“Just a mo,” Barry called until he was sure Jeremy was shut in the kitchen with the door locked.
“Ah, PC Dawkins, and what may I do for you this fine afternoon?” he said when he opened the door. “And what nice dogs you have,” he added, patting Colin and Hans on their heads. Which they liked. “Raaf, raaf, raaf,” they said, sniffing the scents of both Shirley and Pete and wagging their tails meaningfully at Dennis “Shorty”/“Betty” Dawkins.
It was as the animals were getting to know each other that Barry again asked the purpose of Dennis’s visit. “Pleased to see you, of course, but I’m a little busy just now and…”
Which was when Dennis explained he had reason to believe Barry may know something about the whereabouts of the megalomaniac bonkers banker everyone was making such a fuss about and would be obliged if he could step inside for a moment. At which Barry was forced to weigh his options. The easiest course of action was to deny all knowledge of bonkers bankers, wish Dawkins well in his enquiries and close the door. But what if—somehow, God only knew how—he had evidence of some sort and came back with a warrant to search the premises, in which case the whole bally police force would be involved? The very last thing Barry needed. Simpler by far to deal with just the one copper and come clean by explaining the true nature of Jeremy’s presence at the Shepherd’s Hut and the manner in which it had been blown out of all proportion by the media. That should take to wind out of his sails.
“Step this way,” he therefore invited Dennis.
Colin and Hans were very pleased.
And how, you will be asking yourselves just as Barry had, did Dennis, Colin and Hans finally track down Jeremy even when the trail had apparently gone stone cold and they’d all returned to the cop shop empty handed? By Dennis telling Billy McCann he was damned if he was going to give up on finding Squiffy O’Donnell and intended to give it one last try, that was how. Then by him and the dogs setting off, again on a false track in case Billy got suspicious, before knocking on the doors of each and every one of the villagers on Fanbury’s main drag and asking if they’d spotted anything at all unusual on the night of Barry’s and Jeremy’s escape from the barn. And of course, they all had. UFOs, ISIS lookalikes creeping up to their windows, crazed cyclists about to scratch their cars. The list went on…
But there was something in Batty Hattie Duchamps’s story that eerily rang true. It was her report of having been unable to sleep, “Because of my age, young man,” and, parting her lace curtains as per usual in the wee small hours in case of any threats to her or the local community, having espied the Crawford’s gardener—Barry, she believed was his name—trundling an oversize wheelbarrow along the main (only) road. With… a… pig… in… tow!
“Pretty damned unusual, would you not say? Fellows walking their dogs for pees and poops before beddy byes a person can understand. Better than their poor beasts peeing or pooping on the carpet. But, walking a pig?”
“Pig?” said Dennis. The Crawford geezer had lived with a pig, hadn’t he? And what if…? It was a long shot, but one worth taking when there were no other options on the table.
“Pig,” Batty Hattie confirmed. “Filthy creatures.”
“I don’t suppose you have any idea where this Barry person might live?” Dennis had quizzed Hattie, who, batty though she was reputed to be, came up with specific directions.
“Shouldn’t be allowed to live there. It’s against all the regulations. I’ve told the Council enough times,” she called after Dennis. “And now he’s harbouring pigs.”
But, having thanked Hattie profusely for her help, told her she had assisted in a major crime investigation, and wished her at least some sleep tonight, Dennis was already on his way with Colin and Hans.
“Sleep, peep,” said Hattie, closing the door behind him and shifting on arthritic legs to her “radio room” for the afternoon’s episode of The Archers in which Ben was forecast to have become worried by claims of Alf Grundy’s historic paedophilia.
Eleven
Sir Magnus Montague was underwhelmed by Julie Mackintosh’s progress in the hunt for Jeremy Crawford when she reported back.
“Not even a hint of a sniff of a trace, girl?” he said from behind his Chippendale desk.
Julie shook her head.
“One hopes you checked all the twitterings or twootings or whatever they’re called. Good money I’m paying you. Wouldn’t like to think of it going to waste.”
“No, Sir Magnus.”
“No what? ‘No, I didn’t check all the twootings, Sir Magnus.’ Or, ‘No, I wouldn’t like to think of your good money going to waste, Sir Magnus.’”
“The latter,” said Julie, although the salary she was paid was a pittance by comparison with the male staff in the office.
“Should jolly well think so, girl. Need to be careful which way the wind’s blowing when it comes to possible promotions, eh? In the light of which, one hopes the answer to the twootings question wasn’t also a ‘no.’”
Which of course it was. No way had Julie intended to waste her precious time scrolling through thousands of clearly bananas tweets. But she wasn’t going to fess up to it. Not to Bossy Boy, anyway. On the other hand, nor was she going to lie. “Never tell lies, our Julie,” her dad, Steve, had always told her. “They’ll always catch up with you in the end, luv. Particularly if you can’t remember who you told which lie to.” And Steve would have known after all those years of working the Mersey docks and being told he’d never lose his job… until the night before he did and Julie’s mother left home. Yet still he’d somehow managed to send her to university down in The Smoke. They said in Liverpool the only good things to go south were rain clouds, but Steve had nonetheless believed such a move would give his only child the chances in life he’d never had. And Julie loved him for it.
So she never lied. On the other hand, largely through exposure to the very academics in whom Steve had so much faith, she had quickly learnt how to obfuscate. Getting a straight answer from an academic was like extracting truth from a politician. Never reply to the question you’re asked was the maxim. Always hum and haw for a bit, then come up with an abstruse answer to the question you wanted to be asked instead.
The preferred question Julie framed for this occasion was: “How hopeful are you of future progress in the hunt for Jeremy Crawford, Miss Mackintosh?”
Dodging precise details of Bossy Boy’s tweetings/twootings enquiry, therefore, Julie nodded and said the material was certainly interesting and she was working day and night on a complex algorithmic formula she was confident would, within next to no time, deliver the very goods Sir Magnus had requested: viz Jeremy Crawford’s whereabouts. She would report back in a few days.
“Gosh… well… um,” said Sir Magnus, perplexed just in the manner Julie wanted him. “All-go-rhythmic, eh? And a formula to boot. Sort of dancing while you work, is it?”
Swallowing a giggle, Julie claimed she needed to get on with the job ASAP and excused herself.
“I shall be out of the office for a few days,” she called over her shoulder. “Anything urgent, you’ve got my mobile number. Have a nice day.”
What Julie hadn’t told Sir Magnus—which wasn’t a lie, just a matter of withholding the truth—was that, during the “research” in which she hadn’t contacted million-pound-seekers worldwide, she had been in touch with both “Jim” in Knotty Ash and “Betty” in Fanbury in regard to their claimed sightings of Jeremy Crawford.