The tension relaxed a little.
‘I’ll tell you something funnier than that,’ said Joe. ‘Why do you think Percy hasn’t come in this morning?’
‘Well, it’s obvious. He knew we’d open that door and find the body.’
‘Yes, but where do you think he is?’
Frank frowned and shook his head. ‘At home?’
Joe grinned and said, ‘Majorca.’
‘No!’ Frank rocked with laughter. ‘The crafty old beggar!’
‘When Mr Pugh came in on Saturday, he had a large brown envelope with him containing his travel tickets.’
‘I remember. I saw it. He put it on the counter by the cash register.’
‘Well, it isn’t there now, is it?’
Frank said, ‘You can’t help admiring him. He’s probably sitting on the hotel terrace at this minute ordering his breakfast and thinking of you and me finding Mr Pugh in the freezer.’
‘I’d better phone the police,’ said Joe, getting up.
‘You know, if it wasn’t for that padlock on the door, no one would suspect what happened,’ said Frank. ‘Mr Pugh might have just felt ill and fainted in there. They’d call it misadventure, or something.’
‘And Percy would get away with it,’ said Joe reflectively. ‘It isn’t as if he’s a vicious murderer. He’s no danger to anyone else.’
‘I could get rid of it,’ offered Frank. ‘I could put it in the pannier on my bike and get rid of it lunchtime.’
‘We’d have to stick to the same story,’ said Joe. ‘We just opened the door and found him lying there.’
‘It’s the truth,’ said Frank. ‘We don’t need to say a word about the padlock. Shall we do it? Poor old Percy — he hasn’t had many breaks.’
‘All right,’ confirmed Joe. ‘We’ll do it.’
After they had shaken hands, he picked up the phone and called the police. Frank took the padlock to his motorbike in the yard at the back of the shop, and secreted it under the toolbag in the pannier.
A squad car drew up outside the shop within five minutes of Joe’s call. A bearded sergeant and a constable came in and Joe opened the freeze chamber and showed them Mr Pugh’s body. Frank described how he had found the body. He omitted to mention the padlock. Joe confirmed Frank’s statement.
‘So it looks as if the body’s been lying in there since you closed on Saturday,’ said the sergeant after they had withdrawn to the warmer air of the shop. ‘You say that Mr Pugh looked in late in the afternoon. What did he want?’
‘He was just making sure that everything was in order before he went on holiday,’ said Joe.
‘He was off to Majorca for a week,’ added Frank.
‘Lucky man,’ put in the constable.
The sergeant gave him a withering look. ‘Was Mr Pugh in good health?’ he asked Joe.
‘I thought he looked rather off-colour,’ answered Joe. ‘He drove himself hard, you know.’
‘He needed that holiday,’ said Frank, quick to see the point of what Joe was suggesting.
‘Well, he didn’t get it,’ said the sergeant. ‘He must have collapsed. Heart, I expect. The doctor will tell us. There’s an ambulance on the way. I suggest you keep the shop closed for a couple of hours. I shall want statements from both of you. Was there anyone else working here on Saturday?’
‘Only Percy — Mr Maddox,’ answered Joe. ‘He isn’t in this morning. I believe he was going to ask Mr Pugh for a few days off.’
‘I see. We’ll want a statement from him. Have you got his address?’
‘He told me he was hoping to go away,’ said Joe.
‘We’ll catch up with him later, then. Which of you was the last to leave on Saturday?’
‘That was Percy,’ said Joe.
‘He stays behind to clear up,’ explained Frank.
‘He puts things away, you mean?’ said the sergeant.
‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘He’s getting on a bit, you know. Worked here for years. A bit slow now, but he likes to be useful. He puts everything away at the end of the day.’
‘In the freezer?’
Joe shook his head. ‘We don’t re-freeze meat. It has to be put in the chiller at the end of the day.’
‘So he wouldn’t have opened the freezer door?’
‘It’s very unlikely,’ said Joe. ‘If he had, he’d have found Mr Pugh, wouldn’t he?’
They took a statement from Frank. He said nothing to incriminate Percy. He simply explained how he had seen Mr Pugh come into the shop late on Saturday afternoon, shortly before he (Frank) had left to deliver the orders. As for this morning, he had opened the freezer door and found Mr Pugh dead on the floor. The constable read the statement back and Frank signed it. ‘Would you like some coffee and a fresh doughnut?’ he asked the policemen. ‘We always have a doughnut in the morning. It’s my job to collect them from Jonquil’s. I go on my bike, and they’re still warm when I get back.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ said the sergeant, putting his hand in his pocket. ‘How much are they?’
Frank felt an exhilarating sense of release as he wheeled his motorcycle into the street and started the engine. He rode up the hill towards the baker’s, stopping a few yards short, by the place where the front of the delicatessen was being renovated. Outside was a builder’s skip containing old wood and masonry. Frank took the padlock from his pannier and dropped it unobtrusively into the skip. He collected the bag of doughnuts from the baker’s and drove back to the shop.
An ambulance had drawn up outside. As Frank approached, one of the attendants was closing the rear door. The man walked round the side of the vehicle and got in. It moved away. The few bystanders who had collected outside the shop moved on.
When Frank went in, Joe had already made the coffee. He was talking to the police about football.
‘We should have gone by now,’ the sergeant told Frank. ‘We’ve got both your statements and the body’s been collected, but we didn’t want to miss those doughnuts.’
Frank handed them around.
‘Still warm,’ said the sergeant. ‘I hope you observed the speed limit, lad.’
Frank smiled.
The police finished their coffee and doughnuts and left the shop.
Frank heaved a huge breath of relief.
Joe took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. ‘Did you get rid of it?’
Frank nodded.
‘Well done,’ said Joe. ‘Well done, Frank.’
‘I reckon old Percy owes us both a beer after that,’ said Frank.
‘It was worth more than that,’ said Joe.
‘We couldn’t have turned him in,’ said Frank.
They opened the shop. Customers who had seen the shop closed earlier now returned in force. They all wanted to know what the police had been doing there and whether it was a body that the ambulancemen had collected. Joe and Frank explained that they were unable to comment. The enquiries persisted and the queue got longer.
‘If you ask me,’ one woman notorious for voicing her opinions said, ‘it was that old boy who sweeps the floor. He was far too old to be working in a shop.’
‘If you mean Percy Maddox, you’re wrong,’ said the woman next in line. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Percy. He’s coming up the street on his bike.’
Joe dropped the cleaver he was using and went to the window. He was joined by Frank, who gave a long, low whistle of amazement.
‘Crazy old man!’ said Joe angrily. ‘What does he think he’s up to? He ought to be in Spain.’
They watched through the window as Percy came to a halt outside the shop, dismounted, removed his cycle clips and wheeled his bicycle up the side passage. A moment later he appeared in the shop, a slight, bald-headed, worried-looking man in a faded grey suit. He picked his apron off the hook and started getting into it. ‘Morning, ladies,’ he said to the queue, then turned to Joe and said, ‘Morning, Joe. Shall I tidy up the window? It’s a bit of a mess.’