I was still thinking about Sharon when Dave said: 'So what were you saying?'
'About what?' I rubbed the side of my face. 'That flippin' fan's given me neuralgia.'
'You were telling me about Miss X.'
'Miss X? You mean Rosie. She's called Rosie. Rosie Barraclough.'
'So where did you really meet her?'
'At the geology class. She was the teacher.'
'I'd forgotten about that. How's it going?'
'Fine. Last week was the last one.'
'Was it any good?'
'Yes. It was interesting. I enjoyed it.'
'Particularly with Rosie in charge.'
'Um, yes, she did add to the enjoyment.' The 4X4 in front of us had two stickers on the back window: one for the Liberty and Livelihood jamboree and the other urging us to Buy British Beef. It was a Mitsubishi Shogun.
'So what 'appened.'
'Nothing. Last Wednesday was the final night and I invited her to the pub for a drink. We arranged to go to Mr Ho's on Saturday, but when I rang her she'd changed her mind.'
'Because you were a policeman, you said.'
'Mmm. I'd told someone in the class that I was a graphic designer, and she overheard me. When I told her I was really a cop she went all quiet, as if I'd deceived her.'
'I usually say that I'm a cattle inseminator. That keeps 'em quiet. So what are you doing about it?'
I looked across at him. 'Doing about it? Nothing. What can I do about it?'
'Charlie!' he gasped. 'Won't you ever learn. Women 'ave to be chased. You like her, don't you?'
'Well, she's good fun.'
'So ring her again. Say you won't take no for an answer. Faint heart and all that.'
'This is the voice of the expert, is it?' I argued. 'You married the girl next door which gives you a one hundred percent success record and thereby qualifies you as an authority on the opposite sex.'
'Give 'er a ring.'
'No means No! Haven't you been listening?'
'Give 'er a ring.'
'OK, I'll think about it.'
'Good.' We were back at the station. 'That's you sorted out, now what are we doing about these shops?'
'Bacon buttie first,' I replied, 'then we'll take half each.'
'Just what I'd've done,' he said.
'Except that…'
'What?'
'Except that we're assuming only Grainger's are involved. We really ought to look at all the other supermarkets, too.' 'Sheest!'
In the afternoon I visited the stores in Halifax and Oldfield, and Sparky did three others. Halifax reported another tin of mouldy fruit and Sparky discovered two more incidents of blue beans. Puncturing a tin so the contents rotted appeared to be the first MO, followed by the dye, followed by the warfarin. It was impossible to be precise but it looked as if we had a nutter on the loose and he was on a learning curve. I rang Mr Wood from the car park of Grainger's Oldfield store and arranged a 5 p.m. meeting. Someone was going to die if we didn't act quickly, and the first step in catching the culprit was assessing the size of the problem.
We decided to go public, right from the start. I drew a twenty-mile radius circle on a road map and called it the locus of operations. As soon as we had an incident room organised I'd give it pride of place on the wall. Statements would be issued to local radio stations and the local weekly newspapers, starting with the Heckley Gazette, and tomorrow we would hand-deliver a questionnaire to every supermarket manager within the circle.
'What about the public health people?' somebody asked.
'Tricky,' Mr Wood replied. 'I'll talk to them in the morning and ask them to bear with us. The supermarkets are probably out of order but I'll ask them to turn a blind eye if it helps the investigation. So far the managers have been most co-operative, haven't they, Charlie?'
'Yep. Very helpful.'
'Good. Can I leave it with you?'
'No problem.'
'That's my boy. There is one other thing. Another dead dog has been found. There are some photos on my desk and they're horrific. Let's not lose sight of that one, please.'
Everybody mumbled their assent and Mr Wood left us to it.
'Three volunteers, please,' I said. 'One to write the statement, one to liaise with HQ to create the questionnaire and one, maybe two, to list every supermarket in the circle. Then we can get straight on with it in the morning. So far whoever is tampering with the tins is using low-tech means. The warfarin was an escalation and could have led to a fatality. If they get their hands on something like strychnine or arsenic we could be looking for a murderer.'
Hands were raised and I delegated the jobs. As the others were leaving Jeff Caton said: 'Why does killing dogs pull at the heartstrings more than poisoning some poor soul with rat poison?'
'Because we're a nation of animal lovers,' Pete Goodfellow told him. 'That's why we have a royal society for animals but only a national society for children. But can anyone explain why dog-fighting is considered less morally defensible than hunting foxes? With the dogs it's one on one, whereas with foxes…'
'Whoah!' I said, holding up a hand. 'Let's leave the morality and ethics out of it and stick to the law. We've enough on our plates. C'mon, let's go home.'
'Why…' Dave began, looking thoughtful, 'why don't you ever see white dog turds these days? That's what I want to know.'
'What?' I said.
' White dog turds? ' Jeff queried.
'Yeah. White dog turds. Once upon a time dog turds used to be white. Not all of them, just some.'
'Gerraway!'
'It's true. They used to be the best ones. When they were dried they floated better than the others.'
'Floated? What were you floating them for?'
'We used to have races, on the canal. The white ones always won.'
'You had dog turd races on the canal?'
'Yes. Didn't you?'
'No!'
'Charlie did, didn't you?' + 'Um, no,' I replied. 'I had a scale model of the Queen Mary.'
'Only a scale model?' Jeff asked.
'It was half-scale,' Pete told him.
'Radio-controlled,' I said.
'How were these dog turds propelled?' Jeff wondered.
'We threw stones at them.'
I said: 'Why didn't you make them into little galleons with a cocktail stick and a square of paper?'
'A cocktail stickl' Dave exclaimed. 'A cocktail stick! We didn't have cocktail sticks.'
'You should have asked. We'd've let you have our used ones.'
Jeff said: 'If you didn't have cocktail sticks how did you eat your stuffed olives?'
'Stuffed olives!' he exploded. 'We didn't have stuffed olives. We had a stuffed cat, to save on the food bill.'
Jeff: 'Was it on wheels?'
Pete: 'Did it catch many mice?'
Dave: 'Only stuffed ones.'
'Home!' I shouted. 'Some of us have a meal to cook. Let's go.'
