Episode 1 - Case Histories

Monday, December 14

Starting a new job in mid-December was going to be a trial for newly promoted Superintendent Gary Hurley, and all the more so because his main suspect in his last personally supervised case took her own life rather than facing the music.

His successor in his old job, D.I. Greg Winter, was taking the week off to go skiing with his expensive doll of a girlfriend, Rosie, with the argument that the hotel was booked and new, expensive après-ski finery had been bought, so Gary was left to see the case out in which four murders had occurred, three of which had already gone virtually unnoticed before the most recent one had baffled hardly anyone after the initial frustration of not quite knowing if the deaths had been of natural causes.

With Greg safely on the beginner slopes in the Swiss Alps, Gary was able to join Nigel in his old office that had been taken over by Greg as it went with the job. The murder of a thief at a chemist’s shop, where the chemist had said he was defending his stock, turned out to have quite a different motive. That was another case Greg had swapped for a week with Rosie, his predecessor, Roger Stone, who now his almost step-father, having signed the vacation application.

Gary was not even sure if the chemist had shot the intruder or was covering up for his daughter. His daughter had been lured into the drug scene, become an addict, and got herself pregnant. She was only sixteen and friendly with the victim of the shooting and with his friend, who was put out of action at the chemist’s second outlet by a fearful assistant who was now in detention while the police decided if she was acting out of fear or spite.

The homicide department at Middlethumpton police headquarters was in the sort of mess Gary would never have tolerated. D.I. Greg Winter (no relation of the forensic scientist Chris Winter) was supposed to be dealing with the murders currently needing investigation. He was for the high-jump when he returned, though Nigel, Gary’s old and new office assistant, thought he might return on crutches. Greg was not into sports and would probably want to impress Rosie with inevitable consequences.

As Superintendent, Gary would have to reorganize the drugs squad that had petered out as the drugs squad cops reached retiring age. Even in a country market town, a drugs squad was a useful thing to have, prevention being better than a cure. But for years nothing had been prevented; dealers found kids happy to upgrade their pocket money by selling drugs to their class-mates and everyone was sworn to silence. Gary was glad he had given Mia Curlew the job of helping to reinvigorate the almost non-existent drugs department, but wished he had left Greg out of the round of promotions.

***

Nigel was currently documenting Mrs Peel’s recent suicide as major suspect in the previous case. He was putting together some kind of dossier that could be filed away officially as another unsolved case, since you could hardly expect to get a confession from the remains of Mrs Peel. Suspicions could be documented, but the ending of the case was unsatisfactory without a living perpetrator.

***

Upper Grumpsfield has its own dilemmas. Only this morning, Dorothy Price, who was responsible for organizing the revue to be put on by Lucky 13, a hilarious cross-dressing show, received an anonymous threatening letter damning the whole project and promising immediate reprisals.

That thread coincided with the defacement of the posters advertising the show locally. Across every one someone had written “SCANDALOUS” in large, red letters. The letter to Dorothy was composed of the cut-out words typical in crime series on TV. It warned her not to contact the police, as her friends would suffer if she did. Dorothy was aghast.

Mary Baker, the young curate of St Peter’s Parish Church, ripped off all the posters and took one to Dorothy’s cottage before breakfast. When Dorothy showed her the offensive letter, Mary was shocked.

“We’ll have to cancel the show, Miss Price,” she said.

“On the basis is of a stupid anonymous letter and daubs on the posters?” said Dorothy. “Never. We can’t give in to blackmail, Miss Baker.”

“So what do you suggest? “The show is on Saturday and the posters have been up for ages. How come that someone decided to vandalize them now?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Dorothy. “But I know there have been discussions about the wisdom of putting on such a show instead of a pantomime.”

“I quite like pantomimes,” Mary Baker said sadly. “And they are popular with everyone.”

“But they are out of date and things are different now.”

“I suppose you mean since Mr Parsnip past away.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. Your coming saved St Peters. Mr Parsnip had already abandoned it for a missionary venture to Africa. His subsequent scandalous behaviour disqualified him from being a churchman.”

“I did hear quite a lot of gossip, but I try not to listen to it,” said Mary.

“Quite right, too. I’ll ring Cleo. As head of our detective agency, she will know what to do for the best.”

***

Cleo was shocked, but not surprised that the song and dance act of young men dressed as show girls was not approved of by everyone. Her own mother, a showgirl brought to Upper Grumpsfield by an infatuated English businessman, had provoked aggression nearly four decades previously. Gloria Hartley was never married to John Hartley. His parents were scandalized that he could take up with a black show dancer. She fled back to her home town, Chicago, and Cleo was born there. Her father, who sent support but wanted nothing to do with his child, bequeathed her his cottage, so she came to claim it and found a job as a librarian, although she had a doctorate in sociology. Beggars can’t be choosers, she realised, as her supply of dollars was running out fast after the cottage roof had been mended and a modest central heating system installed.

The detective agency she had founded partly because people seemed to believe she could solve mysteries they could not deal with themselves and partly out of the realisation that the police were not always in a position to help, had become part of her life and that of many Upper Grumpsfielders. After a terrible marriage to a bully in Chicago and a tedious marriage to Robert Jones, the family butcher, she was now married to Gary Hurley, whom she had met after finding a corpse in the changing room at Middlethumpton’s fashion store. Calling the police that arrived in the person of Gary Hurley. They were immediately attracted to one another. A love affair had ensued, followed at long last (to quote Gary) by their marriage. Cleo was now well on the way to giving birth to a third set of twins, a scenario that horrified her second ex-husband, though he would have taken her back, he thought, if Gary would take on the children.

Dorothy was sure that Cleo was the right person to offer help and find the graffiti culprit.

“Where was the letter posted, Dorothy?”

“No stamp, Cleo. It was pushed through my letterbox.”

“So it’s probably someone local. Can you think of anyone nearby who disapproves of the show?”

“Jane Barker, next door. She said she was glad her husband had not lived to see the day, but surely she would not go so far as to threaten me.”

“Ask her quite bluntly if she wrote the letter.”

“Surely she would not do such a wicked thing,” said Dorothy.

“You know my theory about not usually being able to tell by looking at someone if he or she has killed someone? Well, the same goes for anonymous mail.”

“I’ll do it,” said Dorothy. “Mary’s going to nail up clean posters to replace the ones with ‘scandalous’ written on them.”

“That letter writer means business, assuming it was one and the same person,” said Cleo. “But why wait until just a few days before the show? It sounds like someone is jealous of someone.”

“Someone In the show? But where would Jane come in? I’m sure she does not know anyone in that group.”

“She may be being used, Dorothy.”

“You’ll have to explain.”

“I’ll have to give it some thought first,” said Cleo. “Talk to Jane and we’ll wait and see what happens to the new posters. OK? Jane doesn’t seem a likely culprit. She is rather a couch potato, after all. Couch potatoes don’t usually go on sorties to deface posters. So it’s possible that two people have a grudge against the show.”

“That’s even worse,” said Dorothy.

***

Turning to Mary Baker, Dorothy repeated Cleo’s advice and the curate left to get some more posters printed and put on display. The show must go on!

Dorothy was on tenterhooks about that nasty letter, but she knew that she must clear Jane from being a suspect. Her usual means of communication with her next door neighbour was over the fence in the back garden, so she threw a coat over her shoulders and went out.

Jane was hanging out her washing.

“It’s December,” said Dorothy over the fence. “The washing will go all stiff and won’t dry. It’s too cold.”

“”It will smell nice, though,” said Jane.

“You can use an ocean softener instead. That smells nice.”

“We live miles away from the ocean,” said Jane. “I prefer ozone. You get that everywhere.”

“Perhaps you can get that in a spray, Jane.”

“Hmmm,” was Jane’s reaction; she hadn’t thought of that.

“Can I ask you something?” said Dorothy in a gentle voice that belied her growing irritation with Jane.

Jane turned round slowly to face Dorothy, who thought she looked guilty.

“What is it?” she snapped. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Did you happen to see anyone put something into my letterbox, Jane?”

“No,” said Jane, rather flushed, either from telling a lie or from the sharp wind that was cutting through Dorothy’s coat and even more so through Jane’s pinny. Her hands were turning blue from pegging out her washing. Dorothy thought just how foolish Jane could be.

Dorothy cold not fail to notice that Jane was not even curious about the letter. She just wanted to get in the warm.

“Don’t you want to ask me when?” she said.

“When?” said Jane obediently.

“Last night; during the night; or very early this morning, Jane.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“But it has your fingerprints on it Jane,” fibbed Dorothy.

“It can’t have. I was wearing gloves.”

Jane bit her lip. She had been outwitted. Blast Dorothy and her sleuthing.

“So you did put that nasty letter into my mailbox, didn’t you?”

“You tricked me into confessing, Dorothy.”

“Did I?”

“Someone’s got to do something about that nasty Christmas show.”

“How do you know that it’s nasty?”

“Because … because those so-called actors are rude men dressed up as ladies pointing fun at us.”

“Is that all? Posting anonymous messages is illegal, Jane, and you’ve just confessed to it.”

“Have I? I could have been fibbing.”

“That’s not what friends and neighbours do. What do you expect me to do now?”

“Call the show off,” snapped Jane. “That’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to come,” said Dorothy. “But why spoil the entertainment for others?”

“It isn’t Christian, Dorothy. It has no place in our respectable society. I’m surprised that you approve of it. We don’t.”

“Who’s ‘we’, Jane?”

Jane did not reply. She marched towards her back door.

“Did you deface the posters, too?” Dorothy shouted after her.

“What posters?”

“The ones advertising the show. I think you know who did it.”

“Well I don’t. Good day.”

Jane went inside and slammed the door behind her.

That takes care of a beautiful friendship, Dorothy mused. But at least the source of the anonymous letter was clear. She wondered if Gary should be notified about the posters. She would phone Cleo again, tell her about her interview with Jane, and ask her for advice.

Cleo suggested that Dorothy came to the cottage at about seven that same evening. She could share their supper and talk to Gary, but she should bring her copy of that letter. Keeping Gary in the dark would be difficult. He invariably smelt a rat.

“I’ll bring an apple pie, shall I?” Dorothy proposed.

“Wow, that would be nice,” said Cleo.

Dorothy Price’s baking was out of this world.