'No. I think they're involved, but whether they stage the fights I don't know.'
'It would be the ideal place,' Dave said.
Jeff Caton was peering at the photos through a big magnifying glass. 'There's a chicken run,' he said, 'on the paved area in front of the house.'
'It's a farm,' I told him. 'They keep a few chickens.'
'There's a big chicken run next to the barn. With real chickens. You can see them. I reckon this other one is where the dogs fight.'
'Outside?' I wondered aloud.
'Why not, especially this weather?'
'No reason. I'd just assumed it was an indoor sport.'
'The idle boasts of a retarded boy and a chicken run outside the front door are not enough for a search warrant,' Gilbert said, 'but we might manage twenty-four hour surveillance.'
I thought about it. 'No need for twenty-four hours,' I said. 'Not if they hold the fights in daylight. And I don't suppose they have them in the early morning. Ten till ten should cover it.'
'Look at this,' Jeff said, and we all turned to him. The chopper had taken pictures as it approached the farm, from a fairly low angle, and others as it passed directly overhead. We'd concentrated on the overhead ones, to study the layout of the buildings, but now Jeff was looking at one of the oblique views.
'What is it?'
'There's some cages, four of them,' he said, 'down the side of the barn. If you look carefully you can see that whatever are in the middle two are looking at the chopper.' He passed me the magnifying glass.
I could see two pale smudges against the gloom of the cage interiors, like two faces painted by an impressionist with a deft dab of the brush. 'Rabbits?' I suggested after studying them.
'No, they're not rabbits. Look at the ears.'
Dave took over. After a few seconds he said: 'They're cats. That's what they are: cats.'
I was in my office, clearing up and determined to go home on time, when Rosie rang.
'You sound despondent,' she said after I'd introduced myself.
'Hello Rosie,' I replied. 'It'll soon pass now I'm talking to you.'
'Are you working hard?'
'Not really, just musing on the behaviour of some of my fellow men.'
'The producer telephoned me a few minutes ago,' she said without further ceremony. 'The coroner has signed a warrant giving permission for my father's body to be exhumed and the chancellor of the diocese has given his approval.'
'Oh,' I said. 'And are you pleased?'
'Of course I am. Now we can do the tests.'
'Have they given you a date?'
'No, but he wants to do it as soon as possible.'
I bet he did. 'So it's all up to the DNA.'
'Yes, that's right. It's all up to the DNA.'
I let that thought hang in the air, then said: 'If you're not doing anything tonight, Rosie, do you fancy that Chinese?'
'Oh, yes, I'd like that. Thank you.'
'Do you mind if we make it early? I'm starving.'
'That's fine by me.'
'I'll pick you up.'
We didn't bother with the banquet, that's for special occasions, settling for a pair of dishes from the a la carte menu. Rosie was her old self: witty and mischievous, happy that things were moving along. She told me a few of the things that the school-children had said, like the boy who thought the Atlas Mountains were stockpiles of school books, and I related a few of my own about our clients.
'One youth who was given a community service order thought he'd been given a community singing order,' I said. 'He asked which church choir he'd be in.'
'One of my pupils, a girl this time, wrote in her exam paper that the European Market was held in Brussels every Wednesday afternoon.'
'It's the quality of the teaching that does irV' 'Oh, definitely.'
I paid the bill and took her home. On the way we saw the police helicopter in the distance, its searchlight on as it quartered the ground.
'They're having a busy day,' I said. 'We had them out this morning.'
'Aren't you going to dash over to see if you can be of any assistance?'
I glanced at her, then back at the road and at her again. 'No way,' I stated.
As I parked outside her gate Rosie asked me if I was coming in for a cuppa.
'Is there any chocolate cake left?'
'There might be.'
'In that case, yes please.'
The weather was changing and the temperature had dropped. Rosie shivered and switched on the gas fire, and went somewhere to turn up the thermostat. I stood behind her in the kitchen as the kettle came to the boil, wanting to put my arms around her. She cut the remains of the cake into two uneven halves and gave me the larger one.
'How long have you lived here?' I asked when we were seated in the lounge, her on the settee, me in an easy chair. She gave me a potted history of her movements, first of all living in a succession of rented accommodations before splashing out, rather late in life for a first-time-buyer, on the bungalow.
'You did the right thing,' I said. 'The only advice my dad ever gave me was to get on the housing ladder, as soon as possible. It was good advice.'
But a stupid thing to say, I thought, even as the words came out. It killed the conversation for a few moments.
'I bought at a bad time,' she said, eventually. 'Prices were high.'
'There's never a good time,' I told her. Profound words straight from the financial pages. 'Just think of all those grotty flats and bedsits, where your rent goes straight to pay for the landlord's villa in the Bahamas.'
'Yes, I had a few of those.' She refilled our cups, then said: 'When… when I left Gary — he was called Gary — I moved to Derby, landed a teaching job there. Supply teaching, not permanent. I had a horrible bedsit. Peeling paper, damp walls, the lot. Why I stayed so long I can't imagine.'
'What was Gary's problem?' I ventured.
'Gambling. He was a gambler. You don't back horses, do you?'
I shook my head. 'It was a courageous thing to do,' I told her. 'Making the break like that, moving on. It's a pity more women don't do it.'
'They're trapped, Charlie, that's why. And it didn't feel courageous at the time.' She put her cup down and sat in silence for a while. I was about to mention that we might have had a breakthrough with the dog fighting saga when she said: 'I had a breakdown, Charlie. I lost the plot, completely.'
'What sort of a breakdown?'
She heaved a big sigh that said she'd let the genie out of the bottle and there was no getting it back in. 'I don't know. What sorts are there? I moved to Derby, into this awful bedsit, with nothing but the clothes I wore and what I could stuff into a Ford Fiesta. I worked one term as a supply teacher and then it was the summer holiday. I didn't know if I'd have a job when it was over. I was so lonely I just… gave up. I sat in that ghastly, smelly room and cried my eyes out for three weeks. I didn't wash, didn't eat, didn't take any interest in the outside world. I just let everything close in on me. I wanted to die, Charlie, but wasn't brave enough to do anything about it.'
'What happened?'
'Nothing. One day, I thought, what am I doing? Nobody was going to come and sort me out, I had to do it myself. There was nothing organically wrong with me, I wa's fairly young, had a brain, could find work almost anywhere. I took a shower and found some clean clothes, went out and did some shopping. I telephoned the headmaster and he said he couldn't offer me a permanent position just yet but there was plenty of work for me. I took him at his word and had an expensive hair-do, complete with silver streaks. Oh, and I put the deposit on a new
