windows. Keen on damages, he is.â
âIâm glad to hear it,â said Sloan. Though where damages got you with the Dickâs Dive mob he wouldnât know. If they didnât 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. âThen there was the war. You interested in the war, sir?â
âYes,â said Sloan for the first time in his life.
âThere were the deserters, of course. Always one or two of them making for home comforts. Premature demobilization with some of âem. Wanted to get back.â
âAnd civilians missing after air raids?â
The constable shook his head. âNobody like that unaccounted for, sir. Not here in Berebury.â
âSure?â
P.C. Brown looked pained. âDead sure, sir.â
âNot even after the Wednesday?â
âNo. I was here myself, sir. I remember quite well.â
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.
âNearest we came, sir, to a missing person or an unidentified body was a finger.â
âA finger?â For a moment Sloan wondered if he was having his leg pulled.
âThatâs 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 âaving been allowed as from the fourteenth of the month.â
âNice for you.â
âVery. Seems as if heâd taken it to the first-aid post near the church and they said they couldnât do nothing with it on its own so to speak.â
âQuite.â
âSo he popped it round to the mortuary â¦â
âDid he?â
âWe 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¦â
âYes?â Whoever had nicknamed Police Constable Brown âLightningâ had done a good dayâs work. Sloan hoped that heâwhoever he wasâhad got promotion.
Constable Crosby came back, notebook in hand. Heâd got Leslie Waiteâs address.
âDue,â went on P.C. Brown unhurriedly, âto a shortage at the time of both Italians and ice cream.â
âThe finger,â prompted Sloan.
âThe mortuary wouldnât touch it without a body belonging to it. Not their pigeon, they said. So he brought it round here to the station.â
âWhat did you do with it?â asked Sloan, fascinated in spite of his better judgement.
âBuried it beside Timoshenko out in the back yard.â
âWho was Timoshenko?â inevitably.
âThe station cat. She was a lady cat as it happened, but this Russian general was very popular at the time.â Lightning Brown sniffed. âNext day another chap turns up and says the finger was his. He was one short naturally â¦â
âNaturally.â In a minute Sloan would get up and walk out. The Ancient Mariner had nothing on P.C. Brown.
âSeems as if he was chopping wood when Moaning Minnie went and the axe slipped. Heâd nipped off to the hospital before this other chap came along.â
âAnd there was nobody else missing?â
âNobody else, Inspector.â He shut the file. âExcept a young lady who wrote from a well-known address north of the Border â¦â
âIâll buy it.â
âGretna Green. I donât suppose you want to know about her.â
âJust for the record.â Sloan told Crosby to take down a Berebury name and address. âYou never know.â
âItâll have changed again,â said
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