Sloan, qua mentor, made a mental note yet again to have a talk with Crosby afterwards, reminding him, once more, that policemen were there to gather information, not to dispense it.

  ‘I did happen to see you there, Constable,’ said Tom Culshaw evenly. He turned to Sloan and said, ‘What I noticed first, Inspector, was that half of the men there seemed to be on something. Happy-baccy wasn’t in it with a lot of them. I asked one of the younger ones who I could get it from for myself and he said “Father Christmas”.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ said Sloan, unsurprised. No druggie that he had ever known would have given the name of his dealer to a stranger, who might have been a policeman and not seeking solace in the weed at all – if that’s what druggies did.

  ‘There’s certainly something funny going on down there, anyway,’ said Tom. ‘I’m pretty sure that that man John Holness from Latchless knows more than he’s telling. And that he knows which of that bunch Daniel Elland is, too, although he’s not saying that either.’

  That John Holness was next on the list of those to be interviewed in the case, Sloan didn’t say.

  ‘You may have ways of making him talk, Inspector, but I haven’t,’ said Tom Culshaw, ‘being a civilian, so to speak.’ Having thus impugned the integrity of the entire police force, he reverted to pulling back one of the steel balls on his plaything and letting it go. ‘Interesting this, gentlemen, isn’t it? It’s called a Newton’s cradle after the revered Isaac. Watch how the impetus passes through the balls in between the first and last ones and comes out at the end at the same strength.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that, sir,’ murmured Sloan. ‘The knock-on effect, you might say.’ It was actually the apparent lack of any knock-on effect following the murders of Sue Port and Terry Galloway that he himself had to consider; it was something else about the whole business that was odd. Two deaths and seemingly nothing had changed – for good or ill – save the abruptly curtailed lives of the two victims. Was there perhaps something quite outside the circle of the Mayton legatees that the police knew nothing about?

  ‘And there’s something else as well, Inspector …’ Culshaw was continuing.

  ‘Go on,’ said Sloan.

  ‘Some of the men were moaning about the heavy rain, all right, but nearly all of them were moving towards the shelter behind the Berebury supermarket – you know, their delivery bay.’

  ‘That’s where I came unstuck the first time,’ contributed Crosby, eager for sympathy from any quarter he could get it. ‘I felt terrible while I was in there.’

  ‘And after the crowd had got there,’ went on Tom Culshaw, ‘a sort of cheering went up. It was quite loud and I heard it as I went that way.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t understand that either, and I’ve been wondering why ever since.’

  ‘Very puzzling, I’m sure, sir,’ agreed Sloan.

  ‘I had a word with one of the more sentient ones, Inspector, but he wouldn’t say anything except that they were grateful to be back under cover again.’ He paused and added, ‘Actually now I come to think of it he put it a bit more forcefully than that.’

  ‘But you didn’t find out why?’

  ‘No, but it’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about ever since,’ Tom answered him seriously. ‘That and why anyone should want to kill—’

  ‘Need to kill,’ put in Crosby.

  ‘All right then, Constable. Should have reason to kill anyone.’ Tom Culshaw sat back in his chair and sent another metal ball pulsating through its neighbours.

  Detective Inspector Sloan silently amended this in his mind from ‘anyone’ to ‘someone’, acknowledging that the man in front of him had put his finger on what was still unknown in the case and that was ‘Motive’. Its companions in the usual triumvirate of successful murder – ‘Means’ and ‘Opportunity’ – had de facto existed in that murder had been done.

  Twice.

  ‘Especially one of us,’ said Tom Culshaw.

  Detective Inspector Sloan nodded. He had never thought that either death had been random and said so now.

  ‘It can’t be for money,’ Tom Culshaw went on reasoning aloud. ‘It sounded to me that what we were all going to inherit was quite enough, especially as we’d none of us had any expectations before Algernon Mayton came into the picture.’

  That had been one of the things that had puzzled Sloan all along. Why kill two people if it wasn’t for the money, in spite of Superintendent Leeyes saying he should follow it?

  ‘But I’m blessed if I can think what else it could be,’ said Tom Culshaw, his words meshing with Sloan’s unspoken ones.

  Detective Inspector Sloan, experienced police officer, could run through a whole litany of the customary motives for murder – blackmail, greed, revenge, dynasty, jealousy – had indeed already done so in his mind in this case – and answer had come there none. Apart from the two brothers, none of the legatees had even known of the existence of the others before being summoned to the solicitors’ offices that day. Simon Puckle had been sure of that – Miss Fennel had been equally certain that, except for the two brothers, they had met as strangers.

  Or had they? It was something else that he would have to check on, should have checked on before now.

  This time Culshaw picked up two of the nearest metal balls and set them off together, one behind the other. Obedient to some force Sloan didn’t understand two balls at the other end responded by swinging out together to exactly the same degree. ‘Newton’s cradle,’ said Tom Culshaw, indicating it, ‘demonstrates his third law of motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ Detective Inspector Sloan didn’t have time to play with desktop toys. What the opposite reaction to murder was he didn’t know. He would have liked to think it was justice but he had been a policeman too long to be sure of that.

  ‘You hit someone on the head and they die,’ suggested Crosby brightly.

  ‘I think that might be cause and effect,’ murmured Tom Culshaw, ‘which is rather different.’ Detective Inspector Sloan’s mind, like the action of the balls in the Newton’s cradle, had gone on moving until it, too, produced a reaction. He decided that since he hadn’t been told anything that wasn’t patently untrue, that which he was dealing with in the case was an absence of information instead.

  ‘Back to Berebury,’ he ordered Crosby as they left Tom Culshaw, ‘and the drawing board.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tom Culshaw’s next visitor was Martin Pickford.

  ‘Well?’ asked that young man who, like John Bunyan’s pilgrim, Christian, took his scars with him. ‘How did you get on then at the Postern Gate? Did you find Daniel Elland?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that I’m pretty sure that I know where he is but not who he is.’

  Pickford, no great shakes intellectually, had some difficulty in working this out. ‘So you can’t put your hands on him?’ he said eventually, that being the thing that mattered to him most.

  ‘Not yet. I’m getting there, though.’

  ‘Just sitting here and doing nothing like this?’ If nothing else, Martin Pickford had always been a man of action.

  ‘On the contrary, I’ve been thinking deeply ever since I got back from the Postern Gate.’

  ‘And playing with those little balls?’

  ‘Working things out, that’s what I’ve been doing.’

  Martin Pickford looked distinctly sceptical.

  ‘I’m getting there, man,’ Tom Culshaw assured him. ‘I think I know now what Daniel Elland has been doing at the Postern Gate, too.’

  ‘So? Then tell me.’

  ‘I’m not going to because I can’t prove it. Not yet. Daniel Elland is over there, all right, which is very useful to know.’ Tom Culshaw drew back one of the balls in his Newton’s cradle and sent it on its way. ‘It’s a start.’

  ‘But you can’t tell me which of all the men there he is? Is that it?’

  ‘Roughly.’

  ‘Is it because most of them look very much alike – old and grey and dirty – so that you can’t work out t’other from which?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Then it’s not a lot of good to me, Culshaw. I need Elland properly found and pronto – we all do. Don’t you understand? I need some money and I need it soon and none of us can get at it until he’s been got hold of.’

  ‘Oh, I understand all right. Don’t make any mistake about that. But let me put it this way: I’ve picked up the ball, but I haven’t run with it yet.’ He regarded the rugby player with something like amusement. ‘You do understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘So why don’t you get on with it?’ said the other man. ‘If I get my hands on the ball on the field I don’t hang about just thinking and pushing other little balls about like you’re doing now.’

  ‘Because I haven’t worked out how to get the man to show his hand yet, that’s why,’ Tom Culshaw said. ‘But I have worked out what he did when it rained.’

  ‘What on earth has the rain got to do with it?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Tom Culshaw gnomically. ‘But whether that’s any help in finding out who killed that woman out at Bishop’s Marbourne, I couldn’t begin to say.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan wouldn’t have been able tell Martin Pickford that either, even though he was equally aware that Daniel Elland must be down by the Postern Gate among the other vagrants. What he was afraid of now was that the man might be in the same sort of danger as that which had overtaken Susan Port and Terry Galloway. The fact that Elland was being so actively sought by some of the other Mayton claimants was no comfort to a police officer dedicated to the safety of all members of the public, winos or not.

  ‘Where to next, sir?’ asked Detective Constable Crosby, ready by the driver’s door of the police car.

  ‘To the church by the Postern Gate, Crosby, to see what that Latchless man has to tell us about Daniel Elland. It’s high time I had a look at the place myself.’

  ‘You want John Holness, sir,’ said Crosby, setting off as fast as he dared. ‘He’s the one who Tom Culshaw showed his photograph to and swore he’d never seen the man.’

  ‘Him,’ agreed Sloan. ‘Culshaw said he was certain John Holness knew which of that bunch of raddled old destitutes is Daniel Elland, remember, but he wouldn’t tell him, no way.’

  ‘Can’t have that, sir, can we?’ said Crosby, subconsciously stepping up the car’s speed.

  ‘Certainly not, Crosby. And we’ll soon see about him not telling us,’ said Sloan, setting his lips in a firm line. There was such a thing as assisting the police in the course of their enquiries, which it behoved all good subjects of the Crown to do. ‘And we can’t go on assuming that Elland’s quite safe down there in the meantime just because he’s still unknown by anyone else. Somebody could easily push him through the Postern Gate and into the river one dark night.’ Nobody had expected that Susan Port or Terry Galloway had been at risk and that hadn’t saved either of them.

  ‘Perhaps he’ll be in more danger if we find him than if we don’t,’ suggested Crosby brightly. ‘After all, if nobody knows who he is then they can’t kill him, too, can they, sir?’

  ‘Ah, but that happy state of affairs might not last for ever, Crosby,’ Sloan pointed out, ‘and we may not know when it doesn’t. Always think long term when you can.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Crosby to whom the thought of the following week was usually virgin territory.

  ‘Besides, not finding him might mean not finding out who killed Susan Port and Terry Galloway, Crosby, which is something we must do. Had you thought of that possibility either?’

  ‘No, sir,’ admitted Crosby.

  ‘Who?’ asked John Holness, looking up at the two policemen from his table in the nearby church where he was sitting studying a bunch of forms.

  ‘Daniel Elland,’ said Sloan.

  ‘That man’s Mr Popular all of a sudden,’ said Holness, ‘although he’s usually Billy No Mates. You’re not the only ones looking for him, I can tell you. The fellow that owns the bakery was here the other day asking for him too, and someone else showed me his photograph.’

  ‘And you said you didn’t recognise him,’ said Sloan, ‘but we think you did, Mr Holness.’

  ‘Our policy at Latchless,’ declared the man stiffly, ‘is not to disclose the names or whereabouts of any of the men we are helping.’

  ‘Not even to the police?’ said Crosby, jumping the gun.

  ‘Oh, that’s who you are, is it?’ Holness put his pen down. ‘I suppose you’re after whoever it was who broke into the hospital drugs cabinet? Well, I don’t know who did that, but I can tell you that this place has been awash with the stuff ever since Saturday night. All of them are controlled drugs, too – none of your home-grown illegal substances. Not surprising really, I suppose, since they must have come from the hospital in the first place. The men all insist they found them in their pockets when they got back.’

  ‘A likely tale,’ sniffed Crosby.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, light dawning with a sudden flash, a completely new vista now opening up in his mind. It was a very different crime scenario from all that had gone before, and he needed time to think about it. He took a deep breath and made himself carry on with an enquiry that suddenly seemed mundane now. ‘They shared the drugs out afterwards, I suppose, or sold them,’ resumed Sloan, as if he hadn’t reached the conclusion that he had done.

  ‘Or those that did have them had their pockets picked,’ said the manager of Latchless, worldly-wise in spite of being dedicated to good works. ‘Nothing’s really safe round here for long.’

  ‘What we would really like, Mr Holness,’ said Sloan, producing his warrant card and laying it on the table in front of him, ‘would be to fingerprint everyone here until we find him.’ Locating Daniel Elland was still important, but he had no time to waste now.

  ‘You must be having a laugh, Inspector,’ said Holness, picking the card up and reading it. ‘Try it on the first one and you won’t see the others for dust. They’ll melt away like snow in summer and you’ll never see the going of them. And I won’t see them back again for yonks.’

  ‘Pity, that,’ said Sloan, ‘since we really do need to talk to this Daniel Elland and fingerprinting your – er – clients would have been one way of finding him.’

  ‘He wanted for something, then?’ asked Holness.

  ‘Yes, but not in the sense you mean,’ said Sloan.

  The man from Latchless looked at him suspiciously. ‘It isn’t a wife after him, is it?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Sloan assured him.

  ‘Cause us terrible trouble, do some wives,’ said the other man. ‘Mind you, as often as not, meeting their wives explains what brings a man here in the first place.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, a happily married man, letting his mind dwell briefly on the image of his own wife, not the sort of woman to drive a man to drink. Mentally much refreshed, he got back to the job of finding Daniel Elland, still his job.

  ‘I must remind you, Mr Holness,’ he said at his most formal, ‘that obstructing the police in the execution of their duties is a criminal offence, and I shall have no hesitation whatsoever in charging you with so doing if you fail to tell me which man here is Daniel Elland.’

  ‘The one with the dog,’ muttered John Holness, ‘but for God’s sake don’t let on that I told you.’

  But there was no sign anywhere to be seen near the Postern Gate of a man with a dog.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Superintendent Leeyes was sitting at his desk when Sloan got back to the police station. He was waiting for him like a hungry spider waits for its fly to come within range of her web and pounced.

  ‘There’s been a message for you,’ he growled, ‘from one of your precious Mayton legatees.’

  ‘Sir?’ Sloan stiffened – which one of them it was could make a big difference at this stage.

  ‘Someone called Tom Culshaw rang, asking for you …’

  Sloan breathed out a silent sigh of relief and waited for Leeyes to go on.

  ‘He said that the man who you should be looking for down by the Postern Gate is the one who’s just disabled the sonic deterrent in the loading bay behind the supermarket.’

  ‘We already know which man we want, thank you, sir.’ It was very seldom that Detective Inspector Sloan – or, indeed, anyone else on the strength – had a chance to upstage the superintendent, and Sloan was human enough to enjoy the fact. ‘Daniel Elland used to own a firm called Berebury Sound and so he knew how to deal with that sonar system. That’s why the men there were looking for him.’

  ‘And,’ went on Leeyes, ignoring this last, ‘he says no one hit him – this Tom Culshaw, that is – on the head while he was there.’

  ‘There was no need for that by the time Tom Culshaw got there, sir. I guess his brother, Clive, got clobbered when he was down there because he’d announced that he was looking for Daniel Elland, too, and they wanted to find him first.’ He coughed. ‘But it’s helpful to know what Elland’s done there now and that he hasn’t lost his touch after so long.’ He didn’t know what life after Mayton would hold for Daniel Elland but something good, surely? Better than life by the Postern Gate, for sure.

  Leeyes swept on. ‘Apparently, like you said, the man’s old firm were sound engineers and Tom Culshaw said to tell you that Elland must be the only man there who would have known how to disable the nuisance and therefore it must be him who neutralised the effects of the sonic waves under the supermarket canopy.’

  ‘That must have been what the cheering was all about the evening Crosby was there,’ said Sloan.

  Leeyes scowled. ‘Crosby should have found that out for himself. We’ll never make a policeman of him, you know.’