15 The Broken Gasket

The officers spot s broken down car on a motorway and recognise the driver...

WORDS MEAN DEATH

Dorothy, always a careful driver when the situation demanded normality, knew how to put her foot down when she was under pressure, and so she was tearing up the road to Brumpton when she saw something unusual and screeched to a standstill.

An elderly car with steam belching out from beneath a still closed bonnet had been pulled ono the hard shoulder and its driver, an elderly clergyman, was hopefully hanging his thumb out hoping for a lift from a stranger.

“Well, well, well, who have we got here?” she said with an almost malicious grin on her face, and she reversed back to where the hitch-hiker stood, flung her door open and climbed out. Ian Rogers couid see what she had seen and climbed out as well, also smiling.

“No missus with you, padre?” asked the DI breezily.

“Need your starting handle?” added the DS cheekily.

“Err...hey what?” spluttered the Reverend Paul Wolf, who both officers had immediately recognised.

“So the lovely wheelchair-bound lady in your life? Where might she be on a fine day like this? Walking the streets of Newhaven, maybe?”

“What you on about?” he demanded in a most anticlerical voice, and then, deeper, in what might be described as his pulpit voice, “explain yourself, officer!”

“I suppose… do you need assistance? You seem to have come to unwanted standstill,” asked Dorothy.

“Most unfortunate for you, sir,” added Ian.

“I think it must be a gasket…” spluttered the clergyman, almost at a lost for words and relying on the pomp of the clergyman to sound even slightly in command of the situation.

“It doesn’t matter what it is that’s gone wrong, we’ll give you a lift,” smiled Dorothy, refusing to call him sir even though he obviously seemed to expect that kind of respect.

He looked at her and managed a kind of grateful smile before saying, “that’s all right officer, someone in less of a hurry than you are is bound to stop for me, maybe a member of my flock who recognises that I have a problem.”

“The steam might give that away,” nodded Ian, “or your thumb,” he added.

“The thing is, what shall I call you, Mr Wolf, we wanted a few words with you and this seems to be a God-given opportunity.” smiled the DI, “so if you’ll just get into my car with the Sergeant here, the rear seat is quite comfortable, I believe, and in order to ensure you can’t accidentally fall out onto a busy road in heavy traffic, which would be both uncomfortable for you and messy for the rest of us, Sergeant Rogers will clip his handcuffs onto your wrists.”

The Reverend Wolf looked suddenly horrified.

“And it might stop you trying to escape custody,” added Ian as he dangled his handcuffs in front of him. “Now if you don’t mind, sir, climb aboard,” he added, holding the back door of the vehicle open for what appeared to be his prisoner.

The Reverend Wolf had no alternative. He climbed in, obviously protesting with an angry scowl. Then, “What about my car? He almost howled, “it’s quite old and valuable, you know.”

“Oh, we’ll send someone to pick it up,” assured DI Bramble, “and while we’re on the road we can have a little chat. For instance, how is Mr Copperly these days?”

“I don’t know any Mr Copperly!” protested the clergyman.

“Now let me explain something,” murmured Dorothy, switching her phone onto record, “you don’t have to say anything, you know, but anything you do say is being recorded and may be used as evidence against you…”

“I know that rigmarole! I do watch crime dramas on the telly, you know!”

“Then you might want to tell us what Mr Copperly’s last words were,” she said, half-smiling but with an edge to her voice. And, incidentally, this isn’t a crime drama. It’s a real crime being investigated with the valuable assistance of a clergyman. So about Mr Copperly? You were about to say…”

“I don’t know anything about last words! You mean someone’s done him in? I did think the woman in the wheelchair looked a bit on the dangerous side.”

“Ah, the one you claimed was your wife of several decades? The lady you claimed you had accidentally poisoned years ago, with a fruit pie I seem to recall, and married out of sympathy…

“She made me say that!” spluttered Wolf.

“Did she really? So she wasn’t your wife after all? The point is, vicar, you claimed to be married during an interview, to a woman in a wheelchair, and we’ve done a little bit of research and know beyond doubt that you never married anyone…”

“I did! Overseas!” he forced out through clenched teeth.

“No, sir, that won’t do,” Ian told him, “our researcher is second to none. She is most thorough and if she says you’ve never married then you’ve never married.”

“Not even on a trip to cloud cuckoo land,” added Dorothy.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“So the demise of Mr Copperly?” asked the DI.

“No comment”

“Ah, you’ve learned that bit! Watching Death in Paradise or Inspector Lewis was it?

“No comment.”

“And did the wheelchair lady who you thought you’d married forty years or so ago not watch you as you pushed your knife into poor Mr Copperly?”

“If she said I did that...No comment.”

“And then there’s poor Mr Hemsworth and his lovely novel… was it you who almost scared a couple of schoolgirls to death when you covered the poor man’s dead body with grass cuttings? The poor girls are still suffering from trauma after seeing that nasty scene…”

“If they said that… no comment.”

“Look: the outskirts of Brumpton already, so we’re nearly back at the station and I reckon we can all do with a nice cup of tea, don’t you, Sergeant?” Dorothy said quietly as they entered the roads leading to the police station.

“Yum yum, ma’am,” Ian dutifully replied.

“And if I were you, your reverence, I’d get in touch with my favourite solicitor because, believe you me, you really need one, or we can provide you with ours, though I don’t think any of them will do you much good. You mentioned the telly that you’ve watched so you’ll understand it when I say we’ve got you bang to rights, sir. Bang to rights.”

She slowly drove down the road leading to the police station car park. Glancing in her mirror she caught sight of the Reverend Paul Wolf. He was grinning as if he knew he was in total command of the situation.

I wonder what he thinks he’s got up his sleeve? she asked herself.

© Peter Rogerson 24.01.24

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