Lies in Lashbrook 13 cliffie bonus

 

Chapter 13

 

Alexander turned sharply to Savin.

“Have you been in your daughter’s room since her death?” he asked.

“Why, yes,” said Savin. “Both nights, I went and sat on her chair at her desk, and I talked to her. After all, she might be able to hear.”

“Did you search for her diary or disarrange anything?” asked Alexander.

“I didn’t even know she kept a diary,” said Savin. “She never mentioned it.  I did gather up her shorthand text books, and bundled them up; I took them into the school today on my way into work and asked if they could use them for a pupil who was having trouble affording them, and informed them officially of her death. They were appreciative. She had not written inside them,” he added, hastily. “I don’t permit her to do so, I’ll happily buy her any number of exercise books.”

Alexander nodded.

“Nothing else?”

“No... Oh! Yes. I picked up her teddy bear, because I couldn’t hug Irma ever again, and I took him into the guest room. I’ve been sleeping in the guest room since Irma... died.... because Vi and I quarrelled over it.”

“I told you! He quarrelled with her! He did it!” Mrs. Tweedie-Banks had pushed into the cottage.

Alexander spun round to face her.

“Madam, this is a crime scene. Please vacate the premises.”

“Not until you arrest him! Look, he’s been packing to leave!”

“Mr. Savin is leaving on my orders,” said Alexander. “Get out!”

“You can’t make me, and if you men hang together to cover it up....”

“You have the right to remain silent but any further words you use may be used in a court of law to your detriment,” said Alexander, fed up with her. “You are under arrest for wasting police time and interfering with evidence, and God help you if your pernicious nosiness meant that it was you who let yourself in to search Irma’s room!”

“And why shouldn’t I? I didn’t make a mess, but her diary was a load of patterns of dots, squiggles, and dashes and no use at all,” said Mrs. Tweedie-Banks. “You can’t arrest me! I haven’t done anything wrong! Arrest him!” she pointed at Savin, who flinched.

“Actually, you have done several things wrong, and have just moved to the top of the list as the suspect of writing the poison-pen letters and killing both Savin women, since your wearing of beach-pyjamas could lead to confusion over whether the killer was male or female,” said Alexander. “Lock her up, Tim, and we’ll have her arraigned in Oxford.”

“You can’t do this!” protested the woman as Tim snapped handcuffs on her. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“What a liar you are,” said Tim, with great pleasure. “Interfering in police work, breaking and entering, disturbing evidence with malicious intent; I should think you’ll get three months, and more if you run off your mouth to the judge.”

“I never heard anything so ridiculous! You’ll be sorry.”

“I already am, I have to listen to your farrago of nonsense in the cells, and walking there,” sighed Tim.

“Can you drive?” asked Alexander.

“Yes, I learned,” said Tim.

“Then you may borrow my car and bring it back when she’s locked up,” said Alexander. “Do the paperwork first, it will take a while to get this sorted out.”

“Gladys cycled over with me,” said Ida. “Just in case the killer thought we knew anything. She can go back with Tim so there’s a woman with the prisoner.” Mrs. Tweedie-Banks was led off, still protesting.

“What an irritant!” said Jeff. “But I am inclined to believe her when she said she made no mess,” he added. “She’d want to pry but not be caught at it.”

“I’m inclined to believe you,” said Alexander. “I don’t think she is the poison pen, but it will do no harm to treat her as if we believed that she was.”

“It might stop the real one from killing anyone else, as well,” said Jeff.

“It did cross my mind,” Alexander agreed. “Ida, is that a new dress?”

“I do love you, Alex,” said Ida, standing on her toes to kiss his nose. “No, it’s an afternoon dress from last year, made over for the new fashions. Jade is still in fashion, and I added side panels in cinnamon georgette as a contrast, with the same georgette rolled over cords to put a line around the neck and cuff, and three around the hemline, and very fiddly it was, and I said some naughty words that Jeff wouldn’t know that I learned from Basil, but I did most of it on the train. I thought about adding some beading at the base of the georgette but I thought it would over-egg the pudding.”

“Paint the lily and gild refined gold,” murmured Jeff.

“Yes, I knew a good Methodist would know the right quote,” said Ida. “I don’t think it’s overdone for an afternoon gown.”

“It isn’t,” said Alexander. “You look very fetching in it, and you’d better get back to your search before I’m tempted to fetch you. Show me the worst.”

Ida chuckled, then sobered, and ran upstairs. Irma’s room was one of the two back bedrooms with a sloping roof on one side, under which was set a low window, below the eaves rather than being a dormer, with two casements and a central section of four small panes which did not open. A low windowseat was built under it, on which a few ageing stuffed toys and a couple of dolls were sitting. Alexander felt tears spring to his eyes as it emphasised how very young Irma had been, unwilling to give away old toys. Everything else was disarranged, as if a storm had hit.  The bed, its mattress pulled awry, was in the corner opposite the windowseat, a desk next to it with a chair, taking advantage of the light of the window. Several books now scattered had presumably stood on a wall-mounted bookshelf over it, and the desk stood open, everything on the floor A chest of drawers stood at the foot of the bed. A Victorian towel-rack had been screwed rather precariously to the top of the chest of drawers with a net curtain draped over it, and a long garden cane was tied to the top of the towel-rail and the other end inserted in a hole drilled into the cottage wall. Net curtains, carefully darned, were threaded through a hem to the cane, parted in the middle and tied back with ribbon, now torn and thrust away to get at the bed.

“Poor romantic little girl,” said Alexander, softly. “Fancy curtains round her bed like a fairytale princess.”

“I didn’t appreciate the depths of Irma until now,” said Ida, whose own eyes were wet. “But you can see someone opened and emptied every drawer, ransacked her desk, threw down the books, pulled the pillows and mattress about and even searched the drawer of her wash-hand stand and scattered her cosmetics.”

On the wall where the door came in was a small wash-hand stand. The other back bedroom had been made into a bathroom with a toilet stool as well, but perhaps it was more convenient to bring hot water in to her bedroom to wash when her father had to get ready to go to work. A mirror over it showed where Irma had applied makeup, her makeup pouch ripped open and its contents scattered, rosy powders staining the white marble top of the stand. A tiny corner fireplace had a heap of ashes in it.

“I don’t know why the searcher did not look in the window seat,” said Ida, carefully moving the dolls and toys. “But looking at the ashes, I suspect they found the diary anyway and burned it.” She lifted the padded top of the windowseat, which proved to be hinged. Childhood books and more toys lived in there, under a tennis racket, canvas shoes, golfing shoes, and a golf bag.

“Someone did not associate it with storage?” suggested Alexander. Ida scoffed.

“Any woman knows that you put storage where you can,” she said. “It’s a box. It’s just a box with a padded top, like an ottoman.”

“But then, I don’t think we are necessarily looking for a woman,” said Alexander.

Ida froze.

“I thought it was usually those entering womanhood or leaving their fertile time?” she asked.

“Or someone who wants to get rid of someone inconvenient who fulfils those criteria,” said Alexander. “And I may be wrong. Hell, it might even be Mrs. Twiddly-bonk, who does like to criticise everyone, knows nothing about some of us, but makes up her mind anyway. There’s something almost mannish about her in some ways as well. And she goes on the offensive without pausing to find out the facts; there’s something eating her that she needs to push other people around about.”

“Yes, but how does she know about people?” asked Ida.

“Because Irma prattles...prattled,” said Alexander.

“Would she prattle to Twiddly-bonk?” asked Jeff, as Ida turned back to searching methodically.

“Probably not, but what’s the betting Twiddly-bonk eavesdrops?” said Alexander. “The more I think of it, the more I’m wondering if my initial thought was owing to personal dislike of someone.”

“If it’s a male, who has something to gain in getting rid of someone, that’s Sam Reckitt, Dan Reckitt, Fred Chaffinch, and Edgar Thripp,” said Jeff. “Not Braithwaite or his Billy; it’s plain as the nose on your face that Maud is the sunshine of their lives now Sally is gone.  I think it has to be one of the other four.”

“Reasoning?” said Alexander.

“Sam... I noticed sometimes he keeps his temper with difficulty when his missus is better some days than others,” said Jeff. “I think he gets her in his ear rather.  Dan? Well, he’s an outsider as a choice, but his mother relies on him rather, I think. Tim mentioned that Dan would like to get away from the village and be more than a village postie, but his mother cries if he suggests it. That can get very wearing.”

“That sounded like personal experience.”

“It was. My mother. I just walked out with all the clothes I could carry one morning, and signed up with a police recruitment drive, and moved in the unmarried men’s barracks. It was hell, but it was my choice.”

“Well done; that’s strength,” said Alexander. “Go on.”

“Edgar... he’s a weak character, and Miss Thripp has a few savings.  I know that’s a bit weak, but it’s a motive of sorts.  Fred... I know he and Polly sing together, but I’ve also heard him sigh over the packed lunch she gives him, and she does boss him about. Nobody can know what goes on in a marriage, but a henpecked husband can become the worm that turns. Even as Twiddly-bonk thought Savin could kill Violet Savin.”

“Unless she is the culprit and accusing him and having him die by judicial execution is one of three murders to get rid of the Savins,” said Alexander.

“But why would she do that?”

“If she’s the poison pen, then the women for the same reason – for knowing too much. And accusing him could be just to divert suspicion. Unless the letters were again a diversion from an intent to kill them all, because she could guess that the two women would make a big thing of any suspicion that could make killing them about knowing too much easy to blame on their knowledge.”

“So, now I have to find out what connection there was between them,” said Jeff.

“I can tell you that,” said Savin, who had come upstairs. “She’s my cousin. My parents took her in when her parents died. We hated each other from the first. She had to come first in everything.  She married a schoolfriend of mine, and dominated himself until he jumped off the river into the weir.  I can believe her throwing Irma into the weir as revenge on me; she blamed me for her husband’s death. I don’t know why.  I don’t think she even loved him. She used to flirt with Vi, though I don’t think Vi ever really understood that. And Vera did not like Vi turning her down. I’m not even sure she preferred women, but she liked people she could bully. Fortunately for her, Violet has... had, I should say... the impenetrable armour of utter self-centredness.”

“Dear me, that is a series of motives,” said Alexander. “Why on earth do you live next to each other?”

“Because our fathers were brothers and were very close, and bought cottages next door to each other,” said Savin. “My dad rented out her cottage until she married. It’s hellish at times. But we were living in a pokey apartment and with a little girl, it wasn’t right.” He paused. “I don’t think she’s the poison-pen, though.”

“Why?” asked Alexander.

“Because she enjoys the drama of bullying people to their faces,” said Savin. “I don’t think she’d find it enough to take hurt into the lives of others on the sly.”

Alexander nodded.

“You know her best,” he said. “Did she know Sally Braithwaite?”

“Yes, she hired Sally as a companion. Al, that’s Albert Banks, he never bothered with the Tweedie, died in 1913.  Sally was her companion for a few months but she said she couldn’t cope unless the pay was a lot more. That would have been... oh, 1916 or thereabouts. I’m a bit hazy as I’d been called up, but I spent the whole war in the pay office. They needed people who could add up columns straight.”

“And an important job, whatever some people might say,” agreed Alexander. “Here’s my car back; I’ll drive you to your sister now, and leave everyone mopping up here.”

They went out, and Gladys smirked as she came in the gate with Tim Mapp.

“I want danger pay for searching that besom,” she said. “That voice! Mr. Morrell can ride my bike and I’ll perch on with Ida on the parcel rack as she doesn’t have a crossbar, and Tim’s Maggie wouldn’t take kindly to him giving a lift to another girl.”

“And nor would Jim Campbell take it kindly to have you accepting such a lift if you weren’t injured,” said Alexander. “Stay together.  Jeff, you’ll lock up when Ida has finished?”

“I have finished, I think,” said Ida.  “I think we need to take some dusting for prints but I can’t find any diary. As I said, I think the ashes in the grate are the remains. And well-enough broken up with a poker not to be legible at all. I suspect that was our killer, knowing that he or she would not be interrupted.”

“And don’t get Agatha started on the subject of Vera,” said Savin. “She’s a couple of years older than me and had to share a room with her.”

“I can imagine that her reaction to that would be somewhat negative,” said Alexander.

“And that,” said Savin, “Is the understatement of the year.”

 

lies in Lashbrook 12

 

Chapter 12

 

“Have you touched anything?” asked Alexander.

“Yes, of course I have!” said Savin. “I went to see if life was extinct and I pulled the knife out because I could not bear to see it stuck in her neck like that.”

“Oh, Mr. Savin! You have not made it easier,” said Alexander. “I’ll be over with Inspector Morrell and Tim Mapp as fast as possible, and I want you to go out of the house, and sit on the seat I noticed outside your cottage. And don’t touch anything else.”

“No, sir, I shan’t. I’m sorry,” said Savin.

 

Alexander stopped at the church, and knocked up Dr. Brinkley.

“I need you as moral support for Theodore Savin, and to organise a coffin to bring his wife’s body back here,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll phone for the police surgeon as well?”

“Oh, dear, I did think her words at the inquest were foolish,” said Brinkley. “I will see to it all.”

“Thank you,” said Alexander. “I want to get there as soon as possible. Unfortunately he touched the body and the murder weapon.”

“I suspect most people would,” said Brinkley.

 

Having picked up Tim Mapp, Alexander drove to the Savins’ cottage.

“Tim, my lad, I can see the Twiddly-bonk woman peering through her nets; see if she can tell you what time the Savin female got home and if she had any visitors,” he said.

“Tweedie-Banks,” corrected Tim.

“I prefer Jeff’s version,” said Alexander. “I doubt she’d be forthcoming for either of us; I don’t think even now she believes we are real police.”

“Some people are just like that,” sighed Tim. “It took her three years to recognise that I am a policeman not a naughty little boy.”

“She’s one of these people who has made up her mind and does not want to be troubled with the facts,” said Alexander. “Which makes them awful witnesses as they see what they want to see. Unfortunately, it means that one can miss clues in trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, and if there is one tiny important point, they gloat forever that you took no notice of them.”

Tim sighed.

“I’ll take it down verbatim in shorthand,” he said.

“I write shorthand,” said Jeff. “You talk to her, and I’ll scribe for you. I’m sure Alex is capable of handling Savin and a body for a while.”

“Thanks,” said Alexander. “My shorthand is dodgy.”

 

Alexander found Theodore Savin sitting on the garden bench as directed. He looked lost.

“Mr. Savin? I will be going into your house to make a preliminary search and assessment of the scene,” said Alexander gently. “Will you mind if we also search your daughter’s room at the same time?”

“Do what you must,” said Savin. “Dear God! This is a nightmare. First, my bright, happy daughter, now my wife. I know she’s not much of a housewife, but... hell! I was thinking of divorcing her over the callousness she showed about Irma. But it’s hard to get my head round her being killed as well! Why? Who would kill her?”

Alex refrained from saying ‘Most of the women in the vicinity:’ it was hardly helpful.

“Your wife hinted at the inquest that Irma had confided in her over whom she was meeting the day she was killed,” he said. “It’s the official belief that this is connected. Now, this is going to get muddy because you handled the knife.”

“Oh, that cat next door will doubtless say I killed her,” said Savin, bitterly.

“I met her,” said Alexander. “She thinks I’m a vagrant.”

“Seriously? She must have bats in her belfry,” said Savin. “I suppose she thinks I just discovered that my wife goes into Oxford on Thursdays for her bit on the side, as well as her bit of rough with Tom the window-cleaner every other Monday. She doesn’t feel a need to have her hair and nails done for him, but she does bake. She’s an indifferent cook, but she can turn out a fair Victoria sponge. I get the leftovers every other Tuesday. We had a whole cake once when he didn’t turn up, and she was in such a temper I was sleeping on the couch all week. Having cake helped, but I let her think Irma was eating it, or she’d have binned it rather than letting me have some small pleasure.”

Alexander thought wryly that Savin was almost gleefully giving out motives for himself to be the killer. He patted Savin on the shoulder.

“When I’ve had a look, I’m going to let you in to pack a small case, and go stay with a friend or relative for a few days while the police paw over your life in the cottage,” he suggested.

“I... yes, it would be good to get away. I have a sister who is married to the solicitor in Bicester,” Savin said.

Alexander patted him on the shoulder, and squared his own shoulders for the unpleasant task ahead.

 

He could smell blood as he went in the front door. There was a room on each side of the short hall, which led to stairs up. The door to the right was open, so he moved through it. There was a dining table with a set of four chairs, a lowboy against the wall to the back of the cottage with a door beside it, opposite him was the fireplace with a reproduction of Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ over the mantel. Probably Theodore’s choice, a conservative man. On the front wall there was a window, and below it a chaise longue, on which the body of Violet Savin lay. Alexander sighed; her husband had plainly lifted her tenderly to place her there, and the bloody knife, a simple kitchen carving knife, lay on the floor. There was surprisingly little blood; some on the pillow of the chaise longue and some spatter on the heavy lace curtain. Likely enough she had been sitting there and her killer had sat beside her. Her expression held, if anything, faint surprise. There were no defensive wounds on her hands and she appeared not to expect anything untoward. From outside the window drifted the sound of Theodore Savin singing a prewar ballad called ‘My Jewel, my Joy,’

My jewel, my joy, don't trouble me with the drum,

Play the dead march as my corpse goes along;

And over my body throw handfuls of laurel,

And let them all know that I'm going to my rest.

“Poor blighter,” muttered Alexander. “Mrs. Twiddly-Bonk will doubtless make much of that, not ever having seen how grief takes people.” He had frequently poured too much alcohol into soldiers grieving comrades in similar ways. It was the way it sometimes took a man before he broke, and getting him drunk enough to cry was a way of postponing shell shock and keeping the unit running.

It hit worse if you postponed it, of course, but all the brass cared about were numbers in the trenches, warm bodies who could use rifles.

Alexander fought nausea as his nose, filled with the scent of blood, seemed to add the stink of decay, machine oil, human waste and strong tea, his ears filled with the sound of machine-guns, screams, the squeak of tank tracks, and the cries of the wounded, the voice of Theodore Savin mingling in his head with that of a young infantryman singing a psalm to the dawn in a Welsh lilt moments before a bullet turned his singing head into a spray of blood and brain matter.

Alexander shook his head.

“Concentrate,” he told himself. Nobody who was not mentally a brick had come out of the war unchanged; and sometimes he thought himself a fool for having a job which brought him into contact with dead bodies. But someone had to do it. It just hit hard sometimes.  This time more for the distress of the husband than because Mrs. Savin was any great loss.

He put on cotton gloves and placed the knife in a paper bag, labelled and dated it, with a note that the deceased’s husband had removed it from the wound so fingerprints may not be of much help. Violet’s blood had coagulated enough since her death that no more came out of the wound. It seemed likely that she had slumped against the back of the day bed, and her head fell forward, holding her mouth from dropping open. Alexander flexed the jaw; it was stiff. It was warm in the room; there was an electric fire sitting in the grate, which was on. Probably Violet had turned it on when she came in. It was fussy, but Alexander dusted the switch for prints and lifted what he found, carefully labelling it before turning the fire off.  Even if it had got hotter later, it was likely that she had not been dead much over two hours.  It was now seven in the evening; Tim had phoned to say he had spoken to Mrs. Savin at around three-thirty. She would be home well before four; turned on the fire, and sat down, kicking off her heels, Alexander noted. Someone had knocked? Or just come in? Someone maybe waiting in the kitchen for her to come in?

He opened the window.

“Did you go into the kitchen at all?” he asked.

“No, I came into the front room and saw her; the phone is in the room, on the lowboy. I had no need to go into the kitchen. She was sitting there, but her head had fallen forward. I... I went forward and touched her, and... and then I saw the knife as she sort of sagged.”

“Good man. Well done,” said Alexander. “When did you get home?”

“I get home, if the train is on time, between six thirty and six thirty-five,” said Savin. “I called you as soon as I had laid her down more... don’t laugh, please... more comfortably, having checked I could not help her.”

Alexander nodded.

“I’ll need to check with your colleagues that you left work at the right time, but assuming you did, nobody can point a finger at you.”

“Not that it will stop that cat next door,” said Savin.

“No, well, she can be censured by the court if she says anything out of turn,” said Alexander. He withdrew and went to take finger prints from the kitchen door handle, and the outer kitchen door, and the back door key, which was resting on the kitchen table. Doubtless it usually lived under a flower pot; the ways of village folk were usually quite predictable. He would be lucky to get a few smeared partial prints but it was worth a try. He telephoned Ida; it was better that another woman should go over a girl’s room. Ida readily agreed to come. Then he called Scotland Yard.

Superintendant Barrett answered.

“Edwin?” said Alexander, “Can you have someone pop into Tripp, Farley, Tripp, solicitors at law, and find out whether the clerk Theodore – with an e – Savin, S for strawberry, a for apple, v for vine, i for ice-cream, n for nuts, was in the office all day today and did not leave early.”

“Suspect?”

“Not really, but I want to clear the poor little sod of killing his wife, and so long as he did not leave early, it’s pretty much a physical impossibility. I doubt he knows enough to crank up the heat of an electric fire to speed up rigor, and moreover, we have lividity starting in the lower legs, as her sheer stockings show me. He handled the knife and moved the body.”

“Honestly, the general public are their own worst enemy,” sighed Superintendant Barrett. “I’ll have that done.”

“Many thanks, sir,” said Alexander. “I’m sending him off to his sister who lives one village over.”

“Fine,” said Barrett. “Do you have a suspect?”

“Yes, but I can’t figure out any point in writing poison pen letters. I now have two dead bodies, and I do not want any more.”

“No, quite; that would start to look like carelessness,” said Barrett. “Stay on top of it, Alex, and try not to offend Morrell now you have a truce.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Alexander.

 

Jeff Morrell and Tim came in.

“How did it go?” asked Alexander.

“About as well as might be expected,” said Tim. “I asked her if any strangers had come to the house, or even people she knew, after you had left, and got a tirade about poking around in other people’s lives. And with much prevarication she admitted to having had just a teensy sherry...”

“A ‘teeny weeny little bit of a sherry,’” said Jeff, glancing at his notes, “To ‘calm her nerves after those suspicious looking fellows were poking in the garbage,’ and she ‘might, as a result have been sufficiently overcome, on top of her nerves being overset, and dozed off.’  She thought she heard a bicycle but did not see one when she went to look. Because of course she went to look, to see if she could catch Violet Savin with a new lover.”

“And of course, she said that the husband must have killed her, citing how hard Violet was to live with, and that one could hardly blame him save for him sitting outside like nothing was wrong, and then singing,” said Tim.

“Oh, I knew she’d be at him for that. Drat the woman, she’s coming to harangue him; Tim, call him inside and go to his bedroom with him to pack an overnight bag.”

“Yessir,” said Tim, sliding out like an eel and forestalling Mrs. Tweedie-Banks before she could get started.

Alexander listened to the footsteps going up the stairs. He ignored the neighbour banging on the door.

“I’ve called in Ida to go through Irma’s room,” he said. “I thought another young woman would be more likely to find a diary.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” said Jeff. “Do you need me to do anything?”

“I think I did everything here...the vicar should be on his way with a coffin,” Alexander said.

“And here’s the hearse,” said Jeff, as the sound of horse hoofs approached.

“Oh, good,” said Alexander. “Dr.  Hammond should be coming to do an autopsy.”

“The crypt is seeing a lot of that,” said Jeff.

“Yes, and I’m hoping it won’t see more,” said Alexander, grimly. “I am sure I know who it is but I can’t prove it and I don’t know why.”

“We had three people we thought it might be,” said Jeff, slowly. “Could having one of those people accused benefit the one you suspect?”

Alexander froze.

“Oh, yes. I see,” he said. “Proving it might be harder. I am glad Savin’s upstairs,” he added as he opened the door to the undertaker.

“Yes, he doesn’t need to watch this,” said Jeff.

Alexander directed the removal of the body.

“Dr.  Brinkley,” he said, “I’ve sent Theodore Savin to pack for a few days, his sister lives in Bicester. Do go up.”

“Thank you,” said the vicar. He went upstairs and Tim came down.

“He’s not about to destroy evidence; and I thought spiritual aid would be better without a policeman on tap,” he said.

Alexander nodded.

Savin and Brinkley were coming downstairs as Ida turned up. She negotiated Mrs. Tweedie-Banks with alacrity and slid inside the cottage.

“I’ll drive Mr. Savin into Bicester,” said Alexander as Ida ran upstairs. He was going out of the door when Ida called down.

“Who’s already searched Irma’s room and made an awful mess?” she demanded.

 

lies in Lashbrook 11 cliffieish bonus

 

Chapter 11

 

Alexander spread out the broad sheets of ‘The Times’ on the ground in the lane beside the galvanised rubbish bin.

He took off the lid. Most of what was in there seemed to be wrapping paper and spoiled food. He wrinkled his nose.

“The less pleasant part of being a copper,” he said. “Jeff, you get on the other handle, we’ll hold it by the handles and the base and tip slowly, walking backwards to spread it.”

“Gently does it,” said Jeff, gloomily. “We ought to have told off young Mapp to do this.”

“Dammit, you’re right,” said Alexander. “Well, we’re here now; there’s the Oxford train whistling on the curve before it runs into Shiplake.”

“That’s on this side of Lashbrook, isn’t it?” asked Jeff.

“Yes, they sort of run into each other, but it’s far enough to have its own station, or at least, whistle-stop. Steady... steady... walk backwards as it pours.”

The two men managed to empty the dustbin onto the sheets of newspaper, in a fairly thin layer of the week’s rubbish.

“No girl’s clothes here,” said Jeff, using a stick to push the rubbish around. “Well, here’s proof she hasn’t become pregnant by her fancy man. Used sanitary pads. Hmm, and she must have been relieved; here’s a ‘little something for the weekend,’ as condoms are marketed, and it appears to be split.”

“Someone’s little soldiers might have been as dangerous as the scorpions in King Midas’s sperm,” sniggered Alexander.

“Well, I am getting an education,” said Ida.

“Sorry, my poppet; if you want to wait in the car while we make disgusting jokes to cope with a disgusting job, do so,” said Alexander.

“No, I’m interested,” said Ida. “It’s what I do, only without several thousand years in the ground.”

“I can’t find anything which looks like a diary,” said Jeff. “Ida, what would you use as a diary?”

“You can buy leather-bound journals, but I can’t see Irma spending money on that when she could spend it on cosmetics and costume-jewellery,” said Ida.  “I would think she would buy a composition book, or a ledger, cheap and easy to get, Reckitt’s holds them.”

“Well, that should help us find what we are looking for,” said Alexander. “Who peeled those potato peelings? They’ve left half the potato on them.”

“Irma in a mood, I imagine,” said Ida. “Though there’s enough spoiled food to make me think that Violet is not the world’s best housekeeper.”

“If I was Theodore Savin, I’d eat at a restaurant in town before coming home,” opined Jeff. “How can you spoil pork chops?”

“By forgetting about them until they become past charred, by the look of it,” said Alexander. “I see no notebook or anything which could pass as a journal. Discarded bills... no suggestion they are even paid. Novel with a load of something spilled on it... gravy, I think... and it’s a library book too, to add insult to injury. No saving it, though. By Virginia Woolf, ‘Night and Day,’ which looks into love and marriage. I wonder if she’s considering leaving Theodore for her professor.”

“If she’s reading that, I’d say it was highly likely,” said Ida. “Woolf is almost as depressing a writer as the Bronte sisters.”

“Well, let’s get all this back in the bin as there seems to be nothing to find,” said Alexander. “I thought we could wrap each portion in the newspaper.”

“Makes sense,” said Jeff. “Now I know why you put down a layer under overlapping sheets.”

“I’ve searched bins before,” said Alexander. “And been caught by what was between sheets and got into trouble for it, and speaking of trouble, I think some is looming.”

A large, angry woman had crashed out of the gate of the adjacent cottage, and stood with arms akimbo.

“You nasty tramps!” she screeched. “I’ll have you know that I’ve telephoned the police and you’ll be arrested! And you picked the wrong bin to rifle through, Vi Savin can burn water!”

“Madam, we are the police...” began Jeff. He was interrupted.

“Oh, what lies! Why, you are not in uniform and since when has a baggage like that been in the police?”

“I am an archaeologist, and a witness, you besom,” said Ida.

“We are Scotland Yard, madam, and I have my identity card here,” said Jeff.

“I don’t believe a word! I’m going back to hurry the police along,” said the woman, bouncing back into her cottage.

Ida sighed, and moved towards the car, then gasped.

“What is it?” asked Alexander.

“I... no, I was wool-gathering and imagined I saw someone, but it’s only a postbox,” said Ida. [1]

“Well, it happens,” said Alexander. “I could wish that female had been but an apparition, and here’s poor Tim Mapp puffing along on his bike.”

“Hello sirs, Miss Henderson,” said Tim, almost falling off his bike. “Mrs. Tweedie-Bank said there were vagrants.”

“She plainly doesn’t recognise Alex’s Saville Row style,” said Jeff. “You can confirm for Mrs. Twiddly-Bonk that we are on our lawful occasions as she’s come out and is waiting for our arrest with malicious enjoyment and folded arms.”

Tim saluted sharply, and turned to the neighbour.

“Neither inspector has seen anyone suspicious, Mrs. Tweedie-Bank,” he said.

“Those are the vagrants!” cried the woman.

“You are mistaken; when I asked for aid from Scotland Yard, Inspector Morrell was sent, and Inspector Armitage lives locally and is well known to me, but is on leave helping out as a courtesy. I’ve never seen vagrants in Saville Row suits and driving a nice car before,” said Tim, paying off several old scores. “Now, about you wasting police time....”

Mrs. Tweedie-Banks found she had to hurry indoors.

“Load up your bike over the spare wheel, Tim, and we’ll give you a lift back,” said Alexander.

“I won’t deny that’s welcome,” said Tim. “When she spoke of vagrants picking over the Savins’ rubbish, I confess I wondered if the killer was looking for anything Irma wrote.”

“We were,” said Alexander.  “Apparently, she kept a diary in Morse Code, which Mrs. Savin claimed to have thrown away, and dustbins on the road are not covered by needing a warrant. No joy, though.”

“Mrs. Savin lies like most people breathe,” said Tim, stowing his bike with the aid of a stout length of cord. “She could tell me she watched Irma being murdered and I’d not believe her.”

“The girl was murdered; we should have a warrant to search her room,” said Alexander. “We should have perhaps done that first but I wanted to get testimonies as soon as possible.”

“And that’s important; her room isn’t going anywhere,” said Jeff.

“Unless Mrs. Violet Savin decides to throw it all out,” said Alexander. “We should try to catch her on the way home and tell her that if she goes into Irma’s room and moves anything, it is contempt of court and she could go to jail for it. Once we have the warrant.”

“I’ll ring up a judge and get a warrant,” said Jeff. “Most bereaved couples would be glad to help, but I wager that woman would make a brouhaha of it.”

“I don’t say you’re wrong,” said Tim.

 

 

Tim Mapp stopped Violet Savin on her way back from the station.

“Oh, Mrs. Savin, the warrant has come through to search your daughter’s room to see if there are any clues as to her killer, so please do not go into it or touch any of her possessions,” he said.

“Why not? She was my daughter,” said Mrs. Savin.

“Because it’s interfering with evidence and can land you in jail for three months,” said Tim. Mrs. Savin looked frightened.

“What if I already did some tidying because I did not know that?” she whimpered.

“Then you will have to explain to the searchers exactly what you touched and moved,” said Tim. “Many young girls keep diaries, which may have what she knew recorded in it.”

“Much good it will do you, it’s written in Morse Code,” said Mrs. Savin, savagely.

“Oh, I read Morse Code,” said Tim. “I learned when I was a Cub Scout.”

“Of course you would,” said Mrs. Savin. “Good little Cub Scout you probably were.”

“I expect your grief is causing your bad manners; I understand,” said Tim.

“You’ll excuse me; I want to get home to put on a meal for my husband,” said Mrs. Savin.

“To be sure; perhaps you can ask him to phone in about a good time to come and look at Irma’s room.”

Mrs. Savin tottered off with a muttered comment which Tim hoped had not been what it sounded like.

 

oOoOo

 

“I was glad of a bath after that foray into the dustbin,” said Jeff. “Thanks for making sure there was enough hot water, Ruth.”

“It’s part of my job to see the boilers are topped up, sir,” said Ruth, stiffly.

“That’s as maybe, but what sort of fellow would I be not to appreciate the comfort that comes as a result?” said Jeff. “I’m no Edgar Thripp to only thank a lady or give her compliments because I want to misbehave, nor am I the sort of man who goes around swindling people and killing them when they find out like your late husband. You’ve had a bad time of it but please allow that some people are decent!”

Ruth flushed.

“You and Mr. Alexander are gentlemen, but something in me turns prickly. I’m not sure why.”

“I... could it be that you are afraid of making another mistake?” asked Jeff. “I like Millie and I like you, and if I have been too forward, I do apologise.”

“You have not behaved improperly at all,” murmured Ruth. “But... but I am very much aware of it when you are present.”

“Well, then! Perhaps we can get to know each other better?” said Jeff. “I don’t know that there are any films on at the cinema fit for children; though I think they are showing a few of Buster Keaton’s shorts which might not bore Millie, and she might enjoy humorous chase scenes.”

“Well now! You’re the first man who has put Millie first,” said Ruth. “I went out with a young man who took her to the zoo but he got cross when she was upset by all the animals being locked up.”

“She’s a sensitive and thoughtful little girl,” said Jeff. “It’s too long a journey for her to go to the seaside for the day, but there’s Port Meadow, near Oxford, where one can paddle. Er, I might be cheeky, and ask Alexander for a loan of the car.”

“If you three will share the back seat, so Gladys can go too, I should think Campbell will happily drive you and take a day of there, himself,” said Alexander. “And then there’s another woman for support.”

“I should have thought of that,” said Jeff.

“You are both so very kind,” said Ruth.

“Think hard, though,” said Alexander. “Being a copper’s wife isn’t easy. We work all hours, go through other people’s rubbish, dig up partially burned and decomposed bodies, can be morose when a case is hard, and get phoned at any time of day or night. And we’re waiting for Tim Mapp to call us to say when we can search Irma’s room.”

“I should think that waiting for a man who has an honest job is better than waiting for one who has a string of women,” said Ruth.

“The most intimate relations I usually have with women is dead ones,” said Jeff, with dry humour.

“There’s the phone,” said Alexander. “Excuse me.” He went to answer the phone.

There were a number of other clicks and dings on the line.

“This is Heywood Hall,” said Alexander into what was suddenly a long silence. “Please clear the line if this is not your call.”

There were two clicks, which was fewer than those who had picked up when their own phones chirped that a call was going through on the party line. Alexander sighed; it was the nature of villages.

“Inspector Armitage? This is Theodor Savin,” said the voice on the other end.

“Oh, Mr. Savin, Tim did say he had asked your wife to relay the message that you should phone him,” said Alexander. “But no matter, I can call him.”

“I... I haven’t had a message from my wife,” said Savin. “I... oh dear! She has been unable to talk to me. I don’t want to say it on a party line.”

“Clear the line now, I have your numbers in front of me on a special Scotland Yard phone and this is police business,” snapped Alexander, mendaciously; but the listeners did not know he did not have a special piece of equipment.

There were several more irritable clicks.

“Now, Mr. Savin, I think we have got rid of them all,” said Alexander.

“Thank you,” said Savin.  “I... I can’t get a message from my wife because she’s dead!” He finished with a hysterical laugh.

 

---

[1] On the A145 heading for the A12 there is a post box on a post which as you approach looks like a bent little old man in the middle of the road until you come up the hill.