prisoner was sitting in my chair, nursing a coffee. Gilbert introduced me and confirmed what I'd already deduced by reading the logo on the man's epaulettes: he was an RSPCA inspector.
We shook hands briefly, but then I turned back to Mr Wood, saying: 'How's young Freddie?'
Gilbert brightened and shuffled in his seat. 'He's fine, thanks, Charlie. As good as new. This morning I had the public health people on to me, about the botulism. I told them it was the result of criminal activity, not a natural outbreak, and that seemed to satisfy them for the moment. Does that sound right?'
'Yes, that's fair enough.'
'Good. Now, John here was telling me about the apparent increase in dog fighting. He believes there's an organised ring, and they're into badger baiting, too.'
And for the next hour Inspector John regaled us with horror stories about Man's inhumanity to his fellow creatures. The natural world is red in tooth and claw, as we all know, but Man, with his gift of imagination and insatiable desire for excitement, adds a new dimension to the game. I wasn't unsympathetic, and doing unspeakable things to animals is only a small step away from repeating the practise against human beings. It was chicken for tea, in lemon sauce, but I didn't enjoy it.
'This is a pleasant surprise,' I said, stooping to give Shirley, Dave's wife, a peck on the cheek. When we go for a midweek drink Dave and I walk to the pub and Shirley usually collects us towards closing time.
'Wouldn't let me out on my own,' he complained. 'Said you were a bad influence.'
I got the drinks, with a packet of crisps for myself, and we made ourselves comfortable at a corner table. 'We've got to concentrate on the dog fighting,' I said after the first sip of my pint. 'There was an RSPCA inspector with the boss and he reckons it's widespread. And badger baiting. Gilbert's promised to divert resources in that direction, whatever that means.'
'Send a panda down the lane once a shift,' Dave replied.
'Yeah, but it would be good PR if we made a few arrests, and that's what it's all about, these days.'
'Why do they do it?' Shirley asked, adding: 'They must be sick,' to answer her own question.
'Has Dave told you all about our visit to Dob Hall?' I said, changing the subject. 'You'd've loved it. Talk about how the other half live.'
'No, he never tells me anything.'
'That's not true,' he protested, and extricated himself from blame by describing in intricate detail the precise geography of the hall, as gathered from studying the scale model.
'It sounds rather grand,' Shirley agreed without enthusiasm, adjusting the position of her glass so it was dead central on the beer mat and then slipping her jacket off her shoulders. Dave reached across and helped arrange it on the back of her chair.
'You never finished telling me why you're so fond of Sir Morton,' I said, and Dave made a grunting noise and picked up his pint.
When it was firmly back on the table I said: 'So?'
He looked uncomfortable, glancing at Shirley, at his pint and back to Shirley. 'I was going to tell Charlie about your mum,' he said to her.
Shirley reached for her glass, turned it in her fingers and replaced it. 'If you want,' she said. 'It can't hurt Mum now.'
Something had happened but I didn't know what. I opened my mouth to say that if it was personal I was happy to be kept in the dark, but before I could find the right words Dave started speaking. 'Shirley's mum was done for shoplifting,' he said, 'six months before she died.'
'Oh, I didn't know. She died… what? About a year ago?'
'It will be twelve months on the 18th of August,' Shirley said. 'The day before my birthday.'
'She'd bought a trolley full o' shopping at Grainger's Halifax branch,' Dave continued, 'including a toothbrush in a plastic tube. It fell through the wire of the trolley a couple of times so she must have put it in her pocket. She was stopped outside and hauled off to the manager's office. They have no discretion, they always call the police and prosecute.'
'Discretion requires making a decision,' I said.
'Exactly. So, at the age of seventy-two, and never having been as much as a day behind with a payment for anything, she finds herself summoned to Halifax nick for an official caution.'
'God, Dave, why didn't you say?'
'It's all right. I had a word and she didn't have to attend. But that's when the decline started and she was dead in six months.'
'Like Lady Barnet,' I said.
'Who?'
'Lady Isobel Barnet,' Shirley replied for me. 'Something similar happened to her, a long time ago. Mum wasn't the first and she won't be the last.'
We had another drink and decided that was enough. Dave went to the loo and I followed him. There was one person already in there, shaking the drops off. When he'd gone, without washing his hands, I pushed open the doors to the two cubicles with my toe to prove they were empty.
'You realise,' I said, 'that this makes you a suspect. You have a motive.'
'Yeah, I know. Me and a few hundred others.'
'Jeez, you're right.'
Shirley was waiting in the car for us. 'Dave says you've had a postcard from Sophie,' she said, brightly.
'That's right, last Thursday, I think it was. Said she was having a good time and that I'd like it in Cap Ferrat because everybody was old.'
Shirley laughed. 'Good old Sophie, tactful as ever.'
'It wouldn't hurt her to send a card home,' Dave grumbled. 'If she doesn't send you one on your birthday she's in big trouble.'
'She's young,' Shirley explained. 'She's probably in love. Leave her alone.'
'Huh!' he snorted.
When I was at art school I remember my dad coming out with a maxim that was prevalent at the time: send your sons to university but keep your daughters away. I'd a feeling that Dave had heard the same maxim.
L
Chapter Five
Thursday I gave a talk to a mixed bunch of police officers attending a conference on major crimes at the staff college in Bramshill, Hampshire. I drove down for the day and on the car radio I heard that there'd been another case of contaminated food in Heckley and the police were investigating.
'Tut tut, whatever next?' I said to myself. Staff college had booked me over a year ago, so I'd had plenty of time to prepare my lecture. There were delegates there from all over the UK and Thursday was serial killer day. A forensic psychologist explained how his techniques could narrow down the field and indicate which way an enquiry should progress; my job was to demonstrate how this should not be allowed to hijack the investigation. Forensic, in my book, means 'for use in a court of law.' Drawing dots on a map is very interesting, but forensic it is not. At lunch I sat with an inspector from Newcastle, a chief inspector from Exeter and a captain in the RCMP who had wandered into the wrong dining room. We had a back-slapping time and came away with his card in our pockets and invitations to visit, any time we wanted.
The lecture room was still empty when I returned, prior to my session. Several of the delegates had left their morning newspapers on the desks, and I saw that the botulism scare had made the front pages of them all, with the warfarin story being resurrected to reinforce the impact. We were between wars, so all the familiar faces of TV and tabloid journalism had donned their designer parkas and headed north again, smelling a story. An outbreak of one deadly disease is unfortunate, two outbreaks in the same small town smacks of outside forces at work. They named the usual bogeymen and railed about the lack of readiness of the authorities. At the very least a madman was on the loose, and somebody would die soon if he wasn't caught. If they discovered that the officer leading the enquiry was swanning it at the staff college they'd have a field day. No doubt HQ would hold a press conference,
