Chapter and Hearse Page 23
‘How come?’
‘Herbert Bates did hit Larky and Larky wants Bates’s guts for garters.’
‘Herbert Bates? Are you trying to tell me that little old Herbert Bates fetched his fist to Larky Nolson? I don’t believe it!’
‘It’s not me that’s telling you, sir,’ said the Station Sergeant, who had earned his spurs long ago in the magistrates’ court and therefore knew all about the difference between the spoken word and reported speech. ‘It’s Larky that’s telling us.’
‘Then I definitely don’t believe it.’
‘No, sir.’ The Station Sergeant coughed. ‘I wouldn’t have done so myself either, except that Mr Bates says not only that he did hit Larky but that given half a chance, he’d do it again.’
‘See that he doesn’t get half a chance,’ Sloan instructed him automatically, his mind elsewhere. ‘Tell me, Sergeant, what had Larky done?’
‘Depends on who’s telling you,’ responded the Station Sergeant promptly.
‘Frankly, I’d go for Herbert Bates’s version first,’ said Sloan. ‘Any day. He’s a good bloke. First-class secretary too … best we’ve ever had at the Horticultural society.’
‘This case is all about gardens—’ began the Sergeant.
‘Herbert’s a vegetable man,’ Sloan interrupted him. The Detective Inspector himself was a noted rose grower. ‘Prize vegetables,’ he added with emphasis.
‘That,’ said the Sergeant drily, ‘would appear to be the trouble.’
‘But Larky Nolson isn’t into flowers or vegetables.’ He stopped. ‘Unless he was trying to steal them, of course. I wouldn’t put that past him, and old Herbert’s cauliflowers would be worth stealing, no doubt about that.’
‘That would seem to be Mr Bates’s view too,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Beautiful, he said they were. The curd just right…’
‘So,’ divined Sloan, ‘that was what Larky and his wife were up to, wasn’t it?’
‘Nearly, but not quite, sir.’
‘Well, all I can say is that I don’t blame Herbert if Larky was knocking off his vegetables…’
‘I understand from Mr Bates,’ reported the Station Sergeant cautiously, ‘that some of his best cauliflowers had in fact been stolen from his garden by someone on three occasions in the past couple of weeks, one four days before.’
‘Larky?’
‘This has not yet been established,’ said the voice down the telephone with even greater circumspection. ‘It is, of course, a distinct possibility.’
‘Vegetables don’t come any better anywhere in Calleshire,’ averred Sloan with all the enthusiasm of the true gardener.
‘This is Mr Bates’s opinion too,’ said the Station Sergeant.
‘And that of most show judges,’ said Sloan warmly.
‘Unfortunately, Larky was heard by Mr Bates to take another view…’
‘At two o’clock in the morning?’
‘Quite audible, Mr Bates says he was.’
‘And what was Herbert Bates doing up and about then?’ asked Sloan, although he thought now he could guess.
‘Lying in wait for whoever was stealing his cauliflowers.’
‘And who should come along but Larky and his missus?’
‘That’s right, sir. Mr Bates was hiding up in his shed for the third night running at the time.’
‘And?’ The old man must have been getting pretty tired and fractious by then.
‘Larky and his wife came along and looked over Mr Bates’s fence…’
‘But didn’t enter his garden?’
‘Unfortunately not. I mean, no, sir.’ The Station Sergeant hastily corrected himself on this important point of law. ‘All Larky did was say very loudly and clearly that he didn’t think Herbert Bates’s cauliflowers were half as good as Stan Redden’s down the road.’
‘Stan is Herbert’s great show rival,’ said Sloan.
‘Not worth stealing, were Larky’s words, and I understand his wife agreed. Rather loudly, from what Mr Bates said.’
‘Which, I take it,’ concluded Sloan realistically, ‘was why and when Herbert came out of his shed and went for Larky.’
‘It was,’ agreed the Station Sergeant. ‘Mr Bates says that he was provoked beyond his powers of self-control.’
‘I’m afraid, though, that Larky Nolson’s a real barrack-room lawyer,’ mused Sloan.
This sentiment was heartily endorsed. ‘Everyone around here’ll tell you that, sir.’
‘Let me think this through, Sergeant. I’ll come back to you as soon as I’ve sent Crosby on his way.’
Sloan put the telephone down and called the Detective Constable in. Before he could frame any orders for him, the telephone rang again. It was the Assistant Chief Constable.
‘Ah, Sloan…’
‘Sir?’
This alleged assault case…’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I don’t like the sound of it at all.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Can’t have grown men hitting each other like this in the middle of the night.’
‘No, sir. Certainly not.’
‘Gives the place a bad name.’
‘Quite so, sir.’
‘And we can’t on any account be seen to condone that sort of behaviour.’
‘No, sir,’ agreed Sloan virtuously. ‘Definitely not.’
‘Nor, on the other hand, though,’ said the ACC consideringly, ‘does it do any good for a case to be laughed out of court. Or fail.’
‘Never,’ said Sloan with feeling.
‘Can’t have that, then, can we?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I ask you, Sloan, what sort of a casus belli are cauliflowers?’
‘The press will like the cauliflowers,’ forecast Sloan gloomily. ‘Right up their street.’
‘The Lord Chancellor won’t,’ responded the Assistant Chief Constable smartly.
‘No.’
‘Of course,’ mused the ACC, ‘the Crown Prosecution Service could always decide the case won’t stand up in court.’
‘The accused has admitted to the assault,’ Sloan told him.
‘Ah…’ The ACC sounded as if he was tapping a pencil on his desk. ‘I thought that might be the case. So we can’t get away with de minimus…’
‘Cabbages, perhaps, sir, assault no.’ That the law did not concern itself with trifles was one of the ACC’s favourite quotations. In Latin, of course. ‘Although you never can tell with the CPS,’ added Sloan feelingly.
‘Very true, Inspector. Very true.’ He coughed. ‘It seems to me that their motto is “Evidence before justice”.’
‘Quite so, sir,’ said Sloan, before the ACC put that into Latin too. ‘Of course, sir, admitting guilt here and pleading guilty in court are not necessarily one and the same thing.’ In his experience, nothing brought about a sea change in an accused person’s stance quicker than a lawyer for the defence.
‘Quite right, Sloan. Solicitors do have to earn their oats…’
‘If you say so, sir.’
‘So do policemen, Inspector.’ The Assistant Chief Constable paused before adding, ‘And young policemen have to learn their job first too, don’t they?’
‘Naturally, sir,’ said Sloan stiffly, unsure of where this was leading.
‘And they’ve all got to begin somewhere…’
‘Of course…’
‘Even the least promising.’
‘Them, too,’ said Sloan fervently.
Detective Constable Crosby, who was standing in front of him now, was a case in point. He was the least bright star in the detective firmament of ‘F’ Division, the police equivalent of being all fingers and thumbs in whatever he did.
‘In my opinion,’ said the ACC loftily, ‘it’s never a bad idea for beginners to cut their teeth on something not too important.’
‘Of course…’
‘Cases where the outcome isn’t vital to law and order.’
‘I think I take your point, sir.’
‘After all, he – I mean, any inexperienced young constable – could make mistakes in putting a case together.’
‘Easily, sir.’
‘And even accidentally let fall things he – or she, of course – shouldn’t.’
‘It has been known, sir.’
‘And afterwards he – or she, of course – could be shown what he – or she, of course – had done shall we say less than well rather than wrong.’
‘If they had,’ pointed out Sloan.
‘On the other hand, Inspector, no way must we fail to honour our obligations under paragraph forty of Magna Carta.’
‘I can’t quite recall…’
‘“To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice”,’ declared the ACC in ringing tones, thus clearing his own decks and handing the problem straight back to Sloan.
Sloan passed a modified version of this on to Detective Constable Crosby – jejune but eager – and sent him off to take statements all round and prepare the case against Herbert Bates.
‘It’s all yours, lad,’ said Sloan basely. ‘See how you get on for starters…’
Detective Inspector Sloan’s highly confidential filing was almost finished by the time the young Detective Constable reported back the next day.
He looked crestfallen. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he mumbled, ‘but there isn’t going to be a case after all.’
‘How come?’
‘Larky Nolson has withdrawn the charge.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s like this, sir,’ said Crosby very apologetically, ‘I took some of the soil off Larky’s shoes and matched it with that in Mr Bates’s garden, although I know that doesn’t actually prove anything…’
‘No.’
‘And the shoe matched the footprints in Mr Bates’s ground, although they are four days old and it’s only circumstantial evidence anyway.’
An uneasy thought occurred to Sloan, as ever worried by possible allegations of police irregularities. ‘How did you get Larky to take his shoe off?’
‘I accidentally spilt some hot tea on his foot, sir. It didn’t scald him,’ he added hastily, on catching sight of his superior’s expression.
‘And?’ Heroically, Sloan refrained from comment.
‘I got the remains of some cooked cauliflower from Larky’s dustbin.’
‘Without his permission?’
‘I got it from the corporation waste collection van. Yesterday was collection day.’
‘You did, did you?’
‘I understand, sir,’ he said anxiously, ‘that once the contents have been taken by the binmen, the owner has voluntarily surrendered his rights to them. I did check that with the council, sir.’
‘That’s not proof positive either.’
‘No, sir. So I got a sample of the cauliflowers in the supermarket. It’s the only place where you can buy them in the town.’
‘Now that all the greengrocers have gone…’ No shopper himself, Sloan knew this from his wife.
‘You remember that bit in the local paper complaining that they mostly sell foreign greengrocery there, sir?’
‘I’m beginning to get your drift, Crosby.’
‘So I got Forensics to check, sir.’
‘Different cauliflowers?’ So vegetable as well as animal did come into the equation, after all.
‘Very. And, sir, they could tell which had been treated with commercial chemicals and which hadn’t.’
‘Herbert Bates’s?’ Larky could have bought his cauliflowers outside the town, of course, but it wasn’t all that likely.
‘Yes, sir. He doesn’t use chemicals.’
‘Wonderful what scientists can do these days. Now, when I was first on the beat…’ He stopped. The luxury of reminiscence could wait. ‘Then what, Crosby?’
‘I drew Larky Nolson’s attention to my findings, sir, and he decided against proceeding with the charge against Herbert Bates.’
‘And are we now faced with Herbert Bates bringing a counter-charge for theft against Larky Nolson?’
‘No, sir.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘The Forensics people told me that Herbert Bates’s cauliflowers were on the list of varieties that can no longer be marketed under European regulations, sir.’ He looked at Sloan and asked anxiously, ‘Do you want chapter and verse on that, sir?’
‘Heaven forbid,’ said Sloan speedily. ‘But Herbert isn’t into marketing, surely?’
‘There was a board by his gate with a chalk message on it to the effect that cabbages could be bought…’
Sloan scratched his chin, a little puzzled. It was something he had never noticed himself.
Crosby put his notebook down on Sloan’s desk. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but nobody seems to be charging anybody now. Is that all right?’
By the same author
The Religious Body
A Most Contagious Game
Henrietta Who?
The Complete Steel
A Late Phoenix
His Burial Too
Slight Mourning
Parting Breath
Some Die Eloquent
Passing Strange
Last Respects
Harm’s Way
A Dead Liberty
The Body Politic
A Going Concern
Injury Time (short stories)
After Effects
Stiff News
Little Knell
Amendment of Life
‘A Change of Heart’, ‘Child’s Play’, ‘Coup de Grâce’, ‘Dead Letters’, ‘A Different Cast of Mind’, ‘Dummy Run’, ‘Examination Results’, ‘Exit Strategy’, ‘Losing the Plot’, ‘Preyed in Aid’, ‘A Soldier to the Queen’, ‘Time, Gentlemen, Please’, ‘Touch Not the Cat’ (this story produced in abridged audio format as part of Cats, Cats and More Cats: HighBridge Company, US, 1997), ‘The Trouble and Strife’, ‘The Widow’s Might’, ‘The Wild Card.’ Copyright © 2003; ‘Cold Comfort’, ‘Due Diligence’. Copyright © 2000; ‘Chapter and Hearse’, ‘Handsel Monday.’ Copyright © 1998; ‘Like to Die’. Copyright © 1997; ‘Gold, Frankinscense and Murder’. Copyright © 1995; CHAPTER AND HEARSE Copyright © 2003 by Catherine Aird. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
ISBN 0-312-29084-5
First published in Great Britain by Macmillan an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: February 2004
eISBN 9781466841857
First eBook edition: March 2013
*Frances Rose-Troup, Exeter Vignettes (Manchester University Press, 1942).
*Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago (London: Nelson, 1912).