themselves naturally knew them, as well, of course,’ said the superintendent, stroking his chin, a sure sign that he was thinking too. ‘So there wouldn’t have been any question that she hadn’t got her facts right.’

  ‘Exactly, sir.’ Sloan coughed. ‘There is, though, the possibility that they wanted to be sure that there was nothing in her house that led directly to them.’

  Leeyes shuffled some papers about on his desk. ‘And are you telling me that one of the people who broke in has killed her?’

  ‘All that we know for certain,’ Sloan said steadily, ‘is that she’s been missing for three weeks now and that we can’t as yet trace her whereabouts. Of course we now also know that some person or persons unknown would seem to have a motive for silencing her.’

  ‘Do you have anyone else in your sights, Sloan? Besides the two unknown breakers and enterers of her cottage, I mean?’

  ‘Not the vicar’s wife, anyway,’ he said. ‘She was dead before Enid Osgathorp is said to have left – did leave – but I’m fairly sure she had been one of her victims.’

  ‘Wonder what she’d been up to?’ Leeyes asked, with something approaching a grin. ‘Mrs Beddowes, I mean.’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure, sir,’ said Sloan austerely. He paused and then said, ‘Benedict Feakins is still up to something but I don’t know what.’

  ‘Then find out,’ commanded Leeyes automatically.

  ‘He seems to be short of money, which could be accounted for by blackmail, and he shied away like a frightened pony when Enid Osgathorp’s name was mentioned. But he doesn’t strike me as having the bottle to do away with a kitten, let alone an elderly party, although,’ he added fairly, ‘desperate men can be driven to take desperate actions.’

  ‘He was one of those who lost plants at Jack Haines’ nursery too, wasn’t he?’ mused Leeyes. ‘So, you said, did that old admiral. What you need to be looking for, Sloan, like Charles Darwin, is the missing link.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The one between the missing party and all those dead orchids.’

  ‘There may not be one.’ Charles Darwin had known there was a missing link before he started looking for it. Sloan did not.

  The superintendent swept on. ‘There was someone else too, whose plants were damaged …’

  ‘A couple called Lingard,’ supplied Sloan. ‘No sign of any financial pressure there but there wouldn’t be anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The wife’s got money so it wouldn’t easily show up if she’d
been shelling out to the Osgathorp woman.’

  Leeyes thought about this for a moment. ‘What about those two women at the nursery at Capstan Purlieu? Where do they come in?’

  ‘They lost plants all right, although they didn’t seem to have been growing them for specific customers so we couldn’t explore that aspect further. I would have said there was no money there for a blackmailer anyway, besides which they’re blaming a disaffected husband. I’m going to interview him as soon as we can locate him.’

  Superintendent grunted. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘The nurseryman Jack Haines – he lost plants too, of course; quite a lot of them, including a greenhouse full of orchids. He seems to have got something on his mind but I don’t know exactly what. It could be blackmail too.’

  ‘Sounds as if someone doesn’t like him either,’ commented Leeyes. ‘Wilful damage to those greenhouses must have a reason.’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t know what it is. Any more than we know why the orchids at Capstan Purlieu were trashed. Anthony Berra says he doesn’t know either why his plants should have suffered – we’re seeing him again next. Haines’ stepson, who is also the former husband of one of the women at Capstan Purlieu, is the only one in the frame for the greenhouse jobs so far. But as I said we haven’t caught up with him yet.’

  ‘It’s about time you did,’ said Leeyes. ‘And found out if the missing person had any connection with him or Jack Haines.’ He bared his teeth at something approaching a smile at an impeding witticism. ‘We can’t have anyone leading us up the garden path, can we?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Sloan, taking this as his leave to depart.

  ‘We’re going back to Pelling next, Crosby,’ announced Detective Inspector Sloan to the waiting constable, ‘to have another chat with the last person admitting to having seen Enid Osgathorp alive.’

  ‘So far,’ said Crosby elliptically.

  They found Anthony Berra in the garden at Pelling Grange. The Lingards were out but he was still working on the new border. ‘I’m just getting the frost tolerant plants in,’ he said, kicking some soil off his spade. ‘This business at Jack Haines’ greenhouses has really knocked my planting plans back.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ said Crosby, who didn’t know his crocus from his Crocosmia. ‘Big job you’ve got on here,’ he added, looking up and down the long bare stretch of ground.

  ‘Too right, I have,’ said Berra.

  ‘Just a few questions, sir,’ said Sloan.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘There were three women waiting at the bus stop but you only picked up Enid Osgathorp.’

  Anthony Berra wrinkled his brow. ‘You didn’t know our famous Miss Osgathorp, did you, Inspector? It looked to me as if the other two did because they stepped back when she got into my car. It seemed that they weren’t too keen to join her.’

  ‘Not popular?’ So far, Anthony Berra would appear to have been one of the few people not to have openly criticised the missing woman.

  ‘To put it kindly, Inspector, I think the power of being the gateway to the doctor sometimes went to her head.’

  ‘Power corrupts,’ observed Crosby. He started to say something in that connection about his superintendent until quelled by a fierce look from Sloan.

  Berra threw him an amused glance. ‘So they say,’ he murmured.

  ‘But she knew you well enough to get into your car?’ persisted Sloan.

  ‘She knew my bad chest even better,’ the young man said wryly. ‘And that my cough isn’t infectious, which everyone else seems to have difficulty in believing.’

  ‘Can we just run over what happened next?’ said Sloan. ‘You said you went to the bank and had lunch at the Bellingham. What else did you do?’

  ‘What I always do when I go into Berebury – trawl through all the charity shops.’ He grinned. ‘I collect old gardening artefacts and that’s where you find them – if you’re lucky. I picked up a Victorian dibber there once and my collection’s never looked back. You’d be surprised at what turns up in those sorts of shops.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan, a policeman and thinking like one, made a mental note that these days while most High Street shops had automatic tills which recorded the time and nature of all transactions, your average charity shop was staffed by elderly and probably unobservant volunteers. He was about to ask for more details of Berra’s shopping trip when his personal phone rang.

  It was the Division’s Chief Scenes of Crime Officer Charlie Marsden, sounding quite excited. ‘I’ve just heard back from Forensics about those items we collected from the Feakins’ at The Hollies. Guess what else was in the remains of that bonfire?’

  ‘Surprise me, Charlie,’ said Sloan.

  ‘I bet I will,’ chortled Marsden. ‘Fasten your seat belt.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Cremated ashes. Forensics weren’t quite sure but they thought it was a full set, so to speak.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘The Hollies, Crosby,’ ordered Sloan, speedily taking his leave from the Grange. ‘We are about to hold what I am told the Army call an interview without coffee with Benedict Feakins.’

  They found the man again sitting huddled motionless in his chair in the kitchen at his home.

  ‘He didn’t sleep at all last night so I took him to the doctor this morning,’ explained Mary Feakins as she ushered the two policemen into the room. ‘He advised him to keep moving but Benedict says that’s still too painful.’ She raised her voice slightly. ‘You’ve got visitors, Benedict.’

  Benedict Feakins started to struggle to his feet and then fell back into his chair, the colour in his face draining away. ‘What is it now?’ he asked running his tongue over patently dry lips.

  ‘Your bonfire,’ said Sloan.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘What exactly were you burning on it?’

  ‘You should know,’ he retorted with a flare of anger. ‘Your people came and took all the embers away. God knows why.’

  ‘Tell me,’ ordered Sloan peremptorily.

  ‘As I said yesterday, just old things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A hairbrush.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘My father’s – my late father’s.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I didn’t want to use it myself.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘His toothbrushes.’

  ‘You’re sure they were his?’

  Benedict Feakins looked at him blankly. ‘Of course I am and I certainly wasn’t going to use them myself.’

  ‘What was wrong with using your waste bin?’

  ‘Nothing, but I was having a bonfire anyway.’

  ‘In your condition?’

  ‘I’ve already told you that I just couldn’t stand having Dad’s things around. That’s all.’

  ‘There were traces of fabric in the bonfire,’ said Sloan, taking out his notebook and making as if he was looking up a page.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m told there is evidence that you had been burning clothes as well,’ carried on Sloan.

  Detective Constable Crosby stirred. ‘You can’t argue with laboratories.’

  He was ignored by both men.

  Feakins’ jaw jutted out. ‘Old underclothes that couldn’t very well go to the charity shops. No harm in that, is there?’

  ‘Got a guilt complex about your father dying alone, have you?’ That, Sloan knew, was unfair.

  ‘No,’ Feakins protested in anguish. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I might have. Something like that, anyway,’ he added, latching on to the suggestion with suspicious speed.

  ‘And how, Mr Feakins,’ said Sloan sternly, ‘do you account for the presence on that bonfire of cremated ashes?’

  The man mumbled something about them being his father’s and wanting to be rid of them too.

  Detective Inspector Sloan suddenly switched his questioning away from the bonfire. ‘When did you last see Enid Osgathorp?’

  He started.
‘Exactly when I told you I did. Just before she went away.’

  ‘How often did you usually see her?’

  ‘From time to time,’ he said uneasily.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She knew Dad and she used to call round to see how I was getting on.’

  ‘Did you go to her house?’

  ‘I have been there.’

  ‘Why?’

  Feakins became more flustered. ‘She liked talking gardening. Old ladies do.’

  ‘True,’ said Sloan, leaning forward. It was at this point that his notebook tumbled off his lap and onto the quarry tiles on the floor. It slithered in Feakins’ direction. The man automatically looked down and as he did so Sloan took a look at his scalp. ‘Nasty cut you’ve had there,’ he said. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, raising his hand to brush his hair back.

  ‘I suggest you did it on the window you broke while effecting an entry to Miss Osgathorp’s cottage after she left for one of her trips.’

  ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘No, I didn’t. It wasn’t me.’

  There was a muffled sound behind him. Sloan spun round and was just in time to catch Mary Feakins as she fainted and fell towards the floor.

  ‘And so, sir,’ Sloan reported to Superintendent Leeyes the next morning, ‘I sent for the doctor for Mrs Feakins and arranged for her husband to report here to be interviewed under caution. He’s not going anywhere – he can only hobble as it is. He said he’ll be bringing his solicitor but Simon Puckle is in court this morning so it’ll be this afternoon.’

  ‘Sentencing in the Corrigenda case,’ said Leeyes knowledgeably. ‘The leader of the gang should get twelve years for fraud.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan was not interested in that case, beyond being glad that they’d got another villain nailed. He’d learnt long ago not to take on problems that weren’t his. ‘So, sir, I’m going to take the opportunity of checking up on Norman Potts while I’ve got the time.’

  The less salubrious end of the market town of Berebury was seafaring writ large in the history of the largely rural county of Calleshire: old seafaring, that is, the river having silted up in an earlier century. Its level had long ago become too low even for the barges that had once plied their trade between the town and the coast. Its dwellings, though, had been designed in response to the activities of the pressgang. This was in an age when a prison sentence had been viewed as a desirable alternative to service in the Royal Navy.