14 THE TIMING

At the police station...

The interview room in the police station was unwelcoming, dark even compared to the sunshine warming the world outside. Sophia sat in there facing a grizzled Detective Inspector Craddock and Detective Constable Smythe. The latter was sitting awkwardly with a neutral expression on her face, and although she glared from time to time at her superior officer, and even frowned once or twice, she remained, at least to start with, silent. If asked, she would have said wryly that she knew which side her bread was buttered.

“Now the, questions Miss Stone,” grunted Inspector Craddock to Sophia.

“I want to know why I’ve had to come here,” she told him sharply, “discovering that someone’s died isn’t a crime, you know, and neither is reporting it because if it was nobody would report anything.”

“We have to start somewhere, and you were the last person to see the deceased alive,” he mumbled at uncharacteristic length. “To ease things along, what time last night?”

“What do you mean, what time last night?” she demanded.

“Were you with the deceased?”

“Do you mean, what time did I leave him?”

“That as well.”

“About seven. We left about seven.” Sophia was determined to be as monosyllabic as this offensive detective inspector.

“And you left with Mr O’Donnelly?”

“Who?”

“The school teacher. O’Donnelly.”

“No we did not. I was with my friend the librarian, not with any man. But before we left Hh threw a brick at the window and scarpered,. I can tell you that much. It upset the priest, and so we left, what, about a quarter of an hour after that.”

“Did he wait for you?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think I mean? O’Donnelly, of course.”

“Are you trying to suggest we’re in league with him? A grieving husband whose wife was mowed down by a drunk and then who suffered the humiliation of being refused a proper funeral by the … the, er deceased.” Anger was beginning to show in her tone of voice.”

“Miss Stone, your living?” he aske,d changing the subject sharply.

“Pardon?”

“What do you do?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I need to know.”

“Then I write. Books. Successfully.”

“Let me take a guess … crime fiction with thoughtless officers made to look even more stupid than they are?”

“That’s not fair, sir,” put in Constable Smythe, indignantly.

“When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it, Constable!” barked the Inspector, his voice saturated with ire and his face seeming to bloat as it turned from red to beetroot.

“I write romances, and my policemen are all thoroughly decent men, though now that I’ve met you I might incorporate the other sort!” almost shouted Sophia, “now if there’s nothing else I can help you with I want to go home. I have a new character for my latest book, and he’s most unpleasant. You’ll have to read it when it comes out.”

“I love your books,” suddenly enthused the Detective Constable. “I think I’ve read them all! I particularly enjoyed Four and Twenty Blackbirds and the way the two heartbroken refugees finally got together...”

“That’s quite enough, constable!” snapped the Inspector. “This is not a literary society meeting! What Miss Stone writes has nothing to do with this enquiry!”

“Then why did you ask me?” demanded Sophia, “so which way shall I leave?”

The door opened suddenly and a young uniformed officer entered and handed a sheet of paper to the D.I before backing out. Craddock frowned as he read it, the frown etching ever deeper into his forehead as he noted the pathologist’s initial findings. They did not make pleasant reading to a detective who had honed initial opinions until they were certainties in his mind. Apparently, the Priest had died of natural causes which may have been instigated by the shock of a brick smashing against his window had that brick been launched between ten and twelve o’clock.

Craddock grimaced, but knew he had no reason to detain the woman he would love to have charged with murder for one moment longer. He knew that the burglaries on the Swanspottle Road were calling again, and he would dearly liked to have a murderer locked up before he returned to investigate relatively minor offences. A big charge added to the kudos with which he viewed himself.

“The front door,” he barked, and stood up and set out to give the pathologist a piece of his mind. If the deluded priest had died of something as mundane as a gigantic stroke then he should have let him know sooner. How could he be expected to do his job properly if experts kept him in limbo?

And why did such delays make him look rather silly?

oo0oo

Jonathan O’Donnelly was sitting in a second Interview room, head in hands. A uniformed officer stood by the door, keeping an eye on him, and he couldn’t help wondering what all the fuss was about.

All he’d done was throw a brick against the Presbytery window and he knew that it hadn’t been broken because the curt and objectionable Inspector had mentioned tried to break the window when he’d been ordered to accompany him to the police station. But surerly something as relatively minor as throwing a brick didn;t warrant a major interrogation? Well, if it did he’d take full advantage of it and let the world know all about one particular catholic priest and his cruelty.

“Why the hell am I here?” he asked the officer after half an hour of twiddling his thumbs and nursing his hangover.

“The Inspector will tell you when he comes back,” said the young officer.

“Can’t you tell me?”

“No sir. Just be patient. He won’t be long.”

Then the door opened and a red-faced Inspector stormed in.

“What time did you say you chucked that brick?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe sevenish. Something like that. I didn’t look at my watch.” replied an increasingly furious Jonathan O’Donnelly.

“It’s a civil matter,” muttered the Inspector, “something you shouldn’t have done, if I may say so much, but of no concern to me now.”

“You can say what you like, you haven’t had the name of your dead wife publicly denounced in a church, and all I did was chuck a brick with my thoughts attached!” Jonathan was raising his voice and the Inspector had enough common sense to realise that the man was on the edge of something unpleasant, and didn’t want it to happen inside his police station.

“If it was as early as that then I won’t detain you any longer,” he said, gruffly, and added, “the Priest didn’t die until some time between ten and midnight, so you’re in the clear!”

“You mean he’s dead? The Priest is really and truly dead?” Jonathan demanded, suddenly animated.

“I’m afraid so,” muttered the Inspector, “I know I acted a bit fast, but it’s the fast bird that catches the worm.

“The early bird,” corrected Jonathan.

“Pardon?”

“It’s the early bird that catches the worm. That’s the proverb.”

“Early bird, then. But whatever kind of bird it was, the Priest was still alive until ten at the earliest.”

“I was pissed by ten,” grumbled the widower.

“But not throwing bricks at the Presbytery windows,” said the Inspector. “You can go now.”

“Like that? You haul a man down here, make him feel like a criminal when he’s not actually done anything worth mentioning, and then kick him out without so much a by your leave or an explanation?”

“There’s always that brick,” grunted the Inspector, “we could talk about that brick...”

“Then do me for it! That’s it: do me for lobbing a brick that doesn’t break a damned window, and we’ll see what the press makes of that. And the church. I happen to know that they’re not at all pleased by the way I was treated by the dead Priest. But even so, they won’t be so keen on the publicity when I go to the papers and spell out what was said at what ought to have been a quiet funeral...”

“Go on, do yourself a favour and hop it!” grated the Inspector.

“Do you a favour you mean,” said Jonathan, but seeing that he didn’t appear to be likely to benefit from a further exchange with a policeman who seemed to have shutters behind his eyes, he stood up and stormed out.

“Bloody teachers,” growled Craddock at the expressionless constable, and he followed him out.

© Peter Rogerson 20.01.19