12. Questions and Answers

PC Gower was sent to collect Elaine Scooch for questioning and when she arrived at the station she was led into the main questioning room in a state that was midway between confidence and confusion..

“I don’t know why you need to see me again,” she said to DI McFyffe the moment the detectives entered the room. “I mean, I told you how I found him.”

“But you didn’t mention how it wasn’t the man you expected to find,” said Dave. “You were so surprised that it wasn’t the vicar…”

“You don’t mention him!” snapped the cleaner, suddenly displaying a positive emotion “he ain’t worth the breath of your voice!”

“What makes you think that?” asked Sheila gently, “I mean, he’s a man of the cloth. He knows his prayers, Our father which art in Heaven, that sort of thing.”

“And you saw him in the school cellar,” suggested Dave, “there he was, your perpetual shadow, the whisperer of filthy words into your innocent ears, actually on your own territory in his nice shiny suit…”

“I didn’t do nowt to him!” the young woman insisted, “yes, I saw him there, but I didn’t hurt him!”

“No you didn’t, dear, though you wanted to, didn’t you? You could see the man there in his smart suit, and you had a knife in your hand, didn’t you, a sharp knife that maybe wasn’t sharp enough?” soothed Sheila

“Don’t! I never!”cried Miss Scooch.

“And he was so close to you and the sharp knife in your hand,” continued Sheila, “so very very close…”

“Yes! And he saw my blade, he saw it in my hand, and he reached out for it, and without thinking I pushed it at him and let it go…” swept the cleaner, “All the times he’s come to me, knocked my door, scaring me, and when he wanted to help me hang my washing out, gently peg my knickers on the line to blow in the wind from Heaven. He said that, he did, wind from heaven, and I told him no, no, no…”

“Not very how you’d expect a parson to talk…” soothed Dave, glancing for a moment at the DI. “It must have made you wonder what his boss in Heaven thought of him.”

“You mean his God? He told me once there’s no such being! He did just that! He came in my kitchen through the back door which was open to cool me down, came in without being asked, just walked in, and when he reached where I was standing at the sink he reached out and touched me here…” She indicated her left breast, “and when I said to him he’d be in trouble when he prayed if he did that again he laughed in my face and said there’s nobody to pray to, it’s all a great big fairy story and it’s funny the way folks old enough to know better believe in it lock, stock and barrel! So no, he never believed, no more than I do when my ma passed away after eating something that did her no good at all, got sick she did, real sick, and she was dead before the doctor arrived to see what was wrong. Where was that God then, I asks you?”

“You’ve not had it easy, my dear,” said Sheila sympathetically. “And may I ask how old you are?”

“Twenty two if I’m a day,” replied Elaine Scooch, ”and before you ask my dad was taken too, when I was four, or so my mum told me, so there I was, nineteen, and both parents dead. And we had a council house but my mum was the tenant and they tried to chuck me out, tried to put me on the streets, and it was then that the vicar started harassing me… said I was too young to be on my own and there was room for me at the parsonage if I was to ask. But I never went because the council relented, said as I was more than eighteen and I could sign for the house, so I did. But the Reverend Stoker must’ve thought he’d got a toe into my life by offering to save me, and he started mentioning my knickers… He did that quite often. Knickers on, knickers off, knickers all the time.”

“The dirty old man,” grunted Dave.

“Sergeant!” warned Sheila, and she smiled at Elaine “though my sergeants not wrong. I’ll have to take a look at the Reverend Stoker when this investigation is over.”

“But you think I killed that man I found all dead and cold, don’t you?” whimpered Elaine. “It were the wrong man, I know that now, and I had nothing against Mr Daniels, that’s his name ain’t it.”

“Well, look at it from my point of view,” murmured Sheila, “a man was found in the school cellar and he was very dead. According to my pathologist he died around midnight.”

“What! That late! It were nothing like that time! It was at the end of my shift and that would be about six o’clock!” protested Elaine, seeing a shaft of light that might be coming to rescue her.

“But the man died,” said Sheila sadly.

“Then there must’ve been someone else, hours after me” grinned Elaine, “and it weren’t me at all!

“What about the other knife,” asked Dave, “the little crafy knife that we found hanging out of his wound. We’ve got that and, sad to say, it’s got your fingerprints all over it.”

“Oh. That.” stuttered Elaine.

“Yes, that. It didn’t do the man any damage but it was the sort of thing that shouldn’t have been where it was.”

“It was after I found the body,” sighed Elaine, “and when I saw there the first knife had cut him I thought it would look tidy of I put it there. But I was that upset I had no idea what I was doing.”

“I see,” sighed Sheila, “well, I cant think of any more questions, can you sergeant?” she said, and he shook his head. “Thanks for your cooperation, Miss Scooch then,” she added, “and if you can wait a few minutes I’ll be going your way and you can have a lift home.”

“You mean… I’m not being banged up?” gasped Elaine.

“Well, not at the moment, but if it transpires that the first injury suffered by Mr Daniels directly caused his death, you may see me again,” said Sheila, “but at the moment, no.”

© Peter Rogerson 18.01 25