A Dangerous Deceit by Marjorie Eccles Page B

the ceiling, that comprised the foundry; there were a couple of boxes to sit on and another for a makeshift table where the two foundry men employed there could eat their sandwiches at dinner time – though when the furnace was lit, like enough it would have been hot as hell’s kitchen.
    â€˜OK. We’ll also need to find out whether anybody was likely to have had a grudge, disaffected employees or such, and what his habits, friends and/or enemies were … talk to the employees … well, I don’t have to tell you, do I? You know the form. Good luck.’ He turned back to the file, but Joe made no immediate move to leave. ‘Is there something else, Sergeant?’
    Joe hesitated. He was sometimes impulsive. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut this time until he’d spoken to Waterhouse. The inspector was a thorn in Joe’s flesh, suspicious of one he regarded as a whippersnapper with a probable ambition to overtake him and who routinely put every obstacle he could in Joe’s way. He might well choose to believe Joe had gone behind his back. On the other hand, the idea was bothering Joe … He plunged.
    â€˜The thing is, it’s all put me in mind of something that happened at the end of February. A body that was found under the snow near Maxstead, a mile or two out of the village. Not far from Maxstead Court – that’s the house belonging to the Scroopes – they’re the big name around here.’
    Reardon thought for a moment or two. ‘Found when the thaw came, skull wounds, still unidentified. What about him?’
    Reardon hadn’t changed, Joe thought. As usual he’d made it his business to have everything at his fingertips so that he was on top of the job, though he’d done his homework pretty quick to have obtained the details of a cold case that was no part of his present remit. But it had been the only unexplained murder in Folbury for decades; maybe that was why he recalled it almost straight away.
    â€˜DI Micklejohn’s case, just before he retired. The Snowman, wasn’t it?’
    â€˜That’s what the local paper called him, sir. Gross, somehow …’ That was how it had seemed to Joe at the time – to dub a brutally murdered man with such a playful nickname – and still did.
    â€˜He was dead, Gilmour.’
    The need to be reminded that there was no room for sentiment, even – or perhaps especially – when you were investigating a murder, embarrassed Joe. ‘Yes, sir. Well. There was nothing at all to identify him, apart from a foreign coin in the lining of his jacket – and swarf on the soles of his boots.’
    And that had literally been all there was. A well-built, youngish man with his skull caved in, wearing a brown serge suit in good repair, except for where a few seam stitches had given way in a jacket pocket, through which a coin had slipped into the lining. A pair of worn but still good brown boots, with a lot of tiny, sharp metallic fragments embedded deep into the leather soles: swarf, the fine metal residue from cutting and grinding machines.
    â€˜Perhaps not quite a gentleman, then.’
    â€˜Sir?’
    â€˜The brown boots. No gentleman wears brown boots, unless with tweeds.’
    â€˜Oh.’ Joe couldn’t decide whether Reardon was being tongue in cheek or whether it was a joke he’d missed, or just another of his obscure remarks. His wife was a teacher and he himself was reported to have a passion for books. ‘Well, I’m just wondering if there could be a connection between that killing and this one.’
    â€˜The swarf, of course.’
    â€˜His boot soles had to have picked it up somewhere, but we went round every brass foundry within miles and came up with nothing. The coin in his pocket was a South African shilling, so it seemed possible he’d been a potential customer from there, being shown around one of the workshops. We started with