Scene of Crime by Jill McGown Page A

know what, if anything, was missing from next door, but he did know that the intruder had time to make the usual sort of mess. Drawers had been pulled out, cupboards opened, shelves disturbed, and it certainlylooked as though items were missing from them. So if this youth had run away the minute the window was broken, it seemed more likely he was a lookout who had gotten cold feet rather than the actual burglar. Whoever was doing the actual burgling might still have been inside. If Mr. Jones hadn’t wasted almost half an hour between hearing the altercation and phoning the police, they might have arrived with the intruder still on the premises. Or at least in time to save Mrs. Bignall.
    “Was this boy carrying anything?” he asked.
    Mr. Jones frowned, and thought. “No,” he said eventually. “No, now that you mention it, I don’t think he was. He was running very fast—you know? Arms going like pistons. He couldn’t have been carrying anything.”
    Well, at least they could try finding the lookout, if only Mr. Jones could see past the color of his skin to give a decent description. Once they had him, there would be no problem. He was obviously already alarmed, and once he found out that his partner in crime had caused someone’s death, he would be very eager to shift the blame.
    Tom tried again, dredging up the interviewing techniques he was supposed to apply when dealing with honest, upright citizens who had inadvertently become mixed up in a criminal investigation. “Now that you’ve got a picture of him in your head, can you remember
anything
about what he was wearing? Anything at all about him?”
    Mr. Jones was shaking his head slowly, but then he stopped and frowned again. “One of those bomber jacket things,” he said. “Shiny. Green, maybe. Yes. Yes, I think it was green. But Mr. Watson might be able to give you a better description—he was much closer to him than Iwas. He was standing by his greenhouse, and the boy was at his gate.”
    Yes, thought Tom, looking over at the greenhouse. He would only be about ten feet away from the boy. The only problem was that Mr. Watson said he hadn’t seen or heard anything or anyone at all, and he had once been a policeman himself, according to the uniforms. But while Mr. Jones might not be someone Tom had taken to readily, it seemed unlikely that he’d imagined all this, so Watson was definitely worth a visit.
    “Thank you,” he said, making his way back to the stairs. “You’ve been a great help. And I’m sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you.”
    “It’s a terrible business. In this neighborhood, too.”
    Lloyd pulled up in the once-quiet street with its handful of well-to-do terraced houses, now alive with vehicles and urgency, and looked at Carl Bignall. “If you’d prefer to go to a neighbor or a friend,” he began, “I can—”
    “No.” Bignall opened the car door. “No, I’m all right, thank you.” He got out and walked slightly unsteadily toward the house.
    Lloyd had driven him home because Bignall had received such a shock when he heard what had happened; he definitely wasn’t all right. Lloyd caught up with him. “Dr. Bignall, if you could follow me, it might be as well,” he said. “The SOCOs—the scene-of-crime officers—might want us to keep clear of any area they still need to examine.”
    “Yes,” muttered Bignall, falling into step behind him. “Yes, of course. I understand.”
    They met Tom as he emerged from the house nextdoor. “Ah, good,” Lloyd said as all three reached Carl Bignall’s front door. “Could you look after Dr. Bignall, Tom?”
    Tom took Bignall into the sitting room, and Lloyd continued on to the kitchen at the end of the hallway, where Estelle Bignall’s body lay. He was walking under streamers and holly; how sad it all looked.
    “You can come in, sir,” said the young constable who stood guard. “The SOCOs just finished in here.”
    Lloyd went in and looked at the small, slim young woman who