It was starting to rain again. The Chief Constable turned up his coat collar and asked another question. He was anxious not to appear to be beating too hasty a retreat back to the warmth and dryness of his office while the men under his command were obliged to continue with their search, however inclement the weather.
Inspector Walters shook his head again. ‘No, she wasn’t strangled, sir, and I suppose you could take that as another slight indication that we’re not dealing with a case of rape or sexual assault. As a matter of fact, she seems to have been struck across the back of the head with the proverbial blunt instrument. The skull’s crushed, apparently. The doctor reckons there would be very little bleeding. He’s got half an idea that she was still alive when she was dumped here, but he’s only guessing at the moment.’
‘She definitely wasn’t killed where she was found?’
‘Seems not, sir.’
The Chief Constable could feel the rain trickling down the back of his neck but he carried on bravely. ‘It seems an odd sort of place to have hidden her.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, sir.’ Inspector Walters surveyed the terrain thoughtfully. ‘I’ve noticed these biggish detached houses with their own bits of driveways before. They nearly always leave the gates wide open. Too much trouble to keep nipping in and out of their cars, otherwise. To say nothing of tradesmen and such like.’
The Chief Constable shifted his weight from one sodden foot to the other. ‘What about keeping children in – or dogs?’
‘Usually confined to the back gardens, in my experience, sir. Besides, you can see for yourself.’ Inspector Walters began moving in the direction of the Chief Constable’s car, and gesticulated along the road. ‘Every house here in The Grove has got its drive gates pushed more or less permanently open. To say nothing of the fact that they don’t have any kids or pet animals here at Les Chenes.’
The Chief Constable was a mite over-sensitive. ‘You’re not trying to suggest that the murderer had local knowledge, are you, Walters?’
‘Not really sir,’ came the imperturbable rejoinder. ‘Though I think it’d be a mistake to rule out a local villain entirely. With reasonable luck, you know, that body could have lain there out of sight behind the open gate for months. It was virtually hidden by those bushes.
‘Oh, I don’t think we can use that sort of speculation as the basis for anything, old chap.’ The Chief Constable was growing bolder as he found his car almost within touching distance. ‘It’s only a few feet away from a public thoroughfare, for heaven’s sake! And what about gardening?’
Inspector Walters had his own theories and was massively unmoved. ‘You’d be surprised, sir,’ he said, ‘how very few people walk along The Grove on foot. Or peer over quite a high stone wall when they do. And there isn’t, sir,’ he pointed out heavily, ‘all that much in the way of gardening to be done under a clump of overgrown rhododendron bushes.’
The Chief Constable was determined not to have this labelled a local crime if he could help it. ‘But the body was discovered!’ he insisted with ill-concealed triumph. ‘That proves it can’t have been hidden away as cleverly as all that, doesn’t it?’
‘It was only discovered because old Sir Perceval Henty-Harris died, sir.’
The Chief Constable scowled at his driver who was displaying a marked reluctance to get out of the car and open the door. ‘What do you mean, it was only because old Sir Perceval died?’
‘If he hadn’t finally kicked the bucket, sir, his niece wouldn’t have been going off for a bit of a holiday, would she, sir? That’s why she closed the gates. She said she thought it made the house look less unoccupied, and she’s scared stiff of burglars breaking in at the best of times.’
The police driver had finally emerged and was standing resentfully out in the rain with the door open. The Chief Constable determined to teach him a lesson. ‘So it was Miss Henty-Harris who discovered the body?’
Inspector Walters had himself briefed the Chief Constable on this particular point, but he scorned to show even a flicker of surprise at the question. ‘That’s right, sir. She decided to postpone her holiday and phoned us.’
The Chief Constable nodded his approval at this piece of co-operation on the part of the general public and decided that his driver had now suffered enough. ‘Oh, well, back to the paperwork, I suppose!’ he lamented unconvincingly. ‘You’ve no idea how much I envy you chaps out in the field.’ He got into his shiny black official car and pressed the switch which lowered the window. ‘I can leave you to look after these people from the Murder Squad, can I, Walters? Every courtesy and consideration, you know. Total support. Well, we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?’
Detective Inspector Walters inclined his head. ‘So they tell me, sir.’ He got a last question in as the driver revved his engine impatiently. ‘Who are they sending us, sir? Have you any idea?’
‘A chappie called Dover,’ said the Chief Constable, spreading himself happily over the real leather. ‘One of these young, up-and-coming, high-flying types, I imagine.’
‘What makes you think that, sir?’
‘Well, he’s only a chief inspector and he’s supernumerary – so the Commander was telling me. Obviously some bright young spark they’re anxious to hang on to till he’s ready for promotion and they’ve got a vacancy. I reckon we’ve drawn a real whizz kid.’ Something in Inspector Walters’s face gave the Chief Constable pause. ‘You don’t know him, do you?’
‘I must be thinking of somebody else, sir.’
‘Oh, well, bring him over to see me as soon as you’ve got him settled in.’ The Chief Constable flapped an imperious hand. ‘Drive on, Harvey!’
Inspector Walters sighed. The only Detective Chief Inspector Dover he’d ever heard of up at the Yard
