was lighter. It said Police on the breast of the waterproof I was wearing, just to confirm my origins.
'Is Mr. Duffy in?' I asked, after introducing myself.
The man himself appeared almost immediately, as if he'd been waiting.
Maybe they saw me approach.
'I'm Duffy,' he said. 'How can I help you?' He was big and bronzed, with a huge gut and a respectable handlebar moustache.
'I'd like to ask you a few questions,' I replied, 'about Heckley Squash Club. Do you think I could come in?'
'Of course. Come in, Inspector,' he gushed. And why not? He'd nothing to worry about. He'd been out of the country for a month, hadn't he? 'Let's have you out of this stinking weather. Bloody rotten climate. Take your coat off.'
'Your phone doesn't work,' I explained as Tricia Duffy took the dripping coat from me. A large bag of Ping golf clubs stood in the hallway.
'Bloody thing's cut off!' he exclaimed. 'I don't know what this country's coming to. We've been to our place in Portugal for a month and that's what you find when you come home. Going to the dogs, we are. Saturday at the airport every face you saw was one of our Commonwealth cousins. Why do we let them in, eh? Bloody taking over, that's what they're doing. I'm telling you, Inspector, as soon as I sort out a few things I'm moving over there, for good. You can keep this place. Have a seat.'
And then you'll be an immigrant, too, just like them, I thought.
They hadn't heard about the doctor's murder, and were suitably saddened. 'How well did you know him?' I asked.
Duffy shrugged. 'Reasonably well, I'd say, but just to have a drink and a laugh, in the bar. He was a good sort. Everybody liked him.' He considered this last remark, then added: 'Well, somebody didn't.'
'Any thoughts who?'
'No. No idea.' He pondered for a few seconds. 'I know it's the done thing to say kind words about somebody after they've died,' he continued, 'but I'm not bullshitting when I say that the doc was one of the nicest people I've ever met. Not that I knew him all that well, of course, but I always thought of him as a gentleman. A good old old- fashioned gentleman.'
'You're not the first to tell us that. If you don't mind me saying,' I went on, 'you look rather, er, large for a squash player.'
He laughed and patted his belly. 'They can't get round me. But you're right. I only do it for some exercise. Golfs my game.'
'And you, Mrs. Duffy?'
He answered for her. 'Golfs her game, too. Isn't it, darling? She's the ladies' captain next year.'
'Really. Well done. And how did you find the doctor, Mrs. Duffy?'
She smiled at the memory of him. 'He was dishy,' she said. 'I only met him twice, but he could have taken my pulse, anytime.'
'I'll tell you what he was like,' Duffy informed us, emphasising his point with a raised hand. 'This was bloody typical of the man. When we played him and that girl. You remember, don't you, Trish?'
'I'll say. I completely went to pieces.'
'This girl,' Duffy explained. 'Her partner didn't show up. She was upset. The doc started chatting to her, ended up partnering her, against us. He'd no need to do that, had he? Bloody beat us, too.'
'That's what I've come to ask you about,' I admitted. 'The manager told me about it. I don't suppose you remember the girl's name, do you?'
They both looked blank. She shook her head. He said: 'No. Sorry.
Ought to do, but it won't come.'
'It was… just… an ordinary name,' she said.
'Did you have a drink with them in the bar, afterwards?'
'Yes, we did.'
'And how did he and the girl get on?'
'Very chatty,' Mrs. Duffy replied. 'Very chatty. But when I was alone with her we went to the ladies' — I said: 'You've done all right there,' and she said he wasn't her type. I expected her to be over the moon, I would have been, but her feet were well and truly on the ground.'
'Would you have said that she was his type?'
'No, not at all. She was a plain Jane, and he was going out with her off the telly. Do you know about her?'
'Yes, I've talked to her.' I suppressed the smile that the memory generated. 'I assume the doc and the girl would have to meet again to play in the next round?' I said.
'That's right,' Mr. Duffy confirmed. 'They swapped phone numbers, and he told her what times he was most likely to be available. It was awkward for him, being a doctor and on call.'
'I know the feeling,' I said.
'We went to watch them,' he went on. 'Bugger me if they didn't win again. Got knocked out in the semi-final, though. She was thrilled to bits, I remember. Got a little trophy. I think that meant more to her than going out with the doctor would have done.' He turned to his wife. 'You missed that, didn't you, darling?'
'Yes,' she confirmed. 'I had one of my heads.'
I nodded sympathetically. It must be terrible to have heads. 'But you still can't remember the girl's name?'
They couldn't.
'OK,' I said, 'in that case, we'll have a little identity parade.' They looked worried. I'd taken the membership list with me. I unfolded it on the arm of the easy chair and pulled my notebook from my inside pocket. 'I'm going to write four names down,' I explained, 'from the list of members. If you recognise her name amongst them, I want you to point to it. Understand?'
I found three women's names and added them to the one I was interested in. 'Just point, if you think you see her name,' I told Duffy.
'That's her,' he said, without hesitation, placing a fingertip on the second name down. 'At least, it was something like that.'
'Thanks. Now you, Mrs. Duffy.'
I moved across to her and a wave of perfume hit the back of my throat like a karate chop. I swallowed and blinked away the tears.
'That's her,' she said, touching the page with the tip of a nail extension that gave me a pain in my teeth. Writing on blackboards would have been hell for her.
'Are you sure?' I asked. She'd picked the same name as her spouse.
'Yes, definitely. That's her. Susan Crabtree.'
Chapter Fourteen
The door closed behind me and I could almost hear the collective sigh they emitted on the other side of it. No doubt they'd celebrate my leaving with a little snifter or two. I pulled the coat together across my throat and walked down the drive towards the car. The rain was falling straight out of the sky, too morose to slant either one way or the other.
I could have strode away from it. I could have written that letter of resignation, saying I wanted out, and that would have been that. In two weeks, I'd be a civilian. But I didn't. I had a job to do. I didn't make the rules that's what we pay politicians for. I just applied them.
And every guard in every concentration camp used exactly the same excuse.
I drove to the Canalside Mews, home of the late doctor and also of Darryl Buxton. Eight flats, two definitely empty, a weekday. I'd be lucky to find anyone in.
I got an answer first try. 'My name's Detective Inspector Priest,' I shouted into the hole in the wall. 'I'm
