"Come in," she ordered.
We stood in the kitchen. "First of all," I told her, "I want to give you a ticking off."
"A ticking off?" she echoed. "I'm too old to take a ticking off from you, young man, police or no."
"You should be more careful who you let in. Don't you have a spy hole, or a chain on the door?"
"I'm eighty-three years old next birthday," she responded. "If anything was going to happen to me it would have happened by now, don't you think?"
At what age do you start adding one on instead of taking a few off? How do you argue with someone who believes the Earth is flat? You don't.
"I'm enquiring about people salesmen who come round knocking at doors,"
I told her. "Have you ever had anyone call from a firm called Magic Plastic?"
"Magic Plastic? Yes, of course I have. He calls regularly.
Never buy anything, though. Far too dear. He's a nice man, always polite. What's he done?"
"Nothing. Do you know his name?"
"Why do you want to know his name if he hasn't done anything?"
"Because he might have seen something. We don't only talk to criminals, you know. We talk to witnesses, too." I could give it as good as she could.
"What sort of something?"
"That's what we want to ask. Do you know him?"
"No."
"Do you still have a catalogue?"
"No, he collected it."
"When?"
"Weeks ago. Months, in fact."
I thanked her for her trouble and told her to keep the door chain on, but she wasn't listening.
The next two houses were unoccupied. A middle-aged woman with a headscarf over her rollers saw me knocking and told me that her neighbours had gone to Tenerife for a fortnight. Who'd have a job in crime prevention? Yes, the Magic Plastic man did call, although he hadn't been for a few weeks. No, she never bought anything off him, and no, she didn't have a catalogue.
The woman with the two toddlers who lived directly opposite the Crabtrees bought some stuff for cleaning moss off her patio when he first called, but it didn't work and she hadn't bought anything since.
Her labrador insisted on jumping up at me, leaving big muddy paw-prints on the East Pennine Police waterproof. "He's just being friendly," she assured me.
And that was that. I'd arrived. It couldn't be postponed a moment longer. I crossed the road, looking up at Mrs.
Crabtree, her chamois leather moving round in circles, slowly progressing across the pane of glass like a glider in a crosswind. She paused as my hand fell on their gate and we stared at each other for a moment. I lifted the catch, she reached into a corner for an invisible speck of dirt.
William, her husband, answered the door. As I waited I noticed that the drain next to the bay window was covered with a plastic lid, to prevent the ingress of leaves. A snip at 8.99 from Magic Plastic.
"Hello, Mr. Crabtree," I said. "I'm Inspector Priest, from Heckley CID. Do you remember me?"
He looked confused and mumbled something.
"I'd like a word with you both," I told him, stepping forward. "Do you mind if I come in?"
He moved to one side to allow me past, and when he'd reclosed the door we went into their front room. I took the heavy coat off and suggested he call Mrs. Crabtree. He shouted up the stairs to her, saying they had a visitor. He called her Mother. I placed the coat in the angle between a sideboard and the wall, half on the floor, half leaning against the wall.
William hadn't changed much, but his wife had. She'd taken the house coat off and had lost at least a couple of stones since I'd last seen her. Her face was lined and her hair unkempt. We all sat down.
"How are you both?" I began.
They shrugged, mumbling meaningless answers to a meaningless question.
"I was the officer in charge," I told them, 'when Susan died. I came to see you, but you've probably forgotten me. Christmas brought it all back, and I was wondering how you were."
"So-so," he replied, quietly.
"For you," I went on, "I don't suppose it ever went away, did it?"
They shook their heads. "No."
"And I don't suppose it ever will. In a sense, you probably don't really want it to go away. She was your daughter, your only child, and you loved her. She'll always be a part of you."
Mrs. Crabtree said: "The Lord moves in mysterious ways."
"That he does," I agreed.
She turned to her husband. "Would you like to make some tea, Treasure?" she suggested.
"I'll put the kettle on," he replied, stooping forward before making a big effort to rise from his low chair.
"No!" I insisted, raising a hand. "Not for me, thanks all the same."
William settled back.
I straightened the antimacassar on the arm of my chair. "I have no children," I stated. "But it's hard, even for me, to imagine anything as devastating as losing a child. Except, of course, you lost a grandchild, too. That must be unbearable."
"Some fell on stony ground," she said. "And even as we sow, so shall we reap."
"Quite," I replied. "The Bible must be a great comfort to you, Mrs.
Crabtree."
He said: "Yes, it's been a great comfort to you, hasn't it, Mother?"
She reached out and took his hand. "We came through it together, didn't we, Treasure? We helped each other and trusted in the Lord."
In the far corner of the room was a big Mitsubishi television. Stuck on the side of it was a holder for the channel changer. "Only 2.99 and you'll never again have to search for that elusive remote control."
"Hey! That's a good idea," I said, glad to change the subject. I strolled across the room and lifted the controller from its holster. It occurred to me that I could just as easily have turned the telly on while I was there. "I could do with one of these," I declared. "Where did you find it?"
"Oh, we bought it," he replied.
"From a shop?"
"No. It's someone who comes round."
"You mean, like the Magic Plastic man?"
"Yes. Them."
"Magic Plastic?"
"Yes."
"Right. I'll have to look out for him. I'm told they do some useful stuff."
"Yes, they do."
I glanced around the room. It was still filled with all the clutter I'd seen before: commemorative plates, porcelain shepherdesses, cut glass vases. Everything pristine, standing on crocheted doilies to protect the polished surfaces of the furniture. No photographs.
"You don't seem to have a photograph of Susan," I said.
They glanced at each other. "No," he replied, awkwardly. "We, er, have different ideas about that. I try to forget, most of the time, put her out of my mind. It's my way of coping. Mother's just the opposite. She likes to remember Susan as much as possible, don't you, Mother? We have photographs. They're upstairs. I go in every night, before I go to bed, for a few minutes, but Mother spends most of her time up there." He was close to tears.
"Would you like to see Susan's room, Inspector?" Mrs. Crabtree asked, leaning forward.
"Yes," I replied. "I'd like that very much."
I followed her upstairs, to a room at the back of the house with a crucifix on the door. She pushed the door open and ushered me in.
The hairs on my neck were bristling as if I'd moved into a powerful magnetic field. The only illumination came from electric candles on the walls and at either side of what I can only call a shrine. It had probably been a Welsh dresser, but now it was a repository for religious artifacts and memorabilia of their daughter. There was a big picture of her as the focal point, underneath one representing Jesus Christ as a Scandinavian pop star rather than a Middle Eastern artisan.
Susan looked intelligent but you'd never call her pretty. Her hair was hacked and she wore what I believe is called a twin set. Maybe I'd have liked her values. Rosary beads hung across a small photograph of the Pope.