10. A Solution?

Does Dave have any idea what happened in the cellar?

“That was a bit of an eye-opener, ma’am,” grinned DS Dave Wright as his boss drove back to the police station.

“What was?” asked Sheila, glancing his way and aware that the expression on his face was far from serious.

“The snippet about you still having an eye for the boys!” he smiled.

“Well, now you know,” she said smugly, “and it’s that eye that keeps my Tony in line. He knows, all right, and makes quite sure that my eyes are always on him.”

“That gives me one up on you then, Ma’am,” he teased, “my Sally is always quite sure of where my eyes are, even when they’re nowhere near her, me being round and about at work!”

“Okay, Dave, let’s step out of the world of fantasy, and get down to the case. What did you make of the music teacher, what’s her name, Miss Fudge and her talk about the deceased having eyes for the older girls, remembering the oldest girls aren’t yet twelve.”

“Well, my take is as a father,” replied Dave, “and a father might just show some interest in a son’s girlfriends, and they do have girlfriends or lasses they refer to as girlfriends at that age But a father’s not likely ro be perving at them as checking that the lad isn’t making a mistake. You know, confusing pretty young things with unsavoury lasses.”

“Unsavoury lasses? You can’t be serious! Not at that age! Is that what you do, cast a cynical eye over any lads who might be interested in your Joanne?”

“I don’t have to, ma’am. She’s got her eyes firmly fixed on Nicky Trollop.”

“In her class?”

“Not at all. He’s one of the Bender Brothers, pop group or boy band, whatever you want to call it. You must have heard of them, they’re all over the net. Joanne loves the very sight of him, spends half of her life drawing pictures of him in her note book, and some of those drawings might seem a bit racy to the uninitiated.

“Uninitiated?”

“Yes. Men without daughters.”

“Oh, I see. So you don’t take any notice of elderly cronies like Miss Fudge?”

“Only this. She’s noted the interest some lasses had in the late lamented and there’s a hint of jealousy in the way she put it. So I’d interpret that she had at least one eye on the fellow himself when he popped into the classroom to fetch his lad home at the end of the day. And also on the young cleaner woman, miss was it, or Mrs, Scooch?”

“Miss. What makes you think that, ma’am?”

“I really don’t know. But it’s a feeling. Maybe to do with the apparent expression on her face when she found that he was dead, and she certainly did scream an unnecessary amount when she came upon his body, according to the caretaker. Maybe she fancied him?”

“She’s young, quite pretty, not the sort you’d expect to find cleaning classrooms and he was much older with a kind of unsavoury reputation, or so we’ve been told.. And remember what we were told about him trying to create a brand new political party? I was reading up on him last night when you were tucking into your cod and chips: apparently he was trying to become quite a force in the murky world of politics. He wasn’t getting anywhere, of course, even lost his deposit last year: the main parties have got it all stitched up, but he was game to give it a try.”

“He might need to get a more politically friendly wife, then,” suggested Dave, “you know, prettier and maybe easier to influence.

“Good point, Sergeant. I got the impression that she’s a bit too fond of the sherry bottle.”

“So it seems.”

“So, sergeant, have you got any of them down as suspects?”

“I’d put a pound on the caretaker being somewhere o the list.”

Sheila shook her head. “What, poor Mr Foster and his sick wife?” he said, “I’d have thought he had enough to worry him at home to have much time to think of stabbing folks.”

“Then the young Scooch woman?”

“And her eternal attempts at putting the vicar off? What did she say? That he was always thinking of her knickers? What made her think of that particular garment unless he’s been a bit too explicit for a parson? No, she’s more likely to have a go at him rather than at that poor Mr Daniels.”

Dave nodded. “Then there’s the pretty young teacher and her short skirts? What if the ever greedy Daniels had eyes on her legs?”

“Understandable, and possible,” sighed Sheila, “look, we’re not getting anywhere fast. We need to have a session when we get back to the office, carefully eliminating the impossible, Then we might land on the answer. And we mustn’t forget that two different blades were used, yet neither of them actually finished him off, according to Doctor Weasel.”

“Maybe he’s wrong. I mean, it would take an extraordinarily feeble man or even woman to miss a fellow’s heart at close range with what seems to have been a kind of kitchen knife. Then there’s the modelling craftwork knife. Even that might be capable of doing a bit more damage than he says.”

“We need to talk to him again. He might have come upon something else and changed his conclusions as a result.” decided the DI, “I’d put my money on that.”

“It’s that cellar that confuses me,” muttered Dave, “I mean, what was the dead man doing in it in his best suit in the first place? After all, you don’t dress up in order to sneak into a cellar, do you? Was he rehearsing a political speech? If so, there’s no evidence there was anyone other than a couple of killers there Or maybe he was chasing a woman who didn’t want to know him? A married man? With a son?”

“Now you’re over-thinking,” replied Sheila, “look, we’re back at the station and I need a coffee!”

“Just a minute, ma’am, you don’t dress up in order to chase a woman… that was my first thought. But what if you do? And what if the woman you have your eyes on sees you in your suit in the murky half-light of a dismal cellar? And she groans inside because you’re there, but it isn’t you but maybe someone who looks like you… I think I know what happened, ma’am, yes, I do, when you turn the story round…”

“Come on, Save it for coffee. And then I’ll listen and really hope there’s something in your head that I’ve missed...”

© Peter Rogerson, 14.01.25