A Late Phoenix by Catherine Aird Page B

In Sloan’s opinion Hasse’s rule was measuring someone’s wild oat all right but he didn’t know if it was Leslie Waite’s or not.
    Yet.
    Certainly there had been no visible pricking of the ears by Leslie Waite at the mention of missing persons as there had been with Harold. But that might be because Harold had already warned him. He’d had several hours in which to do it and families were funny things. However divisive among themselves they were usually united against the police.
    â€œHe thought I was never going to make a go of anything when I came out of the Navy.” Leslie pointed a thumb towards the sea. “As the only thing I wanted to do was mess about in boats perhaps the old chap was right.”
    There was a sudden burst of laughter from the bar. Leslie edged his way into the barman’s ambit and came back with another beer.
    â€œDo you go over to Luston much?” asked Sloan casually.
    â€œAnd run the risk of conversion by my sanctimonious sister-in-law, Inspector? Not on your life!”
    â€œOr Berebury?”
    He shook his head. “No. No point in going to Berebury when you can have days like today in Kinnisport, eh, Doreen?”
    â€œNone.”
    â€œWind right. Tide right. Heaven.”
    Doreen Waite smiled. “Couldn’t have been better.”
    â€œYou do a lot of sailing, sir?”
    Leslie Waite nodded vigorously. “Every day if I can. Not like the poor Saturday and Sunday blokes.”
    â€œAnd the rest of the time?”
    â€œWhen I’m not sailing? I work in a boat builder’s yard. Unskilled. I’m not very good. Doreen’s the one that keeps us going.”
    â€œNonsense.” Doreen Waite flushed. “I’m only a secretary, Inspector.”
    â€œAnyway, it’s better than slaving away in a factory like old Harold. And hog-tied to a religious maniac into the bargain. He never got anywhere at all—for all that he got shot of Corton’s like the others.”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with it?”
    â€œHis pals Reddley and Hodge did pretty well for themselves by clearing out when they did. All Harold did was change one bench for another.” Leslie Waite ran his eyes lazily round the cozy little pub and put his free arm round his wife. He lifted his glass with his other arm. “But in the end I reckon I’ve done best of all.”
    â€œReally, sir?”
    â€œReally, Inspector. I’ve got what I want without working. You can’t beat that.”
    Detective Constable Crosby, once more behind the driving wheel, inclined his head to indicate Kinnisport fast receding behind him. “If that’s failure, sir, I’ll have it every time, thank you very much.”
    â€œHis father cut him out of his will,” said Sloan.
    That was a fact.
    A demonstrable fact.
    Demonstrable facts were a little on the short side in the case at the moment and those that existed were mostly with the pathologist.
    A body.
    An unborn baby.
    And a bullet.
    Sloan stared out of the window without seeing anything: and decided he’d got the order wrong.
    An unborn baby, a bullet, and a body.
    That was more like it.
    The skeleton was there—on the post-mortem bench—but so far was unrelated to evidence in the police sense of that much misused word.
    â€œSons don’t get left out of their father’s wills for nothing,” persisted Sloan.
    If you listened to the politicians it was this obstinate determination of citizens to leave their worldly goods to their biological—not their social—heirs that caused half the taxation problems in the country.
    Sloan didn’t listen to the politicians, of course. He was a policeman and nearer to life as it was lived.
    â€œThat sort of failure’d suit me down to the ground.” Crosby changed down a gear for a bad bend.
    â€œFailure’s a relative thing …” That was something else you only learned as the