His face seemed to freeze and she knew she’d said something gauche. He said nothing but the look of anguish that passed across his face was grey and chilly. He opened his mouth and still said nothing. Then he looked away from her.
‘I would dearly like to confide in you one day, Martha,’ he said softly, ‘but now is not the time. My wife is not a well woman.’ He met her eyes very briefly and she nodded and smiled.
‘When you’re ready to talk, Alex,’ she said, ‘I will be ready to listen.’
He met her eyes, then: ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I shan’t forget.’
She changed the subject. ‘Mark Sullivan seems better.’
A tinge of humour touched Alex’s face. ‘A little bird told me that Dr Sullivan has somehow managed to curb his drinking.’
‘That was the conclusion I came to and I’m so glad. So very glad. He’s clever and talented and it was a rotten waste.’
‘He’s also left his wife, so the same little bird told me, and is living alone in a small rented bungalow.’
‘Another one with a much younger girlfriend?’
‘I don’t think so, at least, not that the little bird has told me. I think it were the drink that done it .’ Alex stood up. ‘Thanks for listening, Martha. I appreciate it.’
‘Keep me informed,’ she said. ‘What’s your next move?’
‘Get someone to talk to the estate agents who sold number 41 to the Godfreys, see if I can interview the relatives of the old lady, just in case they have anything to add – maybe about carers or something, take some sniffer dogs over to the house the Sedgewicks lived in before they moved just in case they did bring the body with them to number 41.’
‘But,’ Martha protested, ‘there are still the questions about Mrs Sedgewick’s very odd behaviour, the shrine of the children’s room, the name Poppy. There’s something funny about Alice Sedgewick and from what you’ve told me the family form a wall around her. They are abnormally protective of her. Why?’
ELEVEN
Holmes and Watson were a pair of springer spaniels trained as sniffer dogs and their relish for detection was about as great as that of the great Sherlock himself. Their trainer was a police sergeant named Shotton and he too did his work with great gusto and loved the dogs almost more than his wife (though he wouldn’t have dared tell her so). The three of them worked as a beautiful team.
Holmes and Watson’s particular speciality was the sniffing out of decayed corpses. In their time they had unearthed quite a few and as Shotton put them in the back of his van and looked at their eager faces, tongues hanging out, already panting in anticipation, he wondered if today’s mission would bring more success.
He had his orders: first of all to take the dogs to 41 The Mount and see if they found any sign of a second body. If the site proved negative he was to move on to Bayston Hill, to the house the Sedgewicks had previously occupied and do the same there.
Anticipating opposition he had telephoned the Sedgewick’s house to forewarn them. Aaron Sedgewick was absolutely livid.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing in this police state,’ he said.
Yeah, yeah, Shotton thought. Police state when they don’t like what we do, but powerless and ineffectual when it is they who want us.
‘Merely trying to find out the truth, sir. I’ll be round with the dogs in half an hour.’
Sedgewick was no more friendly when Shotton arrived at number 41, the dogs straining at their leashes.
Aaron Sedgewick stood, stony-faced, in the middle of the lounge, as the dogs, noses burying in the carpets, began their frantic search handled by Shotton who took absolutely no notice at all of the furious man.
Holmes and Watson covered every single corner of the house, even managing to scamper up the ladder into the loft. Apart from interest in the area around the water tank they found nothing.
When Shotton had loaded up the dogs back into the van he returned to the house.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘Your cooperation was much appreciated.’
Sedgewick snorted and gave him a look of pure loathing.
Of his wife there was no sign.
He had a very different reception when it came to the house in Bayston Hill. Occupied by a lively and elderly widow who was, of course, not implicated in the case at all, she thoroughly enjoyed the search. Her name, appropriately enough, was Alexandra Mistery and she heard his sketchy explanation with incredulous eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said excitedly. ‘I read about it in the paper.’ She frowned. ‘It was a bizarre case. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.’
Neither, Shotton thought, could the police.
‘But then the newspapers don’t always get it right, do they?’ She waited, hoping he would volunteer more information, adding, ‘And the lady who went to the hospital was the same one who sold us the house. We-ell.’
She made a great fuss of the dogs, made Shotton a cup of tea, sat at the table and chatted on and on. He found it difficult not to give the game away as she was so curious.
‘I’m a big fan of crime fiction,’ she said. ‘I love Andrew Taylor and Val McDermid. Oh, they have such wicked minds.’ Her eyes gleamed at the memory of some of the plots. ‘And you think… you really think there might possibly be a dead body here?’ Her eyes shone with ghoulish glee. ‘Oh, what a thing. That would be amazing.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Another cup of tea, sergeant?’
‘No. Thank you. I’d better get on.’
The house was the neat, orderly abode of a middle-aged woman who lived alone. The only thing that interested Shotton was the pile of paperbacks stacked up by the side of the bed. A bookshelf downstairs was full of the same sort of titles. For Holmes and Watson, sniffing their way enthusiastically from room to room, there was nothing to interest them at all except a dead mouse they found at the bottom of the airing cupboard.
Mrs Mistery followed him around from room to room, enjoying herself, tut tutting at the dead mouse and practising what she would tell her friends.
‘The police. They thought… another body. Dogs… murder. Just like one of my books. And the dogs – all over the place. Scampering up and down the stairs, sniffing under the beds. All too thrilling.’
Like many people who live alone she made little comments to herself which left Shotton wondering whether he should join in the conversation or leave Mrs Mistery to carry on chatting to Mrs Mistery.
When he and the dogs had finished with the house she made another pot of tea and they sat and drank while she continued her attempted pumping of the officer. As soon as he had finished the first cup she offered him a second but Shotton stood up. ‘Thank you, Mrs Mistery. You’ve been really kind but no. If you don’t mind I’ll just check around the garden and then all will be done.’
The garden was quite small with a rectangular lawn and a couple of young trees at the end. Nearer the house it had been largely paved over. Shotton stepped through the patio doors straight onto an area paved with pink and cream slabs. Immediately Holmes and Watson began to yelp excitedly, their noses right down on the paving slabs. Shotton’s heart sank. It was so much easier to dig up a garden than lift a dozen or so concrete paving stones. But there was no doubt about it. The dogs were barking at something. And they expected their reward.
Through the patio doors the dogs’ behaviour had not escaped the vigilant Mrs Mistery’s attention. She rapped sharply on the glass, mouthing, ‘Have they found something, sergeant? Is there something there?’
Her excitement at being part of a real live murder was so great that it hadn’t occurred to her that this would mean the lifting of at least some of the patio slabs, disrupting her garden possibly for weeks. Shotton watched as both Holmes and Watson yelped and tried to stick their noses right into the crack between two of the slabs. He marked the spots then put the dogs in the back of the van, rewarding them for their skill. Then he returned to the house and the now wildly excited lady.