The station sergeant scratched his head again. ‘ Well, what did he look like? Can you give me a description?’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t. I’m almost certain it was a man – a young man, I think – but it was pouring with rain at the time and I only caught a glimpse of him.’
‘You’ve no idea how he was dressed? I’m sorry to keep pressing you, madam, but if he went over Cully Point at high tide, well, there’s not much likelihood that we’ll ever recover the body. They get carried right out to sea, you know.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Mrs Dover comfortably. ‘I used to stay with my Aunt George here in Wallerton when I was a girl. It’s years ago now, of course, but I haven’t forgotten the stories they used to tell about Cully Point. We always used to call her Aunt George. She was married to my Uncle George, you see, and …’
‘Right!’ Dover broke in rudely. ‘That’s that, then! We’ve reported the suicide to you and there’s nothing more we can tell you. Come on!’ He jerked his head at his wife.
‘But just a minute, Wilf,’ she protested. ‘We haven’t told him about the bicycle or about the hat.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Dover, grabbing his wife by the arm and pulling her in the direction of the door. ‘Come on, for God’s sake!’
‘Here, just a minute, Grandpa!’ The station sergeant caught hold of Mrs Dover’s other arm and started tugging her back. ‘Round here I’m the one who decides what’s important and what isn’t, thank you very much. Now then, what’s all this about a bicycle?’
‘There was a bicycle propped up against the fence.’
‘Belonging to the chap who committed suicide?’
‘How the hell do I know? It certainly hadn’t been standing there long because the saddle was barely wet.’
‘That was very observant of you,’ said the station sergeant with unflattering surprise.
‘Oh, well,’ chirped Mrs Dover happily, ‘my husband is a Detective Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard, you … ouch!’ Mrs Dover clutched her ankle. ‘Ooh, Wilfred, that hurt!’
Not half as much as it would have done, though, if her husband hadn’t fractionally misjudged his kick.
Chapter Two
The station sergeant’s demeanour underwent a rapid change. This great, fat, untidy yobbo didn’t look like a detective chief inspector from New Scotland Yard but recruiting had been bad for donkey’s years and you never knew. A smarmy and oft repeated ‘sir’ discreetly replaced the jocular ‘Grandpa’. The Chief Inspector and his lady wife, who was now hobbling slightly, were ushered into the Interview Room and offered chairs. Cups of strong nourishing tea were brought from the canteen. Everybody bowed and scraped and touched their forelocks.
‘Though, mind you,’ hissed the station sergeant to the Inspector who had been summoned to do his share of the boot licking, ‘if that old bounder is having us on, I’ll throw the book at him. You can get I don’t know how many years for impersonating a police officer and I dare swear he’s got a bit of form behind him, too.’
They were standing outside the Interview Room, smoothing their hair down, checking that all their tunic buttons were fastened and polishing up their boot toes on the back of their trousers.
‘If you think he’s an imposter, what the devil did you send for me for?’ whispered the Inspector crossly.
‘Well, either way, sir, it’s a bit too big for me to handle, me being only a sergeant and you being an inspector.’
This obscure reference to an old and festering sore over promotion made the Inspector sigh. Sometimes it made you wonder if the extra money was worth it.
Inside the Interview Room the Dovers were sorting out their differences.
‘Now see what you’ve done!’ thundered Dover while his wife elaborately rubbed her ankle. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get to Filbury by the middle of next week.’
‘You’d no call to kick me like that, Wilf.’
‘It’s nothing to what I’ll do to you when I get you out of here,’ threatened her husband. He meant it, too. ‘Now, this time, just leave the talking to me, will you?’
Mrs Dover contented herself with hugging her injured leg and nursing her resentment. She had a shrewd idea about how to get her revenge and five minutes later, when all the introductions and pleasantries were over, she got it.
‘You know, Inspector,’ she began with a smile, ‘I’ve been thinking.’ She ignored the warning snort from her husband. ‘When Wilf and I were looking over Cully Point, we thought we saw something in the water.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ snarled Dover.
‘I think it was a cap, Inspector, a peaked cap.’
‘Oh, really, Mrs Dover? How extremely interesting.’
‘Yes, and then that bicycle. Do you know. Inspector, I think that bicycle looked somehow familiar.’
‘Oh God!’ groaned Dover.
The Inspector raised his eyebrows politely.
‘It was just like the one my husband used to ride when we were first married.’ simpered Mrs Dover.
‘Do you mean …?’
Mrs Dover nodded. ‘A policeman’s bicycle! One of those old fashioned, sit-up-and-beg ones. No chromium plating, you know, and rather heavy. And that peaked cap we saw in the water – it could have been a policeman’s uniformed cap. In fact, I’m sure it was.’
‘’Strewth!’ murmured Dover.
‘And,’ continued Mrs Dover, smirking triumphantly at her husband, ‘the man I saw climbing over the fence – he could have been wearing a blue uniform, now I come to think of it.’
‘You don’t want to take any notice of her,’ blustered Dover. ‘She’s as blind as a bat. Suffers from hallucinations, too,’ he added frantically.
But the Inspector and the station sergeant weren’t listening to him. They were exchanging rather puzzled glances.
‘Ridiculous!’ said Dover, his heart sinking. ‘I’ve never heard such poppycock in
