A Late Phoenix by Catherine Aird

windows. Keen on damages, he is.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear it,” said Sloan. Though where damages got you with the Dick’s Dive mob he wouldn’t know. If they didn’t believe in wealth then fines were scarcely punishment. Possessing nothing which normal society valued made threatening to take it away so much hot air.
    Trying to explain this to the superintendent had been wasted breath, too.
    The disgruntled constable went back to his old files. “Then there was the war. You interested in the war, sir?”
    â€œYes,” said Sloan for the first time in his life.
    â€œThere were the deserters, of course. Always one or two of them making for home comforts. Premature demobilization with some of ’em. Wanted to get back.”
    â€œAnd civilians missing after air raids?”
    The constable shook his head. “Nobody like that unaccounted for, sir. Not here in Berebury.”
    â€œSure?”
    P.C. Brown looked pained. “Dead sure, sir.”
    â€œNot even after the Wednesday?”
    â€œNo. I was here myself, sir. I remember quite well.”
    Sloan sighed. There were some people, of course, who were never going to get promotion. You could tell right from the start. Lightning Brown must have been one of them. Even as a young man.
    â€œNearest we came, sir, to a missing person or an unidentified body was a finger.”
    â€œA finger?” For a moment Sloan wondered if he was having his leg pulled.
    â€œThat’s right, Inspector. I was on duty that night. The Wednesday, During the raid a chap brought his finger in to me. All done up in a napkin, it was, the wrapping of parcels not ’aving been allowed as from the fourteenth of the month.”
    â€œNice for you.”
    â€œVery. Seems as if he’d taken it to the first-aid post near the church and they said they couldn’t do nothing with it on its own so to speak.”
    â€œQuite.”
    â€œSo he popped it round to the mortuary …”
    â€œDid he?”
    â€œWe were using the Italian ice cream parlor in River Street as a mortuary in those days, the bottom having fallen out of the market in a manner of speaking …”
    â€œYes?” Whoever had nicknamed Police Constable Brown “Lightning” had done a good day’s work. Sloan hoped that he—whoever he was—had got promotion.
    Constable Crosby came back, notebook in hand. He’d got Leslie Waite’s address.
    â€œDue,” went on P.C. Brown unhurriedly, “to a shortage at the time of both Italians and ice cream.”
    â€œThe finger,” prompted Sloan.
    â€œThe mortuary wouldn’t touch it without a body belonging to it. Not their pigeon, they said. So he brought it round here to the station.”
    â€œWhat did you do with it?” asked Sloan, fascinated in spite of his better judgement.
    â€œBuried it beside Timoshenko out in the back yard.”
    â€œWho was Timoshenko?” inevitably.
    â€œThe station cat. She was a lady cat as it happened, but this Russian general was very popular at the time.” Lightning Brown sniffed. “Next day another chap turns up and says the finger was his. He was one short naturally …”
    â€œNaturally.” In a minute Sloan would get up and walk out. The Ancient Mariner had nothing on P.C. Brown.
    â€œSeems as if he was chopping wood when Moaning Minnie went and the axe slipped. He’d nipped off to the hospital before this other chap came along.”
    â€œAnd there was nobody else missing?”
    â€œNobody else, Inspector.” He shut the file. “Except a young lady who wrote from a well-known address north of the Border …”
    â€œI’ll buy it.”
    â€œGretna Green. I don’t suppose you want to know about her.”
    â€œJust for the record.” Sloan told Crosby to take down a Berebury name and address. “You never know.”
    â€œIt’ll have changed again,” said