Pammy smiled. ‘I think she just might. Bless you, Cook.’
* * *
In his little cottage opposite the post office, Police Constable Ted Frost, comfortably paunched and looking forward to retirement, locked up for the night. It had been a good day. The boy had brought some corn cobs back from the farm, a present from Mr Davis, and Margie had cooked them just right. He was partial to corn on the cob, even though he couldn’t regard it as English. Still, with salt and pepper, and plenty of butter dripping over it, it took some beating, that he would admit. And tonight it was followed by rabbit, which Benjie’d shot himself.
A lot to be said for being based in the country, Ted reflected complacently. All very well for the Smart Alecs in Shillingham and Broadminster, zooming round in their Pandas. He was quite happy with Westridge and his old bike, thanks all the same.
‘Go on, Jack, I’m surprised you don’t die of boredom!’ they teased him, at intermittent training sessions. (He’d been ‘Jack’ to his colleagues, for obvious reasons, since the day he joined the Force.) Well, it was all right for them to spend their lives chasing bank robbers and the like, but he was too old for that now, and truth to tell had never really fancied it. The village bobby, everyone’s friend. That was more his line. Apart from the odd complaints of ‘scrumping’, Westridge was a law-abiding place, and he’d nothing to complain of in that.
The old black retriever thumped his tail as his master checked the back door. When Margie wasn’t looking, a portion of rabbit had found its way into his bowl. Ted winked conspiratorially at the animal. Wonder if old Rover associated the tasty morsel with those leaping, flashing forms he’d chased so enthusiastically in his younger days? But that was being fanciful. Of course he didn’t.
Chuckling to himself, the policeman started up the stairs, pausing as he always did at the window on the half-landing, from which vantage-point he could see half the village spread before him. Even as he watched, several of the lights went out, one after another. Well, it was almost eleven, and folks were up early hereabouts.
Belching comfortably, he went on his way to bed.
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Six Proud Walkers Page 19
