Episode 4 - The boyfriend

Lunch at Romano’s bistro was turbulent, not least because of Gloria, Cleo’s mother, a boisterous, flamboyant person who now worked as the hostess at the restaurant.

Gloria blamed her daughter’s serious attitude to life on her English father, a guy who had picked Gloria up when she was a young showgirl and taken her to Upper Grumpsfield to continue his mad affair with her. Gloria was flattered and dreamt of a future in a country villa with a guy she loved (for reasons that mystified her colleagues). Her disillusionment was great. She was after all a dancer, not the Afro-American slave girl the Hartley family thought was there to serve them. The country villa turned out to be a smallish cottage, but Gloria was anxious not to let anyone know that she had been made a fool of, and she still loved John Hartley, who was charming in a stiff upper-lip sort of way that was unknown to the Chicago-born showdirl. But enough is enough. Hartley Junior was proud of his captivation of this bird of paradice, but unaware of her unhappiness until  one night Gloria crept out of the cottage, rejoined the show as it ended its run in London, and travelled back to Chicago with the troupe.

Gloria did not tell the Hartleys that she was ‘escaping’ and she did not know that she was expecting John Hartley’s child.

It took 3 years for Gloria to decide to reveal the existence of her daughter. She sent John Hartley a photo of Cleo, whose facial features reflected the Hartley looks. Little Cleo was undeniably a Hartley. Gloria declared that she needed support to pay for the child’s education. Considering Cleo’s likeness to the Hartleys and to avoid scandal and perceived disgrace, John Hartley ensured that from then on money would be sent regularly, though the bank was committed to not mentioning the child. The regular payments were explained as an investment. John Hartley did not marry and had no other children.

Cleo eventually spurned her mother’s ambition to get her daughter trained as a dancer and into a chorus line, thanks to generous financial support went to university and finished up with a PhD in sociology.

She then did what she later admitted was the greatest mistake she ever made and married the first handsome guy who showed interest in her. Gloria was delighted with her choice. Cleo did not know then that Jay Salerno had betted that he could get a serious academic to marry him and picked on Cleo because he was strapped for cash and needed to win the bet as soon as opportunity knocked.  How a serious academic could possibly have fallen for such a brazen philanderer was something Cleo was never able to explain even to herself.

Cleo’s relations with her mother deteriorated even more as Gloria took sides with Salerno, whose drinking was out of control and who had consequently lost his job and blamed Cleo for that. He had abused her violently and kicked her unborn child to death and Cleo had up to that point thought things could improve, though she would never have advised anyone she dealt with in her job as social worker to put up with violence.

The death of her unborn child shook Cleo into action. She found refuge with friends in New York, filed for divorce and broke off the contact with her mother.

The first she knew about her father, was when Cleo received news of his death from Gloria’s lawyer. Cleo had left her new address with him and him promise not to divulge it to her mother for at least a year, by which time Cleo hoped Gloria had come to senses and realized just how disloyal she had been.

Cleo was, to her amazement, bequeathed the Hartley family estate that to her knowledge only consisted of the cottage her mother had once described to her. Certain that the legacy was the answer to the problem of wat to do next, Cleo moved to the backwater village of Upper Grumpsfield to live in a neglected old cottage. John Hartley had worked hard at his job and lived alone in a rented apartment in London until his premature death.

Not surprisingly, Gloria eventually worked out where her daughter was living after none of her former colleagues and friends would tell her. she was and followed her to make it up. Gloria eventually moved in with Romano, a restauranteur who was charmed by Gloria and couldn’t believe his luck.Neither could Cleo and Gary who had reason to hope she would now act her age.

***

Seeing just how flamboyant Gloria could be when trying to impress, Gary found himself explaining Gloria to Len, who was chastened by Gary’s honesty and promised himself not to listen to any more vicious gossip about him, much of which seemed to emanate from Mike Curlew’s lips.

“Gloria is fortunately not like my wife,” he assured the wide-eyed cop. “This lady’s rather overwhelming, isn’t she? Still 100% showgirl.”

Len nodded. Gloria had wrapped her arm around his shoulder and nestled her head against his when she brought the dishes-of-the-day menu.

“I saw her nestling up to you,” said Gary. “She’s precocious, but extremely conservative when you get near her comfort zone. The problem is that she doesn’t respect other people’s comfort zones.”

Gloria returned with a carafe of water.

“Friends of Gary’s are friends of mine,” she said lasciviously, walking round the table and leaning her hand on Len’s shoulder.

“I’m only a cop,” Len said as he shrugged her off.

“Cops can be friends, too,” Gloria gushed despite Gary’s warning look, or maybe because of it.

“Enough, mother-in-law and grandmother of my children. Behave yourself!” Gary finally said in a loud voice. Gloria winced, poured water into glasses, sniffed towards Gary and left.

“Sorry about that, Len.”

“Don’t be sorry. She’s quite fun.”

“That depends on what you mean by fun.”

“Jolly and warm.”

“Gloria is not warm, Len. She has almost forgotten she has 7 grandchildren and after 40 years of celibacy is now celebrating sex like a hooker.”

Len tried to concentrate on the children factor.

“Seven?”

“More on that another time, Len. Can you drive back to the dead woman’s flat with me after we’ve eaten?”

“I’ll be glad to.”

“We need to look through any documents still there, though I think Chris will have taken most of them back to HQ. There are sure to be photos. He won’t have taken all of them. And we need to talk to neighbours about the foreign boyfriend Daphne is supposed to have. We cops should always go round in twos and you seem a good choice for this afternoon.”

“Any time, Gary. I want to learn.”

***

Len again demonstrated his skill at opening doors. Gary was amused. Why had Mike been telling tales on Len? He was not doing anything illegal if he was acting as a police officer on a case and there was no reaction to doorbell ringing and knocking, but every reason to think all was not in order.

Mike was getting out of hand with his jealousy. Gary had the feeling that the rumours about him having an affair with Mia were being spread by her own husband. What did Mike have in mind? Promotion in return for bedding his wife or stopping his .malicious gossipping?

At that moment Gary decided that he would make Mia his successor .Mike would have to go to a different department so that Mia could get on with her work, or better still, go somewhere ese entirely. Having made that decision, Gary felt better. He thought that Greg would take the decision in good part. The possibility of both him and Mia sharing the post came to mind. He would talk to Greg about that, too, but he did not think that Greg would stand in Mia’s way.

***

Chris had left a note on the couch table in the living-room of Daphne’s flat.

“I knew you’d come back,” it said. “I’ve taken quite a lot with me. There’s an empty box in the small bedroom for you to put anything else in that you think we should look at again, but I’ve taped everything and quite a lot is already on the laptop app. If anyone is on file, we’ll get him. I’ll phone you later. Chris.”

Len stacked all the photos in a pile as he took them from various walls.

“Just the photos, Len. We won’t need the frames.”

“What if the woman in the bath is not Daphne? Won’t she be upset that her flat has been ransacked?”

“We’ll have to risk it.”

“There’s a drawer full of photos here, Gary. The woman in the bathtub might be in here, too.”

Amused at the weird phrasing, Gary took out his Polaroid photo to compare faces, but Len was quicker. Armed with a digital close-up of the dead woman, he started to sift systematically through the collection of family images. After a while he sat back and deliberated. Most of the photos were of groups and the faces were very small.

Gary, who had been leafing through travel brochures, one of which had been mentioned in the dream account, asked Len which one he would want to look at if he was planning a vacation.

“Morocco. Egypt. They are the countries I’d like to go to,” he said.

Gary handed him the relevant brochure.

“Some of the pages are dog-eared,” said Len,  flipping through the brochure. “Someone had the same idea.”

“Talking of Egypt,” said Gary, “some gypsies come from that part of the world. There’s a big family living just outside Middlethumpton. Nice law-abiding people. Send their children to local schools. I can’t understand why they don’t settle. I suppose it must be in their genes to wander and camp. People often call them travellers. Two of the guys in that family are skilled craftsmen.

“I thought gypsies came from Eastern Europe,” said Len.

“A lot of people think gypsies come from Egypt,” said Gary. “I’m about one third Indian, by the way.”

Len had wondered about Gary’s striking looks. He looked up the gypsy topic on his phone and read the result aloud.

“It says here that gypsies were originally a nomadic people from the Punjab region of northern India.”

“Now it’s me learning,” said Gary. “We might be related.”

“Meaning the local Romanies?”

“I suppose we all descend from a few ancients,” said Gary.

“Gypsies got to Europe about eleven hundred years ago and were called ‘Gypsies’ because Europeans thought they came from Egypt."

“That shows you how dangerous a little knowledge can be,” said Gary.

“So what’s the connection to Daphne?” said Len.

“In the dream recording, a fortune-teller comes up.”

“Isn’t that association rather a long shot, Gary?”

“We’ll ask my wife. I’ll phone her now. You’d better come to dinner tonight and listen to the recording to make sure we are on the same wave-length.”

“OK. Thanks. Shall I get the box for these photos?”

“Good idea. I’ll just ring home.”

***

Gary thought he might have gone over the top with his associations, but he had set the ball rolling. Dorothy would have to hear his shaky theory. Like anyone who thinks they have a bright idea, the more he thought about it, the more impressed he was. He had not even looked at the other brochures. They might well also have been dog-eared and a vacation in Denmark planned. What would Dorothy say?

“We’ll take the other brochures along, Len,” he said, to cover the loophole in his current theory. ”There might be something in them.”

“Such as?”

Gary improvised.

“A note, a phone number, anything that tells us something about the person who probably spent hours looking at them.”

***

Gary and Len did not get out of the flat as soon as they had hoped. Len checked security and discovered that the French-Window in the living room was not locked. Chris would not have left it like that. Len whispered that someone might be on the balcony. It ran round the corner of the building and you could not see onto the part behind the bathroom.

“What do we do now?” Len said.

“Good question. We don’t know if anyone is out there and if so, whether he’s armed. We can’t approach him,” said Gary.

“Why don’t we say loud and clear that we are leaving and then bang the flat door, but stay inside?”

“That is a really good idea.”

“Enid Blyton, actually,” said Len.

“Never. Don’t be so modest.”

“The famoius five. Four and a dog.”

***

Gary and Len followed Enyd Blyton’s course of action and then separated. Gary hid in the small bedroom and Len in the bathroom. If there was an intruder, he would have to come through the living-room to get out of the flat and be cornered on both sides.

Five minutes later the trick had worked. Len’s judo black belt joined with Gary’s one-armed combat routine secured the surprised intruder.

“Who the hell are you?” he shouted, struggling in vain. Len searched him efficiently. He was clean.

“Who the hell are you?” said Gary. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“Is that why you were hiding on the balcony?”

“I wasn’t hiding. I was tidying up.”

“Hidinf,” said Len. “Otherwise you would have come in and introduced yourself.”

“How long had you been there?” Gary asked.

“Not long.”

“How did you get in?”

“I told you I live here. I have a key.”

“Show me,” said Gary.

The intruder wriggled until he could fetch a key out of his jeans pocket.”

“Try it please, Len, then pocket it. I’m confiscating it. You don’t really live here so you won’t need it.”

“I was visiting,” the intruder now said.

“Who?”

“A girlfriend.”

“What’s her name?” Gary asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“What’s your name? I expect you remember that.”

“Jet.”

“Second name Black, I suppose,” said Len jokingly.

“Yes. That’s why my friends call me Jet.”

“Who are your friends, Jet? Is Daphne one of them?”

“Who’s Daphne?”

“You should know if you were visiting her. Her name is on the doorbell and the mailbox downstairs. Your name is not on either, Mr Black.”

“I’ve only just moved in.”

“So you have moved in with Daphne, have you?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve actually remembered the name of the girl you live with,” said Len. “I don’t suppose you’d been introduced, had you?”

Jet scowled.

“At the disco.”

“That’s a good place to meet anonymously,” said Len sarcastically.

Gary decided that Len was sharper than he had at first seemed. He should carry on in that vein.

“Is Daphne the woman we found dead in the bathtub?” said Len.

Gary wondered if that was a question too soon, but there was a sea change in Jet’s conduct.

“A flippin’ corpse? In the tub? I didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t say she was killed, Jet. I only said she was dead,” said Len.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” stammered Jet.

“Where are you from, Jet?” Gary asked. He was fairly sure that Jet’s shock was genuine, Len wasn’t.

“What’s it to you?”

“We ask the questions,” said Gary.

“Here and there.”

“Spain?”

“Portsmouth.”

Len handcuffed Jet, logged into his phone and photographed him before calling up the image of the dead woman.

“Do you recognize her?” he said.

“No,” said Jet. “That isn’t Daphne.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She’s blond. Daphne isn’t as far as I know.”

That was a fair comment,  since women bleach their hair.

Len and Gary walked Jet to the living-room sofa. Then Gary phoned HQ and ordered a squad car to collect Mr Black and put him in an arrest cell.

“You can’t do that. I’m innocent,” he shouted.

“Innocent of what, Jet?” said Len.

“Everything.”

“If you’ve done nothing wrong, you won’t have a problem, will you?” said Len.

A few minutes later the squad car arrived, put Jet Black on the back seat and drove off to HQ.

***

“To be honest, I don’t know what to make of that guy,” said Gary as they finished collecting what they would be taking with them.

“He looked really scared when I mentioned the corpse,” said Len. “It’s possible that he had seen the dead woman and was shocked.”

“Wouldn’t you be shocked all over again? That doesn’t make him guilty of murder, Len. He said it wasn’t Daphne on the photo and he may have been telling the truth.”

“Or he knew her and wasn’t saying who it is,” said Len.

“The woman – and we don’t know who she is and why she was here in that case - was assaulted and killed by someone who came in here with her or found her here,” said Gary.

“It sounds a bit like Mickey Spillane. There’ll be a convenient gangster somewhere,” said Len.

“Not another!” said Gary, amused. Len had potential and was intelligent and witty; he was the kind of colleague Gary liked having round him. He would find a way of improving his status with Mike, who had crashed out in Gary’s estimation.

“Those Spillane books are miles out of date, Len, and you seem to believe what Jet Black said. I’m not sure I do.”

“Human nature is the same as it always was. Sherlock Holmes said as much.”

”You’re talking like my wife again.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be! We’ll get moving now, shall we?”

“Did you notice how the guy hesitated on the word ‘Spain?” said Len.

“He did not want to tell us where he came from. Protecting his family, probably.”

“If he’s Spanish, so am I,” said Len

“Ole to that, Len!”

“If he’s as innocent as he says he is, he doesn’t need to protect anyone, does he?” said Len.

“You have a point there.”

“We could try him on Spanish, Gary. The best test of a foreigner.”

“If it comes to that, we have a Spanish-born receptionist,” said Gary. “But threatening him with her might do the trick.”

***

Cleo was not surprised that Gary had phoned. He would be sure to have a guilty conscience. Who was he bringing along? A new cop? Hopefully not another tongue-tied one.  She had inwardly forgiven Gary and no longer really understood why they had fallen out. Strange how trivialities upset people who could stay calm in the face of a real catastrophe.

Since Gary had been on a mission to find the woman named Daphne, Cleo assumed that something had turned up, so Dorothy had to be present. Len Wolfe was to listen to the recording, apparently, but he was a nice guy and might need some advice on how to deal with bastards like Mike Curlew. Cleo was not sure she could be of help, but Gary would have his reasons for wanting her to try.

Both Toni and Daisy, the Danish au-pair sisters, had come to help with the children’s bed-times in the absence of Grit and Roger, who only that morning had taken a trip to New York to visit some jazz cellars, Cleo was cooking instead of her mother-in-law, but coping well. Charlie would be dealing with the state-of-the-art grill since Roger was not there, but had taught her how to get the steaks right. Jacket potatoes were baking in the oven and one of Cleo’s immense mixed salads had already found its way into the largest salad bowl imaginable.

***

“We’re here!” Gary shouted as he and Len entered the cottage.

Len had insisted on stopping at the supermarket for a couple of bottles of wine, which he said would be his contribution. He would not take no for an answer.

“Is the wine cold enough?” said Gary. “It’s plonk from somewhere east of the Adriatic.”

Don’t you mean wet of the Atlantic, Gary?” said Len,

“Joking, Len. It’s from south of La Manche.”

“I think French exclusives are normally too expensive for our village supermarket,” said Cleo.

“This is Italian,” said Len. “Best Chianti.”

“Don’t you believe it, Len They had probably sold out of the very best. We have a lot of townies round here with upmarket tastes.”

“At least they get the temperature of the red wine right at the supermarket,” said Gary. “Don’t get the idea that we are wine experts, Len, but we like a drop now and again and this Chiante is great.”

“I’ll put the white in the freezer for a few minutes,” said Cleo.

“ Come and meet the family.” Said Gary. “They must be somewhere.”

The sight of a little girl munching crackers at the dining-table next to a big girl doing her homework, four high chairs, each with a rusk-crunching occupant getting more of them down their fronts than inside, and two wide-eyed babies lying on a blanket in the playpen completely gobsmacked Len, who was unprepared for the reality of Gary’s marriage, though he had heard a few rumours.

You said there were seven, but I can see eight,” he said.

“I’m losing counte,2 said Gary. “The two biggest girls are Toni and Daisy,” said Gary. “Danish au-pairs. They make all this possible, well, the postnatal part. And you’ve met wife.“

Len found himself being hugged by Cleo, but circumspectedly, after which he went round all the children and greeted them solemnly before approaching Toni and Daisy warily. Was Gary match-making? Would he have to choose one of them? Could they speak proper English? Len was an attractive guy, but he wasn’t a lingophile.

Hefty banging on the front door announced Dorothy’s arrival. Not having a hand free to ring the bell aand fiunding the front door in the latch, she had kicked her way in, balancing a large apple cake to defrost in one hand and with a freshly made trifle in a very large bowl clutched to her body in the other.

“You do have elbows, Dorothy,” said Gary. “You didn’t have to kick the door in!”

“It was half open,” said Dorothy, thrusting the trifle into Gary’s hands. “The children can have this concoction. I left the alcohol out.”

“I would have collected you,” said Gary.

“I’m here now, aren’t I? Are we all friends again?”

“Are we?” Gary asked Cleo.

“We’d better be,” she retorted, going to Gary and sealing the friendship with a hug.

“I’ve heard of you, Mrs Price,” said Len.

“I’m Miss Price, but I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I’m Constable Len Wolfe, Miss Price, but please call me Len.”

“I’m Dorothy, and I expect you to call me that, young man, despite the age gap.”

Turning to Gary, Dorothy asked him if there was any news.

“We found a dead person in Daphne Lewis’s flat,” Len said while Gary was searching for a mild way of reporting the drama at her flat.

There were gasps of horror.

“Oh dear, weren’t they supposed to know?” Len said to Gary and looked stricken.

“Don’t worry, Len. We know now. Was it Daphne?” said Cleo.

“We don’t know,” said Gary.

“So someone else could have been dumped there,” said Dorothy.

Len decided that Dorothy was the sort of grannie he would like to have had.

“You could look at some photos after dinner and we have snapshots of the dead woman to compare,” said Gary.

“But I’m puzzled,” said Len. “On those photos we found in the flat there is more than one look-alike.”

Cleo groaned.

“Not another sibling mystery,” she said.

“Another?” said Len.

“I’ll get out the police reports for you to read,” said Gary.

“Thanks. I’ll need to. It’s an intriguing thought.”

“Not when you come across look-alikes every week,” said Gary.

“Do you have a brother or sister, Len?” Dorothy asked?

“A twin brother, Dorothy.”

“Wow,” said Cleo. “Does he look like you?”

“Yes, but he’s a professional baseball player.”

“Wow,” said Cleo again. “That’s almost like American Fooball.”

“Not quite,” said Len.  

 “How will you want your steak, Lenny?” Charlie piped up after abandoning her maths homework. “Dorothy likes hers bloody.”

“Medium, please, and I’m not Lenny the lion,” said Len.

“You’ve got red hair!”

“And a new name, Len,” said Dorothy. “It’ll stick!”

“I hope not,” said Len.

“Don’t get into a discussion with Charlie, Len. She usually wins,” said Gary, amused at the way Charlie could take centre-stage.

“Daddy?”

“The same as Len.”

“Dorothy?”

“Rare, as usua..”

“You mean bloody and gruesome,” said Charlie. “Like some of the corpses.”

“Need help with all that?” said Gary, hoping to get away from the gruesome talk Charlie iundulged in for the special benefit of visitors.

“Was today’s corpse covered in blood, Daddy?”

“No. Better pack your ooks away. We need the table.”

“Only if you help.”

“OK. It’s a deal.”

Gary was a pushover when it came to rearing his children.

“I’ll see to the steaks then,” said Charlie. “They need a beating and Lenny can help with the table. Did someone beat the corpse, Daddy? The steak-beater would make a good weapon. I’ll put it in my first book.”

”She’s been reading Roald Dahl again,” said Cleo.

Charlie smiled. She was not supposed to read grown-up Dahl, but she did. She had grown out of the kiddies’ books.

“My step-father taught her the steak-beating trick, Len,” said Cleo.

“Roger was my predecessor at HQ. Promoted himself into retirement,” said Gary. “But their away haunting jazz cellars in New York.”

Len did not think he could digest all the information that was flowing in. Dorothy whispered to him that it was the happiest madhouse she had ever been in. “I’m hooked,” she declared.

“Bed-time, kids,” Cleo announced. “Except for Charlie. The others have all eaten enough, I hope.”

“PeggySue hasn’t. I promised her a steak, Mummy.”

“OK. But not bloody and gruesome.”

To the au-pairs Cleo added that dinner would wait for them, of course, but Charlie needed their orders.

“We’d both like medium, Charlie,” Toni said before they took the little ones off to bed.

“Let’s listen to that recording now,” said Gary. “Otherwise Len won’t know what we are talking about.”

I’ll help with the kids, said Cleo. “I’ve heard enough and Charlie’s in control in the kitchen. Give me half an hour to feed the smalledt ones.”

With those words she handed Gary one twin and led the way to the main bedroom carrying the other.

“Back in a minute,” said Gary over his shoulder.

Dorothy and Len smiled at one another.

“I think they had a quarrel yesterday, but it looks like they’ve made it up,” said Dorothy.

“It explains why Gary was a bit moody today.”

“You look very young, Len.”

“Just out of college, Dorothy, but Gary is supporting me.”

“He needs people he can trust, Len.”

“I’m one of them,  Dorothy.”

***

Dorothy opened Cleo’s laptop and inserted the memory stick to play the dream recording. Len looked puzzled.

“Did you say someone had put the stick into your mailbox, Dorothy?” he said.

Dorothy explained in more detail why she thought the recording had got to her.

“Someone wants to sabotage my new venture,” she told him.

Gary overheard that comment as he returned from watching Cleo with the babies in deep wonderment at just how fabulous a woman he had married was. He had tried to apoligize for his comment the previous day, but Cleo said she had forgotten what it was all about and could they please refrain from bickering in future since it turned her milk sour. Gary was glad Cleo had not issued that statement in front of the guests.

“Rubbish Dorothy,” he now said.

“Prove it!” Dorothy retorted.

“All in good time,” said Gary more confidently than he felt.

***

As usual the food would be served from the worktop in the kitchen. Everyone would take what they wanted, with the exception of the steaks, which Charlie would allocate according to cooking time.

Cleo fed the hungry babies, cleaned them up and put them to bed. After hugging the other children good night, she reappeared in time to answer questions on the recording.

“Dorothy says the recording came before anyone could have seen the advert who was not involved in its publication,” said Len.

“That’s correct,” said Cleo.

“And Gary’s assistant found out that the girl who had been at the desk when Dorothy placed the ad had not been seen for a few days.”

“Correct,” repeated Cleo.

“So the patrol crew was to pick up the missing person, assuming she was at the address Nigel had been given at the Gazette office.”

“Correct.”

“We need to look at the photo of the dead woman first, don’t we? Maybe Dorothy will recognize her,” Len said.

“No,” she said when Len showed her the image on his phone. “That wasn’t her. She does have rather a prominent chin, but it isn’t the Daphne I spoke to.”

“Can you look at these images we found in the flat, Dorothy? Does one of them ring a bell?”

“Hey. Food first!” said Cleo.

“It’ll only take five minutes,” said Len.

Gary kept out of it. For a start, Len was doing fine and Gary was glad not to have to bother with Dorothy right now. Fortunately she seemed to have taken to Len in quite a big way.

“There are some look-alikes on this photo and this one and this one,” said Dorothy.

Cleo produced a magnifying glass for Dorothy to get really close to the faces.

“It could be her,” she said. “That woman could be one of them.”

They all examined the photo through the magnifying glass.

“The photo may have been edited to show two instead of one Daphne as a trick or joke,” said Cleo.

“I’m not sure if we can check that,” said Gary. I’ll phone Chris. He might be able to.”

***

“Chris? We’ve got a photo here with what looks like twins but might be a manipulation. Can you check?”

“The only chance is if the two image halves were a fraction out of sync or the lighting does not match, or they fit on oine anouther without the slightest discrepancy. I can try, but you can too with good enlargements in a photo programme. I would have phoned anyway,” said Chris.

“Meaning you have new evidence?”

“A guy named Joseph alias Jet Black’s fingerprints were everywhere. He’s a small time crook, Gary, an amateur band musician and an odd-jobber. I’d like to know what he was doing in that flat. You’ll have to pull him in.”

“Ny thinking exactly,” said Gary. “We found him on the balcony of Daphne’s flat and caught him by using a clever ruse apparently first thought up by Enid Blyton.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Chris. “Does that mean he was there when we were`?”

“You checked and did n’r find him so he caon’t have been. He let himself in with a door-key. We confiscated it. He had said he needed it because he lived there.”

“He must have run round naked. There were no men’s clothes in the flat.”

“I didn’t believe everything he said, Chris, and neither did Len Wolfe. I’ll get Mia on to it tomorrow. She’s good at questioning young men.”

“Been talent-spotting, Gary.”

“Meaning Len. He was in the patrol car. A nice young guy with potential.”

“My sort?” said Chris.

“I doubt it,” said Gary. “And for the record, Mia isn’t my type either.”

“But you know what they saying, about her and you don’t you, Gary.”

“All lies, Chris. Mike spreading gossip. I’m going to make Mia head of Homicide together with Greg. It’s high time I took being a superintendent seriously and Mia could look into the drug situation from that position.”

“And put Mike Curlew’s nose out of joint at the same time? I’m proud of you,” said Chris. “See you in the morning.”