wearing will be heavily marked with blood. If you find that garment, it would be easy enough to match the samples.’
Lambert nodded and took his leave. He wondered as he drove away whether that garment had even now been destroyed.
***
Sergeant Bert Hook had spoken to Amy Pegg on a few previous occasions. She lived only half a mile from him, separated by a few fields and a straggling road of houses built at intervals over the last half century. The village bobby which still lurked beneath the CID man meant that Bert knew most of the people in his area.
This sporadic acquaintance was scant preparation for the task he now had. He shepherded her out of the mortuary, guided her to the white police car, watched her as she stowed herself, then put the seat belt carefully into place around her, as if she were either helplessly young or fragile with the extremity of age, instead of a vigorous woman of fifty. Shock took people like that; he had coped with it often enough to be an expert.
The CID section tended to use Bert to cope with the extremes of emotion, as Lambert had done now when he asked Hook to take Mrs Pegg to identify her husband. Policemen and policewomen have the same weaknesses as the rest of humanity. They mocked Bert for what they saw as an inappropriate sensitivity, for his predilection for the underdog in a world where they saw underdogs as more often than not the instruments of the crime they sought to control. Yet they were ready enough to exploit Hook’s reputation for empathy when it meant that they could assign to him delicate tasks such as the first soundings of a bereaved spouse.
Routine has it that the next of kin are the first suspects in an unlawful killing, and the routine is such simply because statistics prove that it is justified. The first procedure is always to check the reactions to the death and the whereabouts at the time of the crime of those nearest to the deceased by ties of blood or marriage, even when as now the officer may be privately convinced that a spouse has no connection with the death.
‘It was Charlie all right.’ The woman in the back of the car spoke as though she were addressing the world at large rather than an individual, her eyes staring unseeingly at the hedges which flew past on each side. ‘He was very — very white. Like paper. I thought for a moment it might be someone else.’ Her words spoke of the split second of wild hope she had had by the corpse, but her voice was not the soft west country sound which Bert remembered; it had a dry rasp and a sporadic delivery. Like sweet bells jangled out of tune, thought Bert. He was doing literature in his Open University degree, and these comparisons sprang up now when he least expected them.
He did not say anything else until they were back in the neat little terraced house, thinking that she might talk more easily and be more reliable in her facts when she was on familiar ground. He looked at the neat, spotless room with its cottage suite and its flowered curtains and said awkwardly, ‘You’ve got a lovely place here, Amy.’ It was the first time he had ventured upon her first name. It was not entirely politeness; his own house, with two active boys of nine and eleven, never seemed to be tidy nowadays, except precariously, when they had gone to bed.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ She was standing in the middle of the room, still staring ahead as if addressing a group. It was convenient for policemen to behave as if their snouts did not have private lives, but the reality was confronting him now.
Hook said, ‘Yes, I would. I very rarely say no to a cup of tea. But will you let me get it for us?’
She nodded, surprised by nothing after the awful shock which had filled her day. He sat her in a chair, made the tea, decided which had been Charlie’s favourite chair, and carefully avoided it. Perched awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, he waited until she had taken two gulps of the hot, sweet tea before he
Lambert nodded and took his leave. He wondered as he drove away whether that garment had even now been destroyed.
***
Sergeant Bert Hook had spoken to Amy Pegg on a few previous occasions. She lived only half a mile from him, separated by a few fields and a straggling road of houses built at intervals over the last half century. The village bobby which still lurked beneath the CID man meant that Bert knew most of the people in his area.
This sporadic acquaintance was scant preparation for the task he now had. He shepherded her out of the mortuary, guided her to the white police car, watched her as she stowed herself, then put the seat belt carefully into place around her, as if she were either helplessly young or fragile with the extremity of age, instead of a vigorous woman of fifty. Shock took people like that; he had coped with it often enough to be an expert.
The CID section tended to use Bert to cope with the extremes of emotion, as Lambert had done now when he asked Hook to take Mrs Pegg to identify her husband. Policemen and policewomen have the same weaknesses as the rest of humanity. They mocked Bert for what they saw as an inappropriate sensitivity, for his predilection for the underdog in a world where they saw underdogs as more often than not the instruments of the crime they sought to control. Yet they were ready enough to exploit Hook’s reputation for empathy when it meant that they could assign to him delicate tasks such as the first soundings of a bereaved spouse.
Routine has it that the next of kin are the first suspects in an unlawful killing, and the routine is such simply because statistics prove that it is justified. The first procedure is always to check the reactions to the death and the whereabouts at the time of the crime of those nearest to the deceased by ties of blood or marriage, even when as now the officer may be privately convinced that a spouse has no connection with the death.
‘It was Charlie all right.’ The woman in the back of the car spoke as though she were addressing the world at large rather than an individual, her eyes staring unseeingly at the hedges which flew past on each side. ‘He was very — very white. Like paper. I thought for a moment it might be someone else.’ Her words spoke of the split second of wild hope she had had by the corpse, but her voice was not the soft west country sound which Bert remembered; it had a dry rasp and a sporadic delivery. Like sweet bells jangled out of tune, thought Bert. He was doing literature in his Open University degree, and these comparisons sprang up now when he least expected them.
He did not say anything else until they were back in the neat little terraced house, thinking that she might talk more easily and be more reliable in her facts when she was on familiar ground. He looked at the neat, spotless room with its cottage suite and its flowered curtains and said awkwardly, ‘You’ve got a lovely place here, Amy.’ It was the first time he had ventured upon her first name. It was not entirely politeness; his own house, with two active boys of nine and eleven, never seemed to be tidy nowadays, except precariously, when they had gone to bed.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ She was standing in the middle of the room, still staring ahead as if addressing a group. It was convenient for policemen to behave as if their snouts did not have private lives, but the reality was confronting him now.
Hook said, ‘Yes, I would. I very rarely say no to a cup of tea. But will you let me get it for us?’
She nodded, surprised by nothing after the awful shock which had filled her day. He sat her in a chair, made the tea, decided which had been Charlie’s favourite chair, and carefully avoided it. Perched awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, he waited until she had taken two gulps of the hot, sweet tea before he
Similar Books
