13. THE MOBILITY SCOOTER

S summary of the investigation so far

“I believe there was a bit of friction between you and David Stokesey,” said Trayda to Morden Foster of the Burger stall.

“He was okay,” grunted Morden reluctantly, “it’s just that he didn’t like the smell of burgers. Nowt wrong with that, not really, not a killing matter anyway.”

“But wasn’t he behind an inspection by the local health people?” asked Angela, “that wasn’t the friendliest thing he could have done, was it?”

“If you’re trying to say that was a good reason for me to kill him then say so,” growled Morden, “my standards of hygiene have always been beyond re.. re… reproach.”

“And the customer who reckoned you’d poisoned him last year?” asked Trayda mildly, “the bloke who had you taken to court. The bloke who put it about that you nearly killed him with salmonella!”

“He got ill, but not from me!” declared Morden defensively, “I said so in court and they couldn’t find one thing I did wrong.”

“Mouse droppings?” asked Angela.

Morden sniffed. “So what? Outside my van and on the grass? There are mice everywhere.” He leaned towards the two women confidentially. “They do say you’re never more than six feet away from the nearest rat, and you’re not going to lay that at my door!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” smiled Trayda, “but tell me about young Stokesey. How did you get on with him? I mean, personally?”

Morden shrugged. “We weren’t what you’d call the best of mates,” he said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “But we had what you might call an almost friendly rivalry, being the two on this site selling comestibles. But there weren’t really any conflict: me with burgers and him with ice creams. Actually, we sort of went together like steak and trifle! I provided the main course and he provided the pudding, so to speak.”

“How come he got the blame for you being prosecuted?” asked Angela.

“You want the truth? Well, that bloke last year got sick. Salmonella, it was, and he probably got it from a frozen chicken pie that was in his caravan fridge rather than in a freezer where it should have been! Anyway, Stokesey said as the sweet fragrance of my burgers cooking was enough to turn anyone’s stomach, sort of in fun, and Sid Goodman heard it and passed it on to the health bloke when the fat bloke got sick, not as a complaint but sort of in passing.”

“So there was nothing in it?”

Morden pointed to a certificate he proudly displayed next to his list of burgers and sausages. “Look at that if you want to know,” he said, “that’s from the Council, that is, and I’ve got five stars for hygiene. Five stars! And you know what they’re out of?”

“Five?” suggested Trayda.

He nodded triumphantly. “That’s right. Five out of five! Now you go and look at the late lamented Stokesey’s display. He’s only got four. Four stars, and he still scoffs at me and my standards!”

“Scoffed, not scoffs,” murmured Angela.

“Yes,” he sighed, “the truth is, I’m sorry he’s dead. Truly I am. We were sort of rivals, but not deadly ones. In fact, we sometimes took a pint together, and enemies don’t do that!”

“Of course they don’t,” agreed Trayda, “come on, Angela, there’s nothing more to learn here.”

“Just a minute. Don’t you want to know who I think killed him?” asked Morden.

“Sure,” nodded Trayda, “it might be more helpful than questions about mouse droppings.”

“There’s an old guy doing the rounds,” murmured the burger man secretively, “and he reckons to be the lad’s granddad. Well, I sometimes chatted with Davey, and he never mentioned, having a granddad, not once. Instead, he went on a bit about being alone in the world. Now does that add up? It don’t to me, and that old guy should be asked a few questions before he pops his clogs and can’t come up with any answers, ‘course he don’t look so well to me!”

oo0oo

“The Lord be with you, my child,” whispered the Reverend Arthur Candice as he almost ran into Trayda Sibsey, hurtling round a corner on his mobility scooter without paying anything like the sort of attention he ought to have been paying to what he was doing, and scuffing her ankle.

“Hey! Take care!” snapped Trayda before she noticed the old man’s collar. “You might have hurt me,” she added, wondering why an old man’s clerical collar meant she ought to apologise to him even when he was clearly at fault.

“Are you all right?” asked Angela of Trayda.

“It’s my ankle,” complained Trayda, rubbing it.

“Nice legs,” complimented the Reverend irreverently.

“You should be more careful on that thing,” growled Trayda, “they’re dangerous in the wrong hands!”

“And my hands are wrong?” asked the Reverend.

“If you don’t pay attention then they are!” Trayda was feeling more composed and less awkward in front of the collar than she had when he had zoomed at her out of the blue.

“Maybe I should have walked,” he sighed, “maybe I should have left the thing back at my humble abode, and got a bit of exercise. I can walk, you know. I can even run at a pinch: not fast and not so far as I’d like, but I can do it. Even clambering down to the beach doesn’t present me any more of a problem than it would if you were to do it, but I like this scooter. I don’t really need the thing, but it can be amusing and does take the chore out of shopping, and there’s no law that says I can’t use it if I want to!”

“If you can walk without difficulty, then that’s what you should be doing,” Angela told him, “it’s not as if you’re incapable, and there are other people to consider.”

“Oh, I rarely consider other people,” he smiled, a crooked, uneven smile, “I leave that to the Lord! Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s a couple of miles to the shopping centre and I need some figs!”

With that he tooted the little horn on his scooter and zoomed off at a fast walking speed, almost colliding with Inspector Reuben Richards who had called by to see how things were going.

“That man’s a liability!” he exclaimed as he jumped out of the way.

“He got me, too,” Trayda told him.

“It’s the dog collar. You see that and you don’t feel like complaining,” murmured Trayda, “it’s as if complaining about one of his servants might put you in God’s bad books.”

“It’s not as if he needs that scooter,” complained Angela, “he just told us. He says he has no problem with walking and might even be able to run at a pinch! It takes the chore out of shopping, he said, as if that gave him the right to knock people down,” put in Trayda, “and there’s no law to stop him,” she added.

“Well, ladies, to business. Have you any goods for me?” asked Reuben, changing the subject, “I’ve got the ACC to see in about an hour and I’d like to have some little snippets to keep him quiet!”

“There’s an elderly man doing the rounds, the dead man’s grandfather by all accounts, and the burger man is suspicious of him,” said Trayda, “though I think he’s kosher. When I told him that Stokesey was dead he seemed genuine enough. Then there’s the burger bloke himself.”

“I’ve heard there was no love lost there,” nodded Reuben.

“I’d look at him a bit more closely, but I’m not hopeful,” said Trayda, “they weren’t friends, but in my opinion they weren’t enemies either, and you’d have to be a pretty ferocious enemy to do to David Stokesey what the killer managed to do.”

“So he’s a possibility, but not high on your list?”

“Not really.”

“Anyone else?”

“The owner of Happy Valley, the nudist place down the road. Now, he’s got what I call a motive. His wife, and she’s a rare beauty by all accounts, was having an affair with the dead man. At least, she was seen with him in what sounded like a compromising position and I’ll look a bit closer at it when I can. I’d like to have another word with Mr Hampton, too, but he doesn’t take me too seriously. Seems to think I’m not a proper copper.”

“Well, you’re not,” scowled Reuben.

“I do know that. But I’ll tell you one thing that might interest you. When I told him that the lover of his good lady wife was dead he seemed overjoyed. Probably too overjoyed, if you get my meaning, as if it came to him as a surprise rather than something he was expecting to hear.”

“So he’s off your list too?”

“Not entirely,” replied Trayda, “because it might just be that he’s a really good actor.”

© Peter Rogerson 31.03.19