by Ford,P. F.
‘Right, she said. ‘Elderly person not answering the door. That’s a good enough reason for me. Let’s take a look around the back.’
River Lane was tightly packed with small Victorian semi-detached houses. Narrow passageways ran down between each pair of houses, leading to the back gates. Jolly led the way down the passageway to the left of the house and through the open gate that led into the back garden. A paved area led across the width of the narrow garden to the back door, and an adjoining window looked out onto the garden. Jolly peered through it into a kitchen that looked badly in need of updating, but for all that she could see, it was kept neat and tidy by the owner.
She noticed the light was on and wondered if that meant it had been on all night. At the same time, she acknowledged just how gloomy it was at the back of these houses. You’d need a light in there on a day like this.
‘I can’t see anyone,’ she murmured. ‘It all looks neat and tidy enough.’
‘Suppose something happened to him upstairs,’ the milkman said over her shoulder.
‘I’m not supposed to break in unless I know for sure’.
‘There’s a key,’ said the milkman. ‘It’s so I can let myself in, but I’ve never felt the need to.’
‘Now might be a “need to” time, don’t you think?’ Jolly wondered why on earth he hadn’t done this already. Some people seemed to lack common sense.
The milkman turned back the corner of the doormat. Then he pulled it back a bit further, until finally he’d lifted the whole thing. There was no key to be seen, but they could both clearly see the imprint of a key in the dust that had collected under the mat.
‘He kept it under the doormat?’ asked Jolly in dismay. ‘And you knew?’
‘I told him, but he wouldn’t listen to me,’ said the milkman. ‘I told him it was the first place anyone would look.’
Now Jolly was worried. Of course, it was possible the key had been removed by the old man himself, but her instincts were telling her something very different.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m going to let myself in. I want you to stay out here.’
‘But what if someone’s already let themselves in and-’
‘That’s precisely why you need to stay out here,’ interrupted Jolly. ‘If someone has been in there, this could well be a crime scene. If it is, we don’t need you contaminating it.’
‘Let me do something to help,’ pleaded the milkman. ‘Maybe I could knock the door down for you?’
‘You’ve been watching too many TV shows,’ said Jolly. ‘It’s not as easy as it looks. And anyway, that won’t be necessary. There’s a much easier way that makes much less mess and doesn’t take so much effort. Just turn around and look the other way.’
‘What?’
‘Just humour me,’ she said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. ‘It’ll be better if you don’t see what I’m doing. And the sooner I get in there, the sooner we’ll know what’s happened.’
Reluctantly, the milkman turned his back. As he did, Jolly fished a set of picks from her pocket and knelt before the lock. It was unofficial, of course. She knew very well that a police officer picking locks could never be condoned, but sometimes these things just had to be done. And it just so happened she was rather good at it.
After less than a minute, she felt the tumblers fall into place.
‘Just in case he’s standing guard, what’s the dog’s name?’ she asked over her shoulder as she stood up.
‘Dougie,’ said the milkman. ‘He’s only little but like I said earlier, if he was in there he’d be barking his head off by now.’
‘Right. You wait here,’ she said quietly, as she gently turned the handle and eased the door open.
Inside, the house was still and silent but for a loud, regular tick, tock, tick, tock, that seemed to be coming from the hall.
‘Hello?’ she called out, as she walked across the kitchen. ‘Is there anyone home?’
She stopped to listen, but there was nothing above the noise of the clock. She continued slowly into a tiny hall. Sure enough, a huge grandfather clock dominated the narrow space, the tick-tocking becoming even louder now she was right next to it. An open door led off to the right. She peered through it into a tiny living room with two shabby armchairs and an ancient television set. A huge, ornately framed landscape dominated the biggest wall in the room. It was obviously a print of something, maybe a Constable, Jolly guessed. Again everything appeared neat, and tidy, and in order.
She began to ease her way carefully up the narrow staircase, careful to tread as far from the centre as possible, but even so, the ancient staircase creaked loudly about halfway up. She paused to listen once again but there was nothing to hear except the noisy clock below her.
There were three doors off the landing. To the left, an open door led into a bedroom. The quilt had been folded back from the single bed and a bedside lamp was on, but the room was empty. Behind the middle door was the tiny bathroom. This, too, was empty.
She found Mr Winter behind the only closed door in the house. It hid the smaller of the two bedrooms, which was obviously being used as an office. He was in his pyjamas, lying on his back on the floor in a corner. She checked his pulse but this only confirmed what she could see easily enough with her own eyes. Mr Winter was dead, and she thought he’d probably been there for at least 24 hours, and maybe even longer. She stood up, sighing heavily. You got used to death in this job, but she still always felt affected when confronted with a dead body. Edging out of the room, careful not to disturb anything, she headed back downstairs and out to the car.
‘The doctor’s on his way,’ Jolly told Slater, after she had called her find in to the station.
‘Waste of bloody time,’ muttered Slater. ‘The poor old guy’s obviously dead.’
While she had radioed back to the station, Slater had gone for a nose around the house and after a few minutes, Jolly had forced herself to join him.
She had been deeply affected at finding the little old man lying on the floor all alone, and two things were niggling away at her. First, there was the missing key. Although it didn’t seem to have any obvious relevance to what had happened, she would have been much happier if they knew where it was. And then, perhaps most worrying, the milkman had assured her Mr Winter and his little dog were inseparable. If that was the case, it would be reasonable to expect to find the dog close to his master, but there was no sign of him. It’s not as if he could have let himself out, so where was he?
She took a last look around the tiny office where the body had been found. An old table had been put to use as a desk, while a rather uncomfortable-looking chair sat before it. A relatively new keyboard, mouse and screen sat on the table with a small printer off to one side. The cables ran tidily down the back of the table, where they were plugged into the back of a home computer. A small filing cabinet sat alongside the desk. She slid out the single drawer and peered inside. There was just the one file inside, which seemed to be crammed with household bills, statements, etc. Everything seemed to be in order. Whatever Mr Winter used this office for, he was obviously a neat and tidy worker.
She closed the office door and then, carefully and deliberately, closed all the other doors as she made her way slowly back downstairs to the kitchen. As she closed the kitchen door, she leaned back against it and surveyed the tiny room. Slater had his back to her looking through the window and down the garden.
‘Are you going to call SOCOs out?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit worrying about the missing key, and the missing dog, but really there’s nothing here that makes me think a crime’s been committed. We just need to notify the next of kin.’
An ancient refrigerator whirred away in the corner of the room. Three business cards were held to the fridge door with magnets. There was one for a plumber and another for a painter and decorator, but it was the third one that interested Jolly. She’d noticed earlier that this card was a solicitor’s
business card. From its tatty appearance, she guessed Mr Winter had had the card for quite some time, so hopefully John Hunter, the solicitor in question, would be aware of who to contact. She made a note of the name and phone number in her notebook.
‘According to the milkman there are no next of kin,’ she said, sighing sadly. ‘And I haven’t found anything to suggest he’s wrong. It looks like the poor old guy was all alone. Perhaps this solicitor will know a bit more about him.’
Finally, they slipped out through the back door and locked up, using the house keys Jolly had found in a kitchen drawer earlier. She was careful to leave the gate slightly ajar – at least if the missing dog came home he would be able to get into the garden. As if the weather felt the need to match their mood, the rain was now falling even harder, and the sky seemed to have become even more grey and gloomy than before.
She thought it was a fitting tribute to the demise of another lonely old person, and she let out a long, sad sigh as she sank into her car seat. Slater was silent, and Jolly thought he had been affected by the whole thing too. After a few minutes, she decided to pull herself together. She was a tough cookie, after all, and had seen it all before. She put the car into gear and Slater looked across at her, surprise on his face.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘There’s not much we can do about what’s happened, but perhaps I can make sure he gets laid to rest in the right way. I think the world owes him that much, at least.’
Chapter Three
Up in the canteen at Tinton police station, Norman surveyed the room from a corner table. He had become something of a legend within the small community of Tinton police station. He had arrived with a reputation for being a lazy loner but had quickly disproved the reputation and was now held in both high esteem and great affection by all his colleagues. His positive attitude could always be relied upon to lift spirits and raise a smile if needed, and with his unruly hair and creased clothes (Norman didn’t do ironing, and appeared not to even own an iron), he had a unique style all of his own. Some might call it casual, although his friend and colleague Dave Slater was always quick to remind him, rather fondly, that ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ would be more appropriate.
Although equal in rank to Slater, Norman was older and not interested in climbing any greasy promotion pole. When they worked together, he was happy to defer to his younger partner as he knew that in return, Slater was more than happy to accept Norman as a valuable source of experience and ability. After working together for a few months, they had developed a healthy respect for each other, and a friendship that seemed to grow ever stronger. Combining this respect for each other with their complementary abilities had enabled them to create a formidable partnership.
Right now, though, Norman’s attitude was anything but positive, having just received what he considered to be a totally undeserved bollocking from his boss, Detective Chief Inspector Bob Murray. He bore no real malice towards his boss, whom he knew was simply passing on the dressing down he had no doubt been given from above earlier that day. What irked Norman was the injustice of it all.
Norman had known the old fart, Sir Robert Maunder, was going to cause trouble the moment he had arrived at his house. The man had been a complete arsehole, not just filled with his own self-importance, but positively over-flowing with it. A clash of personalities had been inevitable, but Norman hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of the backlash quite so quickly. Now it seemed it was Norman’s fault Maunder and his wife had slept while the thief broke in. It appeared it was also Norman’s fault the burglar alarm hadn’t worked. And who left all that jewellery out in the open? Apparently that was Norman’s fault too. According to the retired chief constable, everyone at Tinton was totally incompetent and he had convinced the current chief constable to agree with him.
Norman wasn’t one to dwell on negatives, however, and he knew there were two things that would quickly restore his good humour. The first was the huge, bacon-filled, torpedo roll he was about to devour. The second was the eagerly anticipated, imminent arrival of Dave Slater. Slater had been complaining about having to speak in front of all those kids from the moment Murray had bestowed the honour upon him and Norman couldn’t wait for him to get back. Winding up Slater was almost like a hobby for Norman. While he waited and chewed on his bacon roll, he thought about what he would say to Slater.
When the doors swung open and Slater and Jane Jolly pushed their way through, it only took Norman a quick glance at their faces to see they’d had a bad morning. As Norman watched them queue for their food and then walk slowly across to join him, he decided maybe it would be better to test the water before he started taking the piss.
Everyone at Tinton had a big soft spot for PC Jane Jolly, and Norman was no exception. She was one of the station stalwarts, always there, and always with a kind word and a smile. She wasn’t known as Jolly Jane for nothing. Norman had been particularly impressed with her efforts when they had worked together in the past and, despite the difference in rank, he regarded her very much as part of their ‘team’, and he knew Slater did too. Norman thought he probably had a larger soft spot for her than most because she reminded him of his wife, although he’d never told her as much.
He looked at her as she approached. The smile was there on her face, but it was half-hearted, lacking its usual vibrancy.
‘You two had a shite morning too, huh?’ asked Norman.
‘It started off okay,’ Slater said, sitting down opposite him. ‘We got through talking to the kids alright, but then we got the call to deal with an old man who wasn’t answering his door.’
‘Poor old bloke was dead when I found him,’ Jolly said, sighing. ‘He had died all on his own and he’d been lying there for at least a day.’
‘Ah. A really shite morning, then,’ Norman said, sympathetically. ‘That’s never a nice thing to have to deal with. So how come you got to find him?’
‘The milkman cared enough to look in on him three or four times a week,’ she said. ‘He knew as soon as he got there this morning that something was wrong, so he called us.’
‘This seems to be becoming more and more common as more and more people live on their own,’ said Norman, gloomily. ‘There used to be a time when everyone knew their neighbours and those neighbours looked out for each other, but this is fast becoming a land of strangers.’
‘Looks like he died of natural causes,’ Slater said. ‘There’s no sign of a break in and I couldn’t see any sign of a struggle or anything like that.’
‘It’s a bit odd his dog is missing though.’ Jolly looked slightly puzzled and Norman raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘According to the milkman, they were inseparable,’ she explained. ‘So why wasn’t the dog there? I thought it seemed a bit strange that’s all.’
‘Maybe he’d run away,’ Norman ventured.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Jolly, but she sounded doubtful. ‘But I’m going to look in every time I go past in case he turns up.’
‘Isn’t that something for the family to sort out, or the RSPCA?’ asked Slater.
‘But it looks like there is no family, remember?’ said Jolly. ‘I suppose that’s why the poor old bloke was living on his own. All I’ve got is the name and phone number of his solicitor.’
‘Well, give him a call,’ said Norman. ‘Let him sort things out and earn his keep.’
‘Yeah. I suppose I should.’ Jolly looked unhappy, though, and Norman knew she would want to do everything herself.
‘So, why was your morning shitty?’ asked Slater.
‘Oh, it’s been great,’ said Norman, sarcastically. ‘Remember that Maunder guy I told you about?’
‘The one who got a knighthood because he was a chief constable?’
‘Huh. He could easily have got his knighthood for being a complete arsehole,’ said Norman. ‘He’s certainly damned good at it. Anyway, it turns out he knows the current chief constable and he’s complained about me.
‘Apparently it’s my
fault his alarm didn’t work, and that his wife left all her jewellery out. It’s even my fault him and his wife slept through it all.’
‘Great mornings all round then,’ Jolly said, smiling sadly.
When she called on him later that day, Jane Jolly thought solicitor John Hunter was a kindly looking man. In his sixties, he obviously looked after himself, but didn’t seem vain enough to worry about the fact that his hair was grey or anything like that. Jolly approved of that. As he came from behind his desk and extended his hand to greet her, he scored more points for his engaging smile and easy manner. A waft of aftershave came her way. She didn’t know what it was, but it was rather pleasant, and she added a few more points to his score.
‘Good morning, Mr Hunter. I’m PC Jane Jolly from Tinton police,’ she said, shaking his hand.
‘My secretary tells me you think one of my clients has met with a fatal accident,’ said Hunter, looking concerned. ‘What terrible news. Of course I’ll help in any way I can.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jolly.
‘Please sit down.’ He indicated a chair and she sat down. He sat down opposite her.
‘So what happened?’ he asked.
She gave him a brief rundown on what had happened to Mr Winter.
‘So he fell and hit his head?’
‘That’s how it looks,’ said Jolly. ‘The thing is, we could find no evidence of any next of kin. I was hoping, as his solicitor, you might be able to help us out there.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t know him very well,’ said Hunter. ‘He only came to me a few weeks ago to make his will.’
‘Ah.’ Jolly pulled out her notebook. ‘So he’ll have told you about his family.’
‘I’m afraid what he told me isn’t going to be much help,’ Hunter said. ‘According to Mr Winter, his only living relative is a sister, Julia, but he had no idea where she is now.’
‘Oh.’ Jolly was crestfallen
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to find her but with no success so far. I’m going to have to redouble my efforts now – he’s left everything to her in his will.’