making enquiries about the late doctor who lived upstairs. Do you mind if I come in?'
'I'll open the door for you,' the woman replied, as the catch buzzed.
I pushed it open and walked across the lobby to flat number two. My luck held. Two others were in and answered my questions, not that I had many. 'We're investigating various callers or salesmen who've been seen in the area,' I told them all. 'Have you ever had anyone leave a catalogue for a company called Magic Plastic?'
Heads were shaken. Noses were looked down. Magic Plastic salesmen didn't call at prestigious developments such as Canalside Mews.
Perhaps, I thought, they knew that the residents weren't as generous with their money or as sympathetic as the likes of Janet Saunders. The young man in number five wearing a cookery apron offered me a coffee and the lady in number seven showed me her husband's tropical fish.
'Your sergeant was ever so interested in them,' she said.
'I know. He told me all about them.'
I saw a lot of gold velvet and tassels and G-Plan furniture and was definitely unimpressed. I was left with the big question: if the Magic Plastic salesman had never called at Canalside Mews, where did the doctor obtain the mini-bin I'd seen in his apartment? I climbed into the car and wiped the rain off my neck. I couldn't put it off any longer. I started the engine and drove across town to where Susan Crabtree's parents lived.
It was a street of post-war semis with bay windows, similar to the one I lived in. The type of house that middle-class people aspired to, in those far-off days before inflation set the market alight and home-owning became a hedge against it and not a millstone around the pay packet. These had become seedy a few years ago, then regained respectability as the double-glazing salesmen moved in to give the place a face-lift. Now the cycle was being repeated with patio doors and conservatories. As I cruised slowly past their house I saw a woman at an upstairs window, polishing the glass like she'd done every day since her daughter hurled herself off a graceless concrete car park, two Christmases ago. She wore a yellow smock that made her the brightest thing in the street. I parked about six doors away and turned up my collar.
I knocked at the door of the house I'd parked outside and a dog started barking. A woman told it to be quiet and somewhere inside another door slammed, muffling the dog's yelps. A bolt slid back, the latch clicked, and the door swung open.
She was about eighty years old and four foot eleven high. 'Yes,' she demanded.
'Police,' I said, offering my ID. 'I'm DI Priest. Could I have a word, please?'
'Come in,' she ordered.
We stood in the kitchen. 'First of all,' I told her, 'I want to give you a ticking off.'
'A ticking off?' she echoed. 'I'm too old to take a ticking off from you, young man, police or no.'
'You should be more careful who you let in. Don't you have a spy hole, or a chain on the door?'
'I'm eighty-three years old next birthday,' she responded. 'If anything was going to happen to me it would have happened by now, don't you think?'
At what age do you start adding one on instead of taking a few off? How do you argue with someone who believes the Earth is flat? You don't.
'I'm enquiring about people salesmen who come round knocking at doors,'
I told her. 'Have you ever had anyone call from a firm called Magic Plastic?'
'Magic Plastic? Yes, of course I have. He calls regularly.
Never buy anything, though. Far too dear. He's a nice man, always polite. What's he done?'
'Nothing. Do you know his name?'
'Why do you want to know his name if he hasn't done anything?'
'Because he might have seen something. We don't only talk to criminals, you know. We talk to witnesses, too.' I could give it as good as she could.
'What sort of something?'
'That's what we want to ask. Do you know him?'
'No.'
'Do you still have a catalogue?'
'No, he collected it.'
'When?'
'Weeks ago. Months, in fact.'
I thanked her for her trouble and told her to keep the door chain on, but she wasn't listening.
The next two houses were unoccupied. A middle-aged woman with a headscarf over her rollers saw me knocking and told me that her neighbours had gone to Tenerife for a fortnight. Who'd have a job in crime prevention? Yes, the Magic Plastic man did call, although he hadn't been for a few weeks. No, she never bought anything off him, and no, she didn't have a catalogue.
The woman with the two toddlers who lived directly opposite the Crabtrees bought some stuff for cleaning moss off her patio when he first called, but it didn't work and she hadn't bought anything since.
Her labrador insisted on jumping up at me, leaving big muddy paw-prints on the East Pennine Police waterproof. 'He's just being friendly,' she assured me.
And that was that. I'd arrived. It couldn't be postponed a moment longer. I crossed the road, looking up at Mrs.
Crabtree, her chamois leather moving round in circles, slowly progressing across the pane of glass like a glider in a crosswind. She paused as my hand fell on their gate and we stared at each other for a moment. I lifted the catch, she reached into a corner for an invisible speck of dirt.
William, her husband, answered the door. As I waited I noticed that the drain next to the bay window was covered with a plastic lid, to prevent the ingress of leaves. A snip at 8.99 from Magic Plastic.
'Hello, Mr. Crabtree,' I said. 'I'm Inspector Priest, from Heckley CID. Do you remember me?'
He looked confused and mumbled something.
'I'd like a word with you both,' I told him, stepping forward. 'Do you mind if I come in?'
He moved to one side to allow me past, and when he'd reclosed the door we went into their front room. I took the heavy coat off and suggested he call Mrs. Crabtree. He shouted up the stairs to her, saying they had a visitor. He called her Mother. I placed the coat in the angle between a sideboard and the wall, half on the floor, half leaning against the wall.
William hadn't changed much, but his wife had. She'd taken the house coat off and had lost at least a couple of stones since I'd last seen her. Her face was lined and her hair unkempt. We all sat down.
'How are you both?' I began.
They shrugged, mumbling meaningless answers to a meaningless question.
'I was the officer in charge,' I told them, 'when Susan died. I came to see you, but you've probably forgotten me. Christmas brought it all back, and I was wondering how you were.'
'So-so,' he replied, quietly.
'For you,' I went on, 'I don't suppose it ever went away, did it?'
They shook their heads. 'No.'
'And I don't suppose it ever will. In a sense, you probably don't really want it to go away. She was your daughter, your only child, and you loved her. She'll always be a part of you.'
Mrs. Crabtree said: 'The Lord moves in mysterious ways.'
'That he does,' I agreed.
She turned to her husband. 'Would you like to make some tea, Treasure?' she suggested.
'I'll put the kettle on,' he replied, stooping forward before making a big effort to rise from his low chair.
'No!' I insisted, raising a hand. 'Not for me, thanks all the same.'
William settled back.
I straightened the antimacassar on the arm of my chair. 'I have no children,' I stated. 'But it's hard, even for me, to imagine anything as devastating as losing a child. Except, of course, you lost a grandchild, too. That must be unbearable.'
'Some fell on stony ground,' she said. 'And even as we sow, so shall we reap.'
'Quite,' I replied. 'The Bible must be a great comfort to you, Mrs.
Crabtree.'
He said: 'Yes, it's been a great comfort to you, hasn't it, Mother?'
