Gary grimaced in the dark: he hated to admit that his father might have a point. ‘This could be completely unrelated, Dad.’
Rex was getting impatient with being ignored. ‘Hey!’ he barked, jolting his human to make him listen and darting back up the slope to show them where the attacker had gone.
‘Is he all right?’ asked Gary, wondering if the dog had a screw loose.
Albert started to follow the dog. ‘He’s trying to tell me something.’
Gary didn’t move. ‘It’s a dog,’ he pointed out.
Albert didn’t argue with his son’s factually correct observation, but said, ‘Yes. He’s a dog who is trying to tell me something.’
Rex saw his human walking the direction he wanted him to go and shot off up the slight incline. The police officers were still tending to the injured human he found, but he couldn’t be any help there anyway. What he could do, was get someone to listen to what he had to tell them about the human he chased.
‘He ran this way and he went into the river,’ Rex tried to explain.
Remembering the torch on his phone, Albert dug around in his pocket to produce it and then fumbled around until he got it working. Rex, by then, was standing at the edge and looking over at the ladder. Albert joined him, cautiously looking over and down. ‘What are you trying to tell me, boy? Did you chase someone?’
Rex spun on the spot and barked.
Albert skewed his lips to one side in thought. ‘That was a yes, wasn’t it, Rex?’
Again, Rex did his excited dance. Left behind at the bottom of the incline, Gary had muttered and moaned at himself until he caught himself doing it, and worrying that he was sounding petulant and petty, he struck off to follow his old dad.
‘Have you found something?’ he asked once he was close enough for his father to hear without needing to raise his voice.
Albert wondered how to answer. ‘I think Rex chased someone. There are boot marks here.’
‘Then we are trampling all over the crime scene, Dad, and should move away.’
Albert wasn’t about to move even though he knew Gary was right. ‘No one would know there was a crime scene if it were not for Rex.’ He pointed to the ladder which Gary was yet to come close enough to see. ‘Whoever it was got away by climbing down a ladder. Rex couldn’t follow, but he knew well enough to alert us all to the victim. Do they know who he is?’
‘The victim?’ Gary clarified. ‘I haven’t asked, Dad. Look, you might be right and there is something happening here, but it’s still their beat, not mine. If I had a copper from York in my neck of the woods, I would politely insist he tell me what he knows and then go promptly away. I am not going to be that policeman who is a policeman everywhere he goes.’
His son’s response surprised him, but maybe things were different now than they had been in his day. He collected Rex’s lead finally, the dog no longer moving around each time he tried to grab it. He was about to say something, but the collective noises from the police officers tending to the injured man told him the victim had just lost his battle.
A heartbeat later, the young officer who ran off to get the paramedics returned, running all the way. The paramedics were with him, lugging their heavy bags, and though they attempted to revive the man, Albert could see from their body language that they knew they were fighting a losing battle.
The two detectives, Calin and Heaton were watching, staying with the action there until it played out. They would have wanted to have the man identify his attacker and had most likely been impatiently waiting for the paramedics to arrive and stabilise him. Too late now, their questions would go unanswered.
Albert chose to go to them. ‘I think my dog chased the attacker away. There are footprints at the top of the rise, and you might be able to get a set of fingerprints. There’s a ladder leading down to the river’s edge.’
Calin sounded surprised when he said, ‘Thank you, Mr Smith. That’s helpful of you.’
‘That’s two murders in a single evening,’ murmured Heaton. ‘I’m calling the crime scene guys back.’
He took his phone from a trouser pocket, but before he could make the call Albert pointed out, ‘You don’t know Mr Pumphrey was murdered.’
‘Dad,’ warned Gary.
‘He could have slipped,’ Albert argued though he knew it sounded weak.
DS Heaton paused with his phone in his hand. ‘You think he climbed on the mixer and got inside it while it was running? What would possess him to be anywhere near it? He wasn’t involved in the baking so far as I am aware. In fact, I believe Mr Botham murdered Mr Pumphrey because he was so set against the baking.’ He said it dismissively and turned away to make his call without waiting to hear what Albert might say next.
Albert wasn’t about to say anything though; he’d just glimpsed a possibility and now he needed to check something out.
DS Calin watched his partner step away but let him go. Facing the old man and his detective superintendent son once more, he said, ‘Mr Botham has already been taken to the station. We were just about to go ourselves when your dog started howling. So, of course, you realise, if we are right about Mr Botham killing Mr Pumphrey, there is a second killer at this contest.’
Last Orders
It was last orders when they finally made it to a pub. So much of their afternoon and evening had been absorbed in dealing with paramedics, the fire brigade, or the police, that to Gary, it felt like a
