ins.'
'Yes,' Banks said quietly, almost to himself. 'The victims always let them in. You'd think older people would be more careful these days.'
'Prosopagnosia,' announced Jenny, who had been listening carefully to all this.
'Pardon?' Banks said, seeming as surprised to see her there as she was by the sound of her own voice. The others looked around, too. With an angry glance, Banks introduced her: 'Dr. Fuller. She's helping us with a case.' Everyone smiled or nodded and went back to work. 'Can you explain it, then?' Banks asked.
'Prosopagnosia? It's the inability to recognize faces. People sometimes get it after brain damage, but it's most common in senility.'
'I don't quite see the connection.'
'Alice wasn't senile, young lady,' Ethel Carstairs cut in, 'but it's true that she was beginning to forget little, day-to-day things, and the past was much closer to her.'
Jenny nodded. 'I didn't mean to be insulting, Mrs. Carstairs. I just meant it's part of the aging process. It happens to us all, sooner or later.' She turned back to Banks. 'Most of us, when we see a face, compare it with our files of known faces. We either recognize it or we don't, all in about a split second. With prosopagnosia, the observer can see all the components of the face but can't assemble the whole to check against memory files. It makes elderly people vulnerable to strangers, that's why I mentioned it.'
'You mean she might have thought she recognized whoever it was?' Banks asked.
'Or thought she should have and not wanted to be rude. That's the most common problem. If you're a kind, polite person, you'll want to avoid giving offense, so you'll pretend you know who it is. It's like when you forget the name of an acquaintance and find ways of avoiding having to say it, only this must be much worse.'
Dr. Glendenning packed up his battered brown bag, lit a cigarette-strictly forbidden at the scene of a crime, but generally overlooked in his case-and shambled over to Banks and Jenny. 'Dead about twenty-four hours,' he said out of the corner of his mouth in a nicotine-ravaged voice with a strong trace of Edinburgh in it. 'Cause of death, fractured skull, most likely inflicted by that table edge there.'
'Can you tell if she was pushed?'
'Looks like it. One or two bruises on the upper arms and shoulders. That's just preliminary, though. Can't tell you more till, after the autopsy. But unless the old dear was poisoned, too, I shouldn't imagine there'll be much more to tell. You can get her to the morgue now. There'll be a coroner's inquest, of course,' he said, and walked out.
Everybody had finished. Manson had plenty of fingerprints to play with, most of them probably Alice Matlock's, and the other two Scene-of-Crime boys had envelopes filled with hairs, fragments of clothing and blood scrapings.
'You can go now, Mrs. Carstairs,' Banks said. 'I'd appreciate it if you'd drop by the station in the morning and give a formal statement.' He called Detective Constable Richmond to drive Ethel home and instructed him also to pick her up in the morning and take her statement.
'Right, then. I'm off home, too,' Banks said in a tired voice. 'It's up to you now, Sergeant. See there's someone posted here all night. Deal with the ambulance. And you might as well start talking to the neighbors. They'll still be up. Curiosity's a great cause of insomnia. Do Gallows View and the six end bungalows over the street here. The rest can wait till tomorrow. Remember, the doctor puts the time of death at about twenty-four hours ago-let's say between ten o'clock and midnight last night. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. Okay?'
Hatchley nodded glumly. Then his expression brightened when he saw Richmond leading Ethel Carstairs outside. 'Don't be long, lad,' he said, baring his yellow teeth in what passed for a smile. 'I've got work for you to do.' Banks and Jenny left. She was surprised that he didn't vent his anger at her disobedience, but they broke the silence in the car only to arrange another meeting to work on the profile later in the week, then she dropped him off and drove home, unable to get the image of Alice Matlock's body out of her mind.
III
Detective Constable Philip Richmond was almost as pleased with his recent promotion to the CID as he was with his new mustache: the latter made him look older, more distinguished, and the former, more important, successful. He had worn the uniform, driven the Panda cars and walked the beat in Eastvale for as long as he cared to, and he had an intimate knowledge of every alley, snicket and back street in the town: every lover's lane, every villain's hangout and every pub where visiting squaddies from Catterick camp were likely to cut up a bit rough at closing time.
He also knew Gallows View, the cottages at the far western edge of the town. Developers had petitioned for their demolition, especially when Leaview Estate was under construction, but the council, under pressure from the Parks and Monuments Commission, had reluctantly decided that they could stay. There were, after all, only five cottages, and two of those, at the western end of the street, had been knocked together into a shop and living quarters. Richmond had often bought gob-stoppers, Tizer and lucky-bags there as a lad, later graduating to cigarettes, which the owner would often trade him for his mother's coupons giving threepence off Tide or Stardrops.
Richmond stood in the street, drawing his raincoat tighter to keep out the chill, and cursed that damned slave driver Hatchley to himself. The bastard was probably guzzling the dead woman's medicinal brandy while his junior paid the house calls in the rain. Well, blow him, Richmond thought. Damned if he's going to get credit for anything I come up with.
Resigned, he knocked on the door of number four, which was opened almost immediately by an attractive young woman holding the lapels of her dressing gown close around her throat. Richmond showed his identification proudly, stroked his mustache and followed her indoors. The place might be an old cottage, he thought, but by heck they'd done a good job on the inside: double-glazing, central heating, stucco walls, nice framed paintings, a bit abstract for his taste, but none of your Woolworth's tat, and one of those glass-topped coffee tables between two tube-and-cushion armchairs.
He accepted her offer of coffee-it would help keep him awake-but was surprised at how long she took to make it and at the odd, whirring noises he heard coming from the kitchen. When he finally got to taste the coffee, he knew; it was made from fresh-ground beans, filter-dripped, and it tasted delicious. She put a coaster on the low table in front of him-a wild flower, wood sorrel, he guessed, pressed between two circles of glass, the circumference bound in bamboo-then, at last, he was able to get down to business.
First he took her name, Andrea Rigby, and discovered that she lived there with her husband, a systems analyst, who was often away during the week working on projects in London or Bristol. They had lived in Gallows View for three years, ever since he had landed the well-paying job and been able to fulfill his dream of country living. The woman had an Italian or Spanish look about her, Richmond couldn't decide which, but her maiden name was Smith and she came originally from Leominster.
'What's happened?' Andrea asked. 'Is it Miss Matlock next door?'
'Yes,' Richmond answered, unwilling to give away too much. 'Did you know her?'
'I wouldn't say I knew her. Not well, at any rate. We said hello to each other and I went to the shops a few times for her when she was ill last year.'
'We're interested to know if you heard anything odd last night between ten and midnight, Mrs. Rigby.'
'Last night? Let me see. That was Monday, wasn't it. Ronnie had gone back down to London… I just sat around reading and watching television. I do remember hearing someone running in the street, over in Cardigan Drive. It must have been about eleven because the news had finished and I'd been watching an old film for about half an hour. Then I turned it off because it was boring.'
'Someone running? That's all?'
'Yes.'
'You didn't go to the window and look out?'
'No. Why should I? It was probably just kids.'
Richmond jotted in his notebook. 'Anything else? Did you hear any sounds from next door?'
