A Prospect of Vengeance

up to no good, you can't beat a countrywoman — specially North Countrywomen. And they knew that, of course.'

'They?'

'The local cops. Maybe Butler, too — he's North Country, so he'd have known ... So, after it was all over, they went into the cottages an' put the fear of God into the women there.

The men an' the boys were all at the matches, see — there was the football and the rugby, it being a Saturday afternoon.

So there were only women an' girls home. An' the Police put

'em through it.'

'What did they want to know?'

'What they'd seen. Who they'd seen. Every last detail.' Buller drew a breath. 'Frightened the life out of 'em — twice. First time, it was a uniform man, Mrs Rowe said — Mrs Rowe being the old woman's daughter . . . But not their own local man. A senior officer, with lots of silver braid on his uniform, and talked posh. Then, later on, a civilian, with their own local bobby in attendance. Same questions . . . only he talked even more posh. An' he wore a beautiful suit, she remembered — Mrs Rowe did. Because she'd been in one of the mills in Bradford when she was a girl, so she knew good cloth when she saw it. I reckon the suit frightened her more than the man. But then, of course, she was already scared stiff by that time.'

'Why?' Jenny had decided to be chief questioner.

'Huh! Because she knew by then that she'd deceived 'em dummy2

something shocking the first time, Lady.' Buller chuckled grimly. 'She an' the old witch between 'em.'

'How?'

'She'd told 'em she hadn't seen anything. Just the police car, anyway . . . An' then a policeman had told her to stay indoors.

An' the wall by the cottage is too high to see right into the ruins from the ground-floor, anyway. So he half- believed her the first time. But even then they also told her not to speak to anyone — meaning the press, of course.'

'But she did see something — ?' Jenny frowned.

'No. She didn't see anything. But, when they asked her if there was anyone else in the house, she'd said 'Only my old mum, who's ill in bed upstairs'. An' then the bloke with all the silver braid went up an' checked, she said. An' that frightened her, too . . . But, of course, all he saw was a frail old lady with the sheet drawn up under her neck, pretending to be halfway to heaven. So that satisfied him, anyway.'

Buller chuckled again. 'Silly bugger!'

Ian recalled his own grandmother vividly to mind. 'She saw everything — from her bedroom window, Reg?'

'Near enough, lad. Near enough!' No chuckle this time.

'When the daughter went back up, after the silver-braid bloke had gone — she started to tell the old witch about him. But she didn't get far, before the old witch started to tell her . . .

near enough everything — aye!'

'And she didn't tell the second man — the man in the suit dummy2

— ?'

Buller sniffed. 'Too scared, she was.' Another sniff. The first one told her, if she'd not been telling the truth, or had withheld evidence, then she'd be in serious trouble. And her eldest boy was a prison officer, at Northallerton or somewhere then. So she thought he might get the sack, an'

lose his pension. So she stuck to her story, same as before.

An' fortunately the old girl was still in bed. So the whole story stuck, same as before.'

Sod's Law: no matter how clever you were, there was always something waiting to catch you by the heel. Frances Fitzgibbon's book had gathered dust in Mrs Champeney-Smythe's shelf, waiting for its moment. And now an old woman's eye-witness story had found its moment too — even after the death of its eye-witness narrator.

'But she talked to you, Mr Buller — the daughter.'

'Ah, she did that, but 'appen I'm not a silly bugger in a uniform. An' my suit's Marks and Spencer, off the peg.'

And Philip Masson had been waiting also, in his shallow grave, for his moment, to catch someone — Audley?

Mitchell? Someone, anyway — by the heel —

'Very true, Mr Buller.' Jenny wasn't about to let Buller's arrogance remain unpunctured. 'But you also slipped her a few of those nice crisp banknotes you always keep, to loosen honest tongues? Which you charge to expenses.'

'The man with the freckled face had a golfing umbrella.'

dummy2

Buller cut his losses. 'Red, white an' blue ... or, red, green an'

white — that's what the old woman said . . . An' she'd never seen a golfing umbrella before. But the old witch 'ad a telescope to spy on people, an' a good memory. Because Sir Jack Butler, KBE, MC . . .'e's got ginger hair, an' a red-brick face, an' freckles. An 'e plays golf.'

'Yes?' Buller was making his point. But Jenny was after other game. 'What about Audley?'