I put my useless deformed left hand into my pocket, as I always did with strangers, and went into the hall. A tall heavy young man in uniform stood there, giving the impression of trying not to be overawed by his rather grand surroundings. I remembered how it felt.
‘Is it about this body?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sir, I believe you are expecting us.’
‘Whose body is it?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I was just asked to take you.’
‘Well… where to?’
‘Epping Forest, sir.’
‘But that’s miles away,’ I protested.
‘Yes, sir,’ he agreed, with a touch of gloom.
‘Are you sure it’s me that’s wanted?’
‘Oh, positive, sir.’
‘Well, all right. Sit down a minute while I get my coat and say where I’m going.’
The policeman drove on his gears, which I found tiring. It took two hours to go from Aynsford, west of Oxford, to Epping Forest, and it was much too long. Finally, however, we were met at a cross-roads by another policeman on a motor cycle, and followed him down a twisting secondary road. The forest stretched away all round, bare-branched and mournful in the grey damp day.
Round the bend we came on a row of two cars and a van, parked. The motor cyclist stopped and dismounted, and the policeman and I got out.
‘ETA 12.15,’ said the motor cyclist looking at his watch. ‘You’re late. The brass has been waiting here twenty minutes.’
‘Traffic like caterpillars on the A40,’ said my driver defensively.
‘You should have used your bell,’ the motor cyclist grinned. ‘Come on. It’s over this way.’
He led us down a barely perceptible track into the wood. We walked on dead brown leaves, rustling. After about half a mile we came to a group of men standing round a screen made of hessian. They were stamping their feet to keep warm and talking in quiet voices.
‘Mr Halley?’ One of them shook hands, a pleasant capable looking man in middle age who introduced himself as Chief-Inspector Cornish. ‘We’re sorry to bring you here all this way, but we want you to see the er… remains… before we move them. I’d better warn you, it’s a perfectly horrible sight.’ He gave a very human shudder.
‘Who is it?’ I asked.
‘We’re hoping you can tell us that, for sure. We think… but we’d like you to tell us without us putting it into your head. All right? Now?’
I nodded. He showed me round the screen.
It was Andrews. What was left of him. He had been dead a long time, and the Epping Forest scavengers seemed to have found him tasty. I could see why the police had wanted me to see him
‘Well?’
‘Thomas Andrews,’ I said.
They relaxed. ‘Are you sure? Positive?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not just the clothes?’
‘No. The shape of the hair-line. Protruding ears. Exceptionally rounded helix, vestigial lobes. Very short eyebrows, thick near the nose. Spatulate thumbs, white marks across nails. Hair growing on backs of phalanges.’
‘Good,’ said Cornish. ‘That’s conclusive, I’d say. We made a preliminary identification fairly early because of the clothes — they were detailed on the wanted-for-questioning list, of course. But our first enquiries were negative. He seems to have no family, and no one could remember that he had any distinguishing marks — no tattoos, no scars, no operations, and as far as we could find out he hadn’t been to a dentist all his life.’
‘It was intelligent of you to check all that before you gave him to the pathologist,’ I remarked.
‘It was the pathologist’s idea, actually.’ He smiled.
‘Who found him?’ I asked.
‘Some boys. It’s usually boys who find bodies.’
‘When?’
‘Three days ago. But obviously he’s been here weeks, probably from very soon after he took a pot at you.’
‘Yes. Is the gun still in his pocket?’
Cornish shook his head. ‘No sign of it.’
‘You don’t know yet how he died?’ I asked.
‘No not yet. But now you’ve identified him we can get on with it.’
We went out from behind the screen and some of the other men went in with a stretcher. I didn’t envy them.
Cornish turned to walk back to the road with me, the driver following at a short distance. We went fairly slowly, talking about Andrews, but it seemed more like eight miles than eight hundred yards. I wasn’t quite ready for jolly country rambles.
As we reached the cars he asked me to lunch with him. I shook my head, explained about the diet, and suggested a drink instead.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We could both do with one after that.’ He jerked his head in the direction of Andrews. ‘There’s a good pub down the road this way. Your driver can follow us.’
He climbed into his car and we drove after him.
In the bar, equipped with a large brandy and water for me and a whisky and sandwiches for him, we sat at a black oak table, on chintzy chairs, surrounded by horse brasses, hunting horns, warming pans and pewter pots.
‘It’s funny, meeting you like this,’ said Cornish, in between bites. ‘I’ve watched you so often racing. You’ve won a tidy bit for me in your time. I hardly missed a meeting on the old Dunstable course, before they sold it for building. I don’t get so much racing now, it’s so far to a course. Nowhere now to slip along to for a couple of hours in an afternoon.’ He grinned cheerfully and went on, ‘You gave us some rare treats at Dunstable. Remember the day you rode that ding-dong finish on Brushwood?’
‘I remember,’ I said.
‘You literally picked that horse up and carried him home.’ He took another bite. ‘I never heard such cheering. There’s no mistake about it, you were something. Pity you had to give it up.’
‘Yes…’
‘Still, I suppose that’s a risk you run, steeplechasing. There is always one crash too many.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where was it you finally bought it?’
‘At Stratford on Avon, two years ago last May.’
He shook his head sympathetically, ‘Rotten bad luck.’
I smiled. ‘I’d had a pretty good run, though, before that.’
‘I’ll say you did.’ He smacked his palm on the table. ‘I took the Missus down to Kempton on Boxing Day, three or four years ago…’ He went on talking with enjoyment about races he had watched, revealing himself as a true enthusiast, one of the people without whose interest all racing would collapse. Finally, regretfully, he finished his whisky and looked at his watch. ‘I’ll have to get back. I’ve enjoyed meeting you. It’s odd how things turn out, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you ever thought when you were riding that you would be good at this sort of work.’
‘What do you mean, good?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Hm? Oh, Andrews, of course. That description of his clothes you gave after he had shot you. And identifying him today. Most professional. Very efficient.’ He grinned.
‘Getting shot wasn’t very efficient,’ I pointed out.
He shrugged. ‘That could happen to anyone, believe me… I shouldn’t worry about that.’
I smiled, as the driver jerked me back to Aynsford, at the thought that anyone could believe me good at
