‘This girl,’ said MacGregor. He was forced to stand outside the car and lean in awkwardly through the window.
‘She was calling at all the houses in the street but, like I told her, I’m probably the only one who’d remember her at all. These houses have nearly all changed. Well, Mrs Kay at Number Twenty-five might have remembered, but she’s away in Benidorm for the week. Lucky for you, eh?’ Mrs Shackleton gave Dover a friendly dig in the ribs. ‘She lives next door and if she’d seen you relieving yourself in that back garden from her bathroom window she’d have had your guts for garters. Very particular is Mrs Kay.’
‘Mrs Kincardine,’ prompted MacGregor. ‘What did you tell the girl about her?’
‘Here, was that girl murdered?’ Mrs Shackleton was already fumbling for the sherry in anticipation of the shock. ‘What happened?’
‘She was struck over the head,’ said MacGregor, wondering as the flask rose once again to Mrs Shackleton’s pallid lips if she was going to remain sober enough to answer his questions.
‘Was she . . ?’
‘No,’ said MacGregor, relieved at being able to convey some good news.
But any pretext would do for Mrs Shackleton. ‘Thank God for that!’ she gasped and took another swig. Dover was nearly in tears. ‘Now, what was we talking about? Oh, yes, Mrs Kincardine! Well, like I said, I remember her all right. A nice woman, on the whole. We did have that bit of an up-and-a-downer one time about her ginger tom and our budgie but . . .’
MacGregor was now past caring what he did to Mrs Shackleton’s nerves. He flourished the picture of Pearl Wallace under her nose. ‘What did this girl want to know about Mrs Kincardine?’
‘Well, nothing, really,’ replied Mrs Shackleton, wondering what this good-looking young fellow was getting so aeriated about. ‘It was this niece she was really asking about. She had dates and everything but I was blowed if I could think which one she meant. It’s all so long ago, isn’t it? Mrs Kincardine often had people staying with her. Relations and things. When they’d been ill or bereaved or something like that. I fancy it was in the way of being a little bit of a business for her because her husband can’t have left all that much. Mind you, I wouldn’t have let such an idea so much as pass my lips at the time.’ She turned trustingly to Dover and patted him on the arm. ‘It’s the Rates, you see, dear. They put ’em up something cruel round here if they even suspect you’re using your home for business premises.’
MacGregor’s knuckles on the edge of the car window were beginning to turn white and Dover would have blown his top ages ago if he hadn’t been hopeful that the British Ruby Sherry would, eventually, be passed round. MacGregor got his cigarettes out in the hope of keeping Dover quiet a bit longer and found that Mrs Shackleton, while not exactly being what you might call a smoker, didn’t mind accepting one just to oblige.
As the occupants of the back seat of the car disappeared in a cloud of tobacco smoke, MacGregor resumed his efforts.
‘Well, of course she told me she was trying to trace her mother!’ said Mrs Shackleton indignantly. ‘I don’t go around handing out confidential information about my neighbours to every Tom, Dick and Harry that asks, thank you very much!’
‘And you couldn’t help her?’ asked MacGregor, desperate to get at least one solid fact established.
Mrs Shackleton was sufficiently nettled by his tone to give a straight answer. ‘No.’
MacGregor was thankfully on the point of declaring the interview closed when the amazing Mrs Shackleton forestalled him yet again.
‘Not about her mother, that is. Actually, I do sort of remember her vaguely, with her being in the family way and everything, but I never spoke to her. She kept herself very much to herself. Wore a wedding ring, of course, but you could buy them for next to nothing in Woolworth’s in those days. Mrs Kincardine wasn’t very forthcoming, either. Of course, you’ve got to remember they didn’t have all these pills and things then.’
MacGregor no long wondered that Dover was frequently tempted to use his fists on witnesses. ‘What exactly did you tell Pearl Wallace?’
‘About her mother?’
‘About anything?’ wailed MacGregor.
‘Well, I told her where to find Mrs Kincardine.’
At that MacGregor finally stopped standing on ceremony with an alacrity that would have warmed Dover’s heart, had he been awake to see it. Mrs Shackleton was induced to shell out what she had told Pearl Wallace and was then bundled unceremoniously out of the police car and into oblivion. She didn’t have time even to get her flask out before the departing police car enveloped her in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
‘The Isle of bloody Man?’ yelped Dover, floundering around like a stranded whale as the police driver got rid of his inhibitions and kept his foot well down. ‘You must be joking! And you, you bloody maniac’ – he leaned forward to deliver a resounding smack on the back of the police driver’s head – ‘slow down! You’ll have us all in the bloody ditch!’
The police driver eased up on the accelerator. ‘I thought you were in a hurry, sir,’ he muttered sullenly.
‘Not to get to the bloody Isle of Man, I’m not!’ retorted Dover, indulging his rapier wit yet again. ‘So, if you’re thinking of driving us there, forget it!’
Even though he knew that arguing with Dover usually made him still more pig-headed, MacGregor felt he had to try. Murder Squad detectives aren’t encouraged to get personally involved in their cases but, whatever the rules, MacGregor felt strangely sorry for Pearl Wallace. In her short life, she had been neither beautiful nor happy nor even lucky. She’d never had
