“They’ll like the blood-stains on the carpet,” said Sloan comfortably. “I reckon she had a rubber sheet on the mattress but the carpet got splashed. Crosby’s working on it now.”
Sloan went back to Crosby in the bedroom. “I should have got the answer a long time ago.” Mrs. Andrina Coonie Ritchie had been taken away tight-lipped and talking only about lawyers.
The constable was more philosophical. “Bit of a turn-up for the book, a woman.”
“The devil is an Equal Opportunities Employer,” said Sloan. At least Judith had had the good of Israel at heart when she murdered Holofernes. Andrina Ritchie had been thinking only of Andrina Ritchie.
“Now I come to think of it,” said Crosby, who was on his hands and knees on the floor, “she was the one who told us about Sam Bailey having a no-good boyo for a son, too.”
“It was all very well thought out, Crosby. No doubt about that.” He had sent Constable Mason up the hill to arrest Paul Hucham. He hoped he hadn’t forgotten how to do it. Complicity was the word he would use when he charged Hucham. The leadership lay with the lady: the mode of death demonstrated that.
“That’ll be why she used the Baileys’ beet-topper,” said Crosby, shifting his knee.
“I should have got there a long time ago,” said Sloan. How had the rest of that old ballad about the twa corbies and the new-slain knight gone?
His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame
His lady’s ta’en anither mate …
Detective Constable Crosby’s contribution came in verse form, too. But parody. He straightened his back and chanted, “Red stains on the carpet, red stains on the knife, Poor old fellow, cut up by your wife.”
The tune was “Red Sails in the Sunset”: the sentiment quite sincere.
“Morning, Seedy.” Inspector Harpe from Traffic Division bumped into Sloan in the corridor of the police station just after he got back there.
“Morning, Harry.” Sloan looked at his watch. It was still only Monday morning.
“Quiet weekend?”
“Not really,” replied Sloan, adding politely, “And you?”
“Two pile-ups and seven under the influence,” said the traffic man.
“Ah.”
“And then I come in to this.” Happy Harry waved a letter in his hand.
“What is it?”
“From the Calleshire Ornithological Society.”
“Take my advice, Harry. If it’s anything to do with crows give it a miss.”
“Crows?” said Harpe blankly. “It’s not crows they’re on about. It’s kestrels. Seems that kestrels have discovered that their prey can’t cross motorways—dormice and the like—”
“Well, well.”
“So they drive ’em up to the edge of the road and then catch them—using the motorway as a trap.”
“Better than using it as a race-track.”
“What—Oh, yes, of course.” He looked at the letter again. “These bird people want to be allowed on the motorway to study the kestrels.…”
Detective Inspector Sloan had a very long report to write. “I should send the Flying Squad if I were you.…”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
John Imhoff, agricola
About the Author
Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty volumes of detective mysteries and three collections of short stories. Most of her fiction features Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan and Detective Constable W. E. Crosby. Aird holds an honorary master’s degree from the University of Kent and was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to the Girl Guide Association. She lives in a village in East Kent, England.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Catherine Aird
Cover design by Tracey Dunham
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1059-7
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Harm’s Way Page 21
