A Hint of Death (A Bob Skinner Short Story) (Kindle Single) by Quintin Jardine

‘There never was a robbery, Mr Christie. Isn’t that the truth now?’
    Detective Sergeant Harold ‘Sauce’ Haddock stood over the man in the chair. He tried to look severe, but gave up the attempt after a few seconds, as the irony of the situation won the day.
    Twelve years earlier their roles had been reversed. Never the most diligent of scholars, he had been caught cheating in a school exam. Many another teacher … Big Bad John Henderson for example … would have emasculated him in front of the entire class, but all that Trevor Christie had done was shake his head sadly, as he picked the badly hidden crib sheet from his pocket and tore it in two.
    ‘I admit defeat,’ he had murmured. ‘You’ll always be crap at Latin, son. The grandeur of Ancient Rome and its language will always be lost on you. Time we both admitted it and you concentrated on the subjects that you are good at.’
    His expression was much the same as he looked up at his former pupil, in the much less formal setting of his own living room. ‘Are you saying that I’m crap at lying, Harold?’ he asked.
    An unprofessional smile forced its way on to Haddock’s face. ‘I suppose I am, sir,’ he agreed. ‘Would you like to tell me why you felt that you needed to? The fact of the matter is that you didn’t call the police. Your daughter did.’
    ‘I didn’t want Josey done for wasting police time.’
    ‘You’re getting worse, Mr Christie. You really should have written some potential answers on a sheet of paper, then taken a quick shuftie to refresh yourself. Why exactly would your daughter get done? Miss Christie volunteered to Jackie Wright, my DC, when she interviewed her here yesterday that you told her that her mother’s jewellery had been stolen.’
    Trevor Christie had been a popular teacher because there was nothing specific about the man that anyone could dislike, not even a fifteen-year-old forced to spend forty-five minutes in his company twice a week. He was so pleasantly mild, Sauce recalled, that he had never acquired a proper nickname, beyond the ‘Old Trev’ bestowed on him by Audrey Shields. (That Audrey: now she had a nickname. They called her ‘Raleigh’; he had been puzzled about that until a more worldly-wise classmate had explained that it had nothing to do with Elizabethan mariners. ‘It’s a bike, Sauce. Work it out.’)
    ‘It’s funny,’ he remarked. ‘When we’re at school our teachers are major figures in our lives, yet we get to know absolutely nothing about them. They’re of another generation, another place entirely. We all thought of you as a middle-aged bloke, but when I was in your class you must have been …’
    ‘I was thirty,’ Christie volunteered. ‘But I felt like a middle-aged bloke. That birthday’s a bloody big milestone, as you’ll find out soon enough, I suspect, and even more if you’re married with a family. You married, Harold?’
    The detective smiled as he shook his head. ‘Not certifiably so, but as good as.’
    ‘Any kids?’
    ‘Not yet; Cheeky says we should wait till we grow up. By the way, her real name is Cameron,’ he explained, ‘but that’s been her nickname all her life.’
    ‘I see. Josey … that’s my daughter, that’s her real name, not a short form … was six when I hit thirty.’ He paused. ‘Look, can we make this less formal, Harold? Will you at least take a seat?’
    ‘Sure,’ Haddock said. ‘But you can relax, sir; it’s not formal, and you’re not under caution. The truth is I’m on a day off, and using this part of it to cover my DC’s backside. She slipped up: she should have interviewed you as well yesterday, not just Josey … because of corroboration and all that.’
    ‘Understood, and it’s no problem for me. It’s as well I have a late start this morning, or you’d have missed me. Josey’s left for her school already.’
    The detective eased himself into a chair facing his one-time teacher. ‘What happened to Josey’s