10. Illogical logic.

A senior policeman has a silly half hour...

Detective Inspector Ian Glumpy only had a small team under his control and on this one day and out of the blue he had an unbelievable number of bodies all of which needed Intelligent investigation because they all sniffed of murder. More than sniffed. Murder if what they all were.

DC Amelia Pincher was a handy brain to have on his tiny team because when she wasn’t engaged in cerebral toil she was a picture worth looking at. Now she’d reported in about a body in the men’s toilets at Brumpton academy, and that would have been all right seeing as the body was the elderly lollipop man and at his age men often need to use the toilet more often, but it wasn’t all right because besides being dead he had a knife sticking out of him. That wasn’t natural. Unless he’d had a singularly unlikely accident, handling a sharp blade whilst sitting on the loo, he’d been murdered by an unknown killer.

Then there was the one also associated with that school, or academy as it liked to be called these days, an old gentleman dead on a patch of newly laid grass and, yes, he had a knife sticking out of him. Then as if enough wasn’t enough there was the old woman stuffed into a wheelie bin with, yes, a knife sticking out of her.

Three murders, and as far as he could tell there wasn’t much to link them together with the exception of sharp knives, and the knives were all different from each other and not from the same set, and had been wiped so clean there wasn’t the remotest hint of a finger print on any of them.

Was there a serial killer anywhere near Brumpton? Or even in the town? In the school? Someone whose sole delight in his own life is seeing others lose theirs? Or, and it struck him with a suddenness he found almost convincing, might it be a woman. He enjoyed thinking, as he put it, out of the box. It’s not only men who kill: women can as well.

“DC Pincher,” he growled at the attractive young detective constable who was sitting at her desk in the main office, “draw near, my dear, and listen to this for a theory…”

“Yes sir,” she replied, and moved her chair the few feet necessary for her to be next to him at his desk.

“There are three bodies,” he murmured, “and they all seem to be connected to the school that thinks it’s an academy, and how about that being a dirty great big red herring to throw us off the scent? What if the killer of all three is a woman? Hey? How does that get you?”

“It doesn’t seem very feminine, sir,” she replied, “I mean, sticking knives into people takes some doing! And donlt the experts rckon that poison is a woman’s preferred weapon of choice?”

“But isn’t it likely that all three had somehow upset the same woman? The body in the bin, a woman, and don’t women sometimes have a spat at each other, and might that not end up with a blade being pushed between the elderly woman’s ribs? Then the two old blokes, the one on the grassy slope and the one on the gents’ toilet seat. Might not they have taken a fancy to some woman, say an attractive one, and tried it on? After all, the body on the grassy slope looked as if it’s flies were a bit undone, and that might mean he was intent on raping s woman. Yes, constable, I said raping! Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong.”

“I hardly think that’s likely, sir<” replied the DC.

“But it is, constable, if you imagine a possible chain of events. Let us say, for instance, that she was posing in an underhand and provocative way in front of the man whose body we found on the field. Say that she was making a right come-on to him. And say that the man’s wife happened on her and him in some kind of romantic clinch… say that’s why his flies were partly undone… and the wife started a fight with the saucy wench, a fight which ended up her getting stabbed! That is possible, don’t you think?”

Amelia tried to suppress a smile and then, because he was her boss and doing what he ought to do, working out the possible chain of events that had led up to the situation that was puzzling them, she shook her head doubtfully.

“The woman in the bin wasn’t particularly strong,” she said after a moment’s thought, “and I can’t see her launching a physical war against a saucy, what did you call her, wench? If she were to do that she’d probably know she was on a loser!”

“Unless, constable, the saucy wench had an obvious weakness, like, say, a broken leg or an arm in a sling,” argued Ian.

“The only female in the area was the young woman who lived in the house outside which the bin accommodating the female body was parked, and it’s highly unlikely that someone capable of a violent attack culminating in murder would then be soft enough to dump the body in her own bin!” suggested Amelia.

“You had a word with her,” pointed out the DI, “what sort of woman would you say she was? The sort with strong arms and legs, quick to defend herself? The sort to murder?”

“Young and attractive and employed by a supermarket,” Amelia told him, “and not at all likely to want to kill another woman, and if she did, not the sort to make a pig’s ear of disposing of the body afterwards. I mean, in her own bin!”

“And then the two Dead men,” continued the DI, ignoring her very lucid doubts, “the one with the undone flies would have seen her klill his missus. He would have known who it was because she lived next door, for goodness sake, and so she would have to protect her good name by removing him as a witness. So she follows him and does the deed with another sharp blade, and then, because the lollipop man was walking that way, she did him in as well just in case he saw something. Yes, that makes perfect sense to me! It tells a very human story.”

Amelia shook her head. “A strange woman able to walk around at large in the Brumpton Academy?” she asked, “and in the men’s toilet room? No, sir, it won’t wash. And anyway, she’d have been at work when that murder was committed, in the supermarket.

“That needs checking out, constable,” barked Ian Glumpy, “so see to it, will you? I reckon I’ve worked it out to the letter. That woman, what was her name?”

“Tanie Beaufort, sir.”

“Yes. Beaufort, And with a posh name like that she can’t be up to much good. I’ve been worried about her from the word go, and, constable, I’ve got a reliable reputation when it comes to such things.”

“You have, sir?”

“You can depend on it! Now get about your duties, constable. Check out the woman’s alibi.”

“It was you who said it was her alibi,” pointed out the DC, “nobody asked her. For all we know she might have been at the dentist’s!”

“Then check that she wasn’t, and when you’ve worked it out bring her to me in handcuffs, constable!”

© Peter Rogerson, 29.05.24