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‘Miss Osgathorp?’ said Mary Feakins, coming to life suddenly. ‘Wasn’t she that odd old woman who came to see you one evening a while ago, Benedict?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I didn’t really like her.’

Her husband moistened his lips and essayed a weak smile. ‘Yes, that’s her.’

‘When would that have been exactly, sir?’ asked Sloan.

‘Oh, weeks ago now, Inspector,’ he said.

‘Don’t you remember, darling?’ interjected Mary Feakins eagerly. ‘It was just before she went away.’ She turned to the two policemen. ‘She said she was going off on holiday somewhere the next morning and needed to see Benedict before she left. Quite insistent, she was.’

Her husband gave her a look of such great malevolence that she had never seen on his face before. It quite frightened her and she recoiled as if she had been stung.

‘Really, sir?’ said Sloan, seeing this look too, and turning back. ‘Can you tell us anything more?’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘Like why she came to see you, sir.’

He flushed. ‘She came to remind me of something, that’s all. And I hadn’t forgotten anyway.’

A rapid change of subject was just another of the techniques that his old Station Sergeant had taught Sloan about questioning. He said now, ‘Would you happen to know a Norman Potts by any chance, sir?’

Feakins looked blank. ‘No. Why?’ 

‘Another routine enquiry, sir,’ said that officer blandly. ‘That’s all. Thank you, sir. We’ll be off now.’

Crosby paused on their way out of the garden at The Hollies and looked at the newly dug earth. ‘Long enough for a grave,’ he observed, ‘but not wide enough or deep enough.’

Detective Inspector Sloan was concentrating on something quite different. ‘When we get back, Crosby, remind me to think of a legal way we could get a good look at what’s in that bonfire. Remember, Benedict Feakins is someone else who knew that Enid Osgathorp was going to be away.’

‘Someone else?’ asked Crosby who hadn’t been paying attention. ‘Oh, yes. That gardener fellow who took her to the station – Anthony Berra.’

‘And we really need to find out what it was that young man Feakins was burning on that bonfire, the one he got so agitated about and wasn’t in too much pain to build.’

‘He wasn’t all that happy when his wife started talking about Enid Osgathorp either,’ contributed Crosby. ‘I could see that.’

‘So,’ said Sloan, ‘we’re just going to seem to drive away and lie up out of sight of the house and keep an eye on what our Benedict Feakins does next.’

What Benedict Feakins did next was to hobble out of his house at speed into the back garden and rake over the embers of the bonfire very vigorously indeed.

The Reverend Tobias Beddowes, rector of Pelling, received the two policemen in his study at the rectory there with nothing beyond a courteous greeting and a hasty warning not to fall over a bicycle aslant in the hall. The room was untidy to the point of disorder, the clergyman having to remove piles of books and papers from both chairs before the others could sit down.

‘I apologise for the muddle,’ he said, looking helplessly round the room, ‘but I’m on my own with the two younger children now and things aren’t getting done.’

‘We were sorry to hear about the loss of your wife,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan formally, grasping a conversational nettle ducked by most of his parishioners.

The rector shook his head. ‘A very sad business. My elder daughter will be back soon, though, and that will help. She’s very good. She’ll see to things.’

‘Been away, has she?’ asked Crosby insouciantly.

‘Honeymoon,’ explained Tobias Beddowes briefly. ‘Naturally, she and her husband couldn’t get away straightaway after the wedding ceremony.’

‘Naturally?’ echoed Crosby as his superior officer stirred uneasily.

‘Naturally there had to be an inquest,’ sighed Beddowes. ‘My dear wife … she died just before the wedding, you see. It was all too much for her, you know. The arrangements and the expense and all that just got on top of her.’ He took a deep breath and said, ‘Now, what was it you wanted to see me about, gentlemen?’

‘It’s a photograph,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, handing over the one he had abstracted from Canonry Cottage. ‘I hope it won’t distress you if your wife is on it too.’

The rector scanned the photograph of the presentation to Enid Osgathorp proffered by Detective Inspector Sloan and shook his head. ‘No, my wife isn’t on this. She didn’t come with me that evening.’ He lifted his head as if doing so was an effort and asked what it was they wanted him to tell them about the photograph.

‘Miss Enid Osgathorp – is that her, shaking your hand?’ asked Sloan.

‘Yes indeed, Inspector, I can confirm that that is a picture of Enid Osgathorp taken in the village hall when she retired two or three years ago. She gave up work a little early because old Doctor Heddon had died and she didn’t want to start afresh with anyone else, which is quite understandable. She had been with him for a very long time.’ He went on looking at the photograph. ‘Might I ask why you want to know?’

‘Enid Osgathorp would appear to be missing from her home,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan.

‘Really? She does go away a lot of course, you know,’ said the clergyman. ‘She’s become quite a traveller since she retired. I expect she’ll be back soon.’

‘She hasn’t arrived at her destination,’ said Sloan.

‘Or left word,’ added Crosby unnecessarily.

The rector raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think she would have left word anyway. She never said much about where she was going. She was always someone who kept herself to herself. A very private person, you might say.’

Detective Inspector Sloan, experienced policeman that he was, much preferred people who did not keep themselves to themselves. It could make detection more difficult.

‘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.