Cat Flap

by Andrew Osmond

  Chapter Twenty-One: Saturday

  “County Durham was to be the scene of several reported sightings of a large, puma-like feline during the summer and autumn of 1993. The ‘Durham Puma’ was born.”

  The mist had not dispersed overnight, if anything it had actually got thicker.  The white vapour hung like a damp sheet on a clothes-line, stretching from the dew-covered grass to a height of about five feet, obscuring everything at ground level behind an opaque veil while leaving everything above exposed in clear blue sunlight.  Art breathed in the fresh, morning air above the foggy layer, conscious, at the same time, that his son, in his buggy, was enveloped somewhere below in the mist’s moist embrace.  Spirals of heavy, damp air circulated lethargically around the wheels of the pram, spilling in and out of the metal spokes in the wheels, oozing lazily across the ground like an oil spill on the surface of the sea; other, more energetic, airborne apparitions, seemingly teased the pedestrian progress of the three-wheeled conveyance, a phantasmagoria appearing enticingly in front of the vehicle before vanishing entirely just before the buggy was able to catch up and engulf them beneath its rubber tread. Art pressed on, hunching himself vulture-like above the handle of the stroller as he made his way up the incline leading from the bridge over the canal into the first line of trees.

  He realized that the quest for the cat was becoming something of an obsession: it could not be construed as normal, social behaviour to go haring off around the woods with your infant son in tow at such an ungodly time on a weekend morning.  But what else was he going to do?  Mope around the house, waiting for the bills to pile up?  Give up all together; throw up his hands and surrender to the forces apparently conspiring to defeat him? If he might ever have been tempted to do so himself, Art knew that he could not yield himself or his beliefs so meekly for the sake of his son: even if the object of his searching might prove to be a false idol, it was the passion and dedication that he brought to the task that was all-important now: it was no longer a question of whether you arrived, it was the manner of how you got there that was the key to his saving face, and at the moment, salvaging respect was uppermost in Art’s mind.  He might have a crap job that didn’t want him; he might have a crap marriage and a wife that had rejected him, but he at least wanted to be able to look back and tell his son that although he once looked for and failed to find the Cassiobury Cougar, he gave it his best shot.

  The path ahead forked and then forked again, running along an avenue of stark, silver birch trees, their ragged bark mottled white and black, the pale boles ghostly against the dark shadows of the undergrowth beyond.  Art continued pushing the buggy wildly, bumping it roughly over the uneven ground, oblivious to the sounds of the woods around him, navigating on an autopilot course to a destination unspecified in the pre-flight schedules. His passenger gurgled contentedly as his small head was rocked back and forth, protected from the worst of the battering by a thick insulation of coat and hat and blanket, the complete ensemble transforming the baby, giving him the outward appearance of a gouty old man wrapped up warmly in his invalid bath chair.  There were several cries from amidst the trees, birds breaking cover left and right, a large wood pigeon cooing dolefully to an absent companion, and numerous small, scurrying noises close to the forest floor, and yet Art strode on, his pace increasing if anything, unwilling to be distracted by any sounds, determined to immerse himself in his woodland surroundings by pure endeavour alone, enjoying the tiredness that comes from hard toil, if not yet from a good job well done.  Breathing was proving harder now, and his shoulders ached from the combination of the weight of the pack he carried on his back and the stooped posture he adopted leaning over the buggy.  His mind was racing: he was no longer in the woods so familiar to him, but instead he had been transported once again to the unknown forests of Tasmania, where another equally elusive denizen lies hidden, existing either behind an impenetrable cloak of trees or merely in the minds and dreams of a few hopeful optimists.

  He was on his hands and knees, crawling through the thick ground cover of ferns, across a brown carpet of dry, fallen pine needles, the slender spines a constant irritant as they pricked the skin of his palms and snickered their way into his clothes and boots. It had not rained for several days, which was unusual, and the sky, when he could glimpse it through the dense canopy of pine trees, was a brilliant blue. It did not make stalking any easier. He had set a course by the big gum tree that he had viewed from the ridge, but now that he was in the midst of the forest he was no longer certain that he was still heading for the distinctive eucalypt. Beneath the needles the ground was soft and mulchy and his hands were becoming increasingly grimy from the rich soil; the lines across his palms looking like delicate tattoos where the dirt found refuge in every crease, or like a charcoal rubbing from a brass relief; his fingernails were clogged and black. He hadn’t imagined his progress would be so slow, or that the forest would be so unwelcoming. His lack of progress was a cause for depression, but the very impenetrability of the environment was also a reason for optimism. It could be here. Lack of faith, rather than an adverse landscape, was his greatest enemy. It would be here. There was a slight rise ahead, he would rest a while there, give himself a chance to stretch his legs and clean off his hands and clothes. Perhaps he would be able to get his bearings again. He pulled his legs forward so that he was in a squatting position, then rose up on his knees, before slowly, silently, drawing himself up to his full height. All was quiet. Tree trunk after tree trunk, receding into darkness... He had been here before. Every daydream was the same: the same landscape, the same conclusion. Reality was less clear-cut.

  It was then that he saw it.  It was only a fleeting glimpse, but there could be no mistake.  Or could there?  It had been the sound of snapping branches and the noise of something running swiftly through the bushes and the light footfall of padded steps on the cushioned ground beneath the canopy of trees which had made him turn to look, and at the moment he had seen the creature. Not the long snout, short, stumpy forelegs and unmistakable transverse stripes across the rump of the thylacine that he encountered on every forest walk into imagination that he had ever taken, but this time the tan-coloured flank and long, slender limbs of the puma that he had stalked for so long. The mist was still swirling amongst the trees and he had momentarily lost sight of his quarry once more in the nebulosity of the white smoke screen and the tangle of dense ground cover, but Art had been confident of his initial sighting: the animal that he had glimpsed had stood at least three feet from the ground at the shoulder, it had been moving swiftly, was the classic golden-brown colouring of all the mountain lions he had ever seen in photographs. There was no other wild British animal that could fit the description.

  All of these thoughts, the analysis of the data his eyes had witnessed and the synthesis of the sensory information to reach a mental identification, occupied the matter of a mere second of time. The next second of Art’s thought was taken up with a realization that the creature he had seen was still moving, and by the sounds that he was picking up from his ears, was moving directly towards him and baby Luke. The third second of mental activity since the moment he first saw the object of his quest was filled with a sudden dawning that he had formulated no clear plan of action for what he was going to do in this eventuality: although having utterly committed himself to the pursuit of his personal Grail, Art would have secretly admitted that he never truly believed that he would ever reach it, or even that the object actually existed. Now faced with flesh and blood reality, he did not know what to do.

  Perhaps sensing his father’s sudden change of mood, or picking up the atmosphere of tension and fear, Luke chose that moment to let out an ear-splitting yell. The noise was enough to provoke Art into action. The animal was closing in on them and fast; there was a continual sound of dry snapping twigs and the noise of something rushing through the bushes growing ever nearer, and although the mist continued to obscure the exact location of the pow
erful predator, Art was left in no doubt that the two defenceless humans were its current mission objective. The hunters had very rapidly become the hunted. If he had been on his own, Art might have considered standing his ground: he had read plenty of accounts of encounters between men and wild animals in other wildernesses, and the advice always seemed to be, if a face-to-face meeting is unavoidable, to make yourself appear as large as possible or to make as much noise as possible, working on the theory that the creature will generally be more scared of you than the other way around. Art had read about men escaping attacks from bears by behaving in this fashion, although he always doubted his own resolve if he had been in their position. Acting dead was more his style. Now, faced with a similar quandary, a further complication was provided by the presence of Luke and the buggy: Art’s over-riding concern was to protect his small son from harm. It was with this in mind that flight seemed to be his best option. The forest trail he was on intersected with a road no great distance further on; Art knew that the carriageway was not much more than a country lane but there was just a chance that he would be able to flag down a passing car and gain a place of safety for him and his son. At the moment, he could think of no other alternative.

  From the continued sounds coming from the surrounding trees, Art judged that they had at least a fifty yards head start on the pursuing animal. It was not much, but it might just be enough. Art put his head down and charged as fast he could along the muddy track, pushing the buggy before him almost as if he was propelling forward a battering ram, ready to break down a castle door. Luke squealed with delight at the surprise activity, craning his head around to see what his father was doing. Not once did Art look back. If his calculations were right, the creature would have left the constrictions of the trees by now and had probably reached the point on the trail where Art had first spotted it. It was now a straight foot race for the sanctuary of the road. Useless statistics welled up in Art’s mind as he ran: the puma’s top speed is 55 m.p.h.; a top 100 metre sprinter can run at 30 m.p.h.; an only moderately fit man pushing a three-wheel pram over rough ground could probably average about 12 m.p.h. for a short distance, perhaps rising to 15 m.p.h. if you factored in the information that he was being pursued by a lethal natural killing machine. Art could hear the creature’s rapid footsteps behind him, but still he did not dare to pause and turn around.

  The road was in sight ahead now, so too, slightly beforehand, was a large house, set a short way back from the trail, almost hidden amongst the trees, at the end of a short driveway. The road or the house? What offered the best chance of escape? Art only had a split second to make a decision, knowing that a wrong choice could potentially prove fatal. He might reach the road only for there not to be any cars. By the same score, he might reach the house only for there not be anyone at home. Art was panting with the exhaustion of his activity now. The house was marginally closer. Art made his mind up: he veered the buggy sharply right, and turned into the drive leading up to a large wooden front door directly ahead, shouting out desperately for help as he ran. As he reached the door, he heard the sound of the heavy, falling paws behind him skid to a halt as the animal reached the entrance to the driveway, and then come on again with renewed vigour, noisily crunching the loose gravel, its prey now clearly in sight.

  Art pushed and pulled frantically at the large brass handle, but the door was clearly locked, and of a construction far too heavy to contemplate a physical attack upon. There was an old-fashioned, rusty, copper-coloured ring pull which Art tugged at furiously, and which set off a series of noisy peals echoing in the distant interior of the house, but Art could not hear any other sounds from inside to suggest that there was anyone preparing to answer the call. He beat upon the wooden panels with his fists but to no avail. The animal was almost on top of them now; there was nowhere else to run to. It was then that Art noticed the large, plastic cat flap set in one of the bottom panels of the door; it was bigger than the typical means of feline egress, suggesting either a particular well fed moggy, or the owners of the house specialized in keeping the hefty Maine Coon breed, whatever, all that Art saw was a potential lifeline. There was no way that Art himself would be able to squeeze through the Alice in Wonderland size door, but it looked as though it should prove just wide enough to accommodate his baby son. With no other thought in mind, Art instantly clicked open the plastic fastenings which held his infant child secure in his buggy, snatched the small boy up rugby ball fashion, head sticking out front, legs and body tucked up between Art’s arm and side, and unceremoniously thrust the unsuspecting Madison heir, head first, through the miniature hatchway. He acted in the nick of time: Art had only time to straighten himself up and face his onrushing attacker, when the swiftly moving golden form sprung directly at him. He felt two large paws at his neck and a blast of hot, acrid breath in his face, before the weight of the creature sent him crashing backwards, and a momentary vision of bright blue sky and the baffled expression on the face of his son, his small nose pressed up against the transparent plastic door of the cat flap, were the last things he saw before everything went black.

  •••

  Damien Finn had been lying beside the swimming pool, outside the villa his parent’s were renting, when the telephone call had come through.  It was still really too early in the season and too cold outside to fully enjoy the benefits of the Mediterranean locale, but Damien had been determined not to miss a second of potential sunbathing time, and this morning, with the sky clearer than it had been all week, he had taken the opportunity to strip off and catch a few rays.  A February suntan was just what he needed to impress the girls back home.  In truth, the villa was rather shabbier than others the family had stayed at in the past, and upon the surface of the swimming pool a thin film of dead plant matter floated, making the water appear less than inviting.  The tiled, ceramic patio was chipped and dirty too, and Damien had already managed to cut his foot, when he had first ventured out in bare feet and stepped upon a piece of loose masonry.  Still, all of these minor nuisances would be glossed out of the report he would give when he was called upon to recount his holiday adventures later.

  Damien watched as the louver doors at the rear of the house complex opened and his mother emerged, the portable telephone held in front of her at arms length as though it was a bomb that was about to go off.  He closed the book that he had been reading, letting it drop to the floor beside him, and straightened himself up to a sitting position, one leg on either side of the reclining lounger.  He wondered what she could want.  Normally, his mother complained of being ‘sensitive to the sun’ and would scarcely ever emerge from the protective cocoon of the villa until after the hours of sunset, and even then only if wearing a particularly hideous, floppy, broad-rimmed hat.  Now she was bare-headed and looking anxious, and was clearly making a bee-line directly towards her only son.  She had started talking before she had even covered half the distance between the house and the pool.

  “It’s the police.  For you.  What have you done, Damien?”

  “Mother?”  Damien was genuinely surprised.

  “Calling from England,” his mother continued, “It must be something serious to ring you all the way from England.”  She was cupping the mouthpiece in her hand so that the listener could not hear their conversation.

  Damien frowned and shrugged his shoulders.  He gathered up his shirt from where he had discarded it on the back of the sun-bed and draped it around his back.  The sun had momentarily disappeared behind a bank of cloud and it suddenly felt very chilly.  “You must be mistaken,” he said to his mother, annoyed. It would be typical of her, he thought, to confuse things.  Or perhaps it was one of his friends playing a practical joke: how they would laugh at duping his mother - well, there was no way that he was going to be fooled so easily.  The object of his contempt was standing beside him now and he snatched the phone from her hand, barking into the receiver, “Yes?”

  The voice that answered
was cool and cultured.  Damien did not recognize it as anyone he knew.  “Damien Finn?  Is that Mr. Damien Finn of Higham’s Court, Watford?”

  “Yes,” Damien answered, wary.

  “You are a friend of a Robert Waterhouse?”

  So it was about Rob.  Damien sounded relieved, wondering what Rob could have done, “Yes.  Who is this?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought that your mother would have explained.  This is Detective Sergeant James Leigh, Hertfordshire C.I.D.”

  “What’s this all about?”  Damien was feeling bolder now, “I’m on holiday, don’t you know.  What is this?”

  “I hope I won’t have to take up too much of your time.  Could you please confirm whether Mr. Waterhouse is currently staying with you in France?”

  “Rob?  Here in France with us?  Are you joking?”

  “He didn’t leave the country with you last Monday?”

  “No, of course not.  I mean, I know Rob well enough, but half the point of a holiday is to get away from people like him.”

  “Like him?”

  “Well, people you know. You know?  What on earth would I want to bring him along for anyway?”  A sudden realization of the implications surrounding the policeman’s questions suddenly dawned on Damien.  “Does this mean that Rob has gone missing?”

  James tried not to let his disappointment show in his voice.  He maintained his professional approach as he said, “Mr. Waterhouse was last seen at his parent’s house on Monday last week.  I understand that he is someone that you would not normally expect to disappear for several days without any explanation.”

  Damien was more intrigued than concerned for the well-being of his friend, “No, a proper home bird, Rob.  Not very... what would you say, adventurous.”

  “Are there any other friends of his you know that you think he could be staying with?”

  “No,” Damien answered quickly, before thinking again, “Although, perhaps. There is this girl he’s been seeing.”

  “A girlfriend?”  Here was something that Leigh had not heard about before.

  “More like a cheap fling, if you ask me,” said Damien.

  “Would you know her name?  Her address?”

  “No,” replied Damien, “He’s been pretty secretive about things.”

  “Oh.”  James could not now hide the frustration he felt.

  “There is something though,” Damien supplied, “She’s one of those barge people.  You know, lives among that community of longboats in the middle of the park.  He could be with her.  Wouldn’t trust any of those water gypsies as far as I could throw them.”

  James could feel his teeth grinding together as he thanked the young man for his information and put the phone down.  He disliked the youth’s cocksure attitude, and was embarrassed by his racist descriptions and assumptions but, unfortunately, he realised, in a moment of self-loathing, that he agreed with the sentiments that the other man had expressed: the merest mention of the barge people had made him sit up and listen.

  Damien pushed in the aerial on his own handset and returned the apparatus to his mother who was still hovering at his side.

  “Well?” she demanded, when it became clear that her son was not going to elucidate upon his phone call without prompting.

  Damien picked up his book from the floor.  “It’s nothing,” he said. “Wrong number.”

  The older woman opened her mouth as if about to protest, but then thought better of it, and turned and walked slowly back inside the villa.

  •••

  At last, James Leigh felt like he was making some progress.  True the news from France had been something of a knock back, but the information supplied by the missing boy’s arrogant friend had at least opened up a new course of enquiry for him. He had arranged for an immediate boat-to-boat investigation to determine the identity of Robert Waterhouse’s secret girlfriend; an image of the young couple sailing off into the sunset already fixed in his mind. The phone call he was to receive from his investigating officer in charge at the scene of the enquiries was to send James immediately scurrying to the canal side himself.

  The inside of the cabin looked like it had been turned upside down; a chair and a small table had been kicked over, all the high cupboard doors above the side benches were flung open and most of their contents flung out, the debris of papers, pots and pans lying in a confused heap on the floor of the longboat. It only needed a quick glance into the other two cabins to confirm that a similar tale was repeated in each of them. The sickening smell of diesel fuel and dampness pervaded the whole interior of the barge. James felt nauseous, and this was before he had seen the corpse. The body was in the main bedroom, sprawled unnaturally across the double bed; it had been unnecessary to follow the trail of blood leading from the galley area, there had been made no attempt to conceal the victim’s corpse.

  The police photographer had already completed his job by the time that James Leigh arrived at the barge. He was accompanied by his superior officer, Phil Bacon, who barked out orders to the men around him, demanding that they clear a passage in the narrow, claustrophobic confines of the longboat, to allow himself and his sergeant access to the scene. A police doctor was halfway through his examination of the body as James joined him at his side. Between them they turned the corpse over, able to see the face for the first time. It would not have been a pleasant visage in life James decided, but in death the long, unwashed white hair hung around the bloated features like pond weed around a dead fish, and the skin which had once been so florid had acquired a greasy, white pallor, as though someone had applied too much factor thirty sun lotion to the victim’s complexion and where no amount of rubbing was going to absorb all the excess cream. The man would have been in his late fifties, so James judged, a fact confirmed by the doctor’s initial analysis.

  “Difficult to say what killed him at this stage,” the young medic continued, “There’s been a blow to the head. See here.” He proceeded to indicate to the two police officers a large, egg-sized bump on the side of the dead man’s temple. “The skull doesn’t appear to be fractured though.”

  “What about all this blood?” Bacon asked, pointing to the grisly trail across the wooden floor of the boat and the dark stain that had seeped into the woolen blanket on the bed. “Where’s all this come from?”

  “You’ll have to help me to flip him over again,” the doctor requested, “and I’ll show you. You can remove his jacket too, it’s only loose around him.”

  Once the body had been turned again, the head buried face down into the mattress in a position suffocating to any air-breathing creature, and the improvised modesty covering removed to expose the dead man’s naked arms, shoulders and torso, a clear series of distinct cuts were revealed on the man’s bare back.

  “One of these is quite deep,” the doctor went on to explain, indicating an incision close to the spine, “I’d have to examine the entry wound more closely before I could say with any certainty, but I would have thought this injury is the most likely cause of death. Possibly even punctured his kidneys. It certainly resulted in a large amount of blood loss.”

  “Is there a murder weapon?” Bacon was directing his question towards Leigh, who being no more enlightened on the subject than his boss, deflected the question by looking towards the young doctor, as if hoping that he could transfer the enquiry by telepathy. He was fortunate that the medical man was keen to impress with his knowledge and spoke up for him.

  “One of your men found a small kitchen knife in the main cabin. It’s bagged up somewhere. I examined it beforehand, and it looked perfectly feasible that it could have caused this particular injury. It would have meant that it was used with great force, perhaps commando style, you know?” The young man imitated grabbing an imaginary opponent around the neck with one arm, while plunging a knife into his lower back with the other.

  “I know what you mean,” said Bacon, wearily. “And what about these other marks then?” He poin
ted to the top of the victim’s back, where a vest of dark, congealed blood was encrusted on the skin, spreading across from one shoulder blade almost to the other.

  “Now that is more interesting,” the doctor said, “These are stab marks committed immediately after death. Can I have some water in here?” This last request was directed at the uniformed constable standing guard at the door of the cabin. “If I clean him up a bit, you’ll be able to see the cuts more clearly.”

  As the doctor went to work, performing a hurried toilet on the body, James continued the interview. “How long has he been like this?”

  “You mean, how long has he been dead?” said Bacon bluntly, sarcastically mocking his companion’s delicacy at pronouncing a fact that was only too plainly obvious.

  The doctor replied, “Not long. Some time this morning certainly. Perhaps an hour since your first man arrived at the scene, certainly not longer than two.”

  “And do we know who he is?”

  This time it was the constable who spoke, “His name was Ronald Sherry, sir. There’s some papers you might like to see here, and one of his neighbours has confirmed the identification.”

  At the mention of the dead man’s name both Bacon and Leigh exchanged a questioning glance, but before either of them could speak the doctor had stood up between them and was proudly exhibiting his absterged corpse for their attention, looking like a conjurer who, having successfully completed an illusion, is waiting for the look of wonderment to appear on the faces of his audience, “Now you can see for yourselves.”

  Both police officers turned to look. There were five distinct knife wounds running closely parallel to one another vertically down the upper portion of the dead man’s back, converging slightly as they raked lower, producing a vivid red impression on the otherwise pale skin.

  “It looks rather like...” the doctor began, but he was interrupted by Leigh.

  “The claw mark of a big cat.”

  •••

  Ronald Sherry’s body was taken away by stretcher along the towpath, the head discretely concealed beneath a white sheet, until it was transferred to a waiting ambulance, which had successfully negotiated the tarmac paths as far as the canal bridge, beyond which it could go no further. A thorough search of the longboat and the surrounding area continued long into the evening, and a wide section of the towpath was cordoned off by blue tape, warning the curious onlookers of their proximity to a crime scene and to keep well away. James Leigh remained at the barge all day, officially reassigned to the Sherry case, in the absence of the hapless Stanton, whose own investigation into the whereabouts of the escaped convict, it had been ascertained, had required him to spend several days following up leads in the Tyneside area, coincidentally at the very same time as his favourite football team were playing away at Newcastle.

  Of Ronald’s brother, the absconder David, there was no sign, but that the current murder had been committed by his hand, there could be no serious doubt: the marks on his brother’s back were identical to those described in the autopsy report of the victim of Sherry’s previous killing, at the time when he was still an inmate at the young offender’s centre. Apparently old habits really do die hard. James was interested to discover, though, that his brother had been no great pillar of the local community either.

  Ronald Sherry: it was proving to be something of a misnomer. Whisky would have been a far more apt surname for the recently deceased barge owner. The paperwork relating to Ronald Sherry’s illegal business activities was surprisingly well ordered and complete, and it took Leigh very little time to piece together a fairly accurate picture of the scam that Sherry was involved in. Sherry, it appeared, had a partner working as a driver at a firm of international hauliers, who, for the payment of a regular retainer and a share of the eventual profits, was bringing in large quantities of cheap whisky from the continent, concealing the booty amongst the innocent possessions of legitimate house removal freight consignments, and so avoiding the expensive necessity of paying British excise duties. Once in the U.K., Sherry himself took possession of the shipment, usually at a prearranged place along the course of the canal, somewhere where a lorry could gain direct access to the edge of the waterway and the transfer of goods could be performed in relative concealment. It was apparent that Sherry kept a separate vessel purely for this purpose: a small, inconspicuous barge that could be regularly manoeuvred up and down the canal without exciting comment, and, after a further brief police search, the boat itself, still fully loaded with contraband alcohol was discovered in a narrow tributary off the main canal path. Sherry’s accomplice, the lorry driver, would not now be thanking his erstwhile business partner for having kept such accurate accounts: Leigh had already been able to put a call through to a colleague working for H.M. Customs and Excise, and had been informed that the truck, its contents and its driver, would be stopped and detained when they next returned to these shores. It had appeared to be a lucrative enterprise while it lasted, judging from the large number of receipts that were discovered. Sherry himself had the job of relabelling the whisky and handling onward distribution, and had built up an enviable list of regular customers, many being reputable outlets, while other bottles were sold in small, private deals to pubs, clubs, parties, raves and individuals. James Leigh was personally satisfied to see that the farmer Mick Jones’s name appeared in several places in Sherry’s account books, revealing him to be a frequent purchaser of the smuggled liquor, although he then realized with a guilty amusement that it was more than likely that he had unwittingly sampled some of the illicit wares himself, remembering the bottle that Jones had given him upon his last visit to the smallholding. The minor mystery of the stolen cash box was solved too. Leigh recognized the handwriting he had previously seen on the receipts, which had been found alongside the discarded tin as being the same as that in Sherry’s ledgers. How the tin had come to be left in the Vicarage Road Cemetery grounds, Leigh was not sure, but that it had originated from Sherry’s barge, perhaps having been used for storing the monies obtained from casual ‘drop-in’ trade, he was in no doubt.

  As to clues of the current whereabouts of David Sherry, there were none. There were no letters from him on the barge, no hint as to a possible address for him, nor even any obvious sign that this was indeed where he had spent his fortnight of freedom. The Scene Of Crime officers were conducting a meticulous examination of both barges, but James was confident that if there was anything useful to be discovered he would have spotted it himself: he had poured over the files of this man for the best part of two weeks now, he felt like he knew him intimately, and instinctively he knew that somehow his presence was not here. Neighbouring barge owners were questioned about the Sherry family but, by their very nature, the floating community was a nomadic one: no one claimed to know the Sherrys well, certainly no one claimed a knowledge of Ronald’s illegal trade in spirits; the only useful piece of additional information that James was able to pick up was that Ronald’s wife and his daughter had left the barge very early that morning with luggage suggesting at least an overnight stay, Ronald having been sufficiently alive at that time to wave them off, and that since such a departure by the women folk was apparently a fairly regular occurrence that it was a commonly held belief that the two females visited a relative of Mrs. Sherry, at an address unknown.

  By the time the sun was beginning to set, James Leigh had decided that there was little more that he could do at the canal side, and returned to the police station to type up his report. It had been an interesting day. Secretly, Leigh felt rather pleased with himself, although he could not decide whether after today’s events he was really any closer to re-arresting David Sherry. Of the missing boy Robert Waterhouse, he had given not a thought. It would just have to be hoped that he turned up again of his own free will, otherwise he could expect another ear-bashing from that father of his. Unless... Now that Stanton was no longer on the Sherry case, he’d have some time to spare. James smiled to hi
mself, already imagining his colleague fending off the irate father. Yes, all things considered, it had been a successful day.