Passing Strange by Catherine Aird

Tompkins went quite pink. “He made a donation to our funds.”
    Sloan did not know what to say.
    â€œI couldn’t very well stop him, could I, Inspector?” she said in anguished tones. “He gave it, you see.”
    â€œNo,” said Sloan. There were minds that thought every difficulty could be overcome with money. Perhaps Maurice Esdaile had one of them.
    â€œThough I don’t know what the Committee will say.”
    If Sloan knew anything about Committees they would be divided.
    â€œBad money drives out good,” said Miss Tompkins sanctimoniously.
    That was one way of putting it. Down at the police station they had less polite names for money that changed hands to further causes.
    â€œBesides,” went on Miss Tompkins, “we had this notice up.”
    â€œWhat notice?”
    â€œIt said, ‘All contributions gratefully received and suitably acknowledged.’”
    Sloan clamped his jaws together.
    â€œI wish now we hadn’t had it there,” said Miss Tompkins plaintively.
    Sloan took his leave without comment. Game, set and match seemed to have gone to Maurice Esdaile and moreover Miss Tompkins knew it. He shut the gate of Blenheim Cottage behind him with care. As he turned to secure the latch the word carved in the wooden sign board proclaiming the name of the house caught his eye.
    â€œLet me see now,” he murmured to the closed door, “wasn’t there a famous victory there too?”
    Inspector Harpe’s men brought Miss Richenda Mellows to Sloan. He had gone back to the patch of grass near the old stables and waited there. The long summer evening shadows cast dappled patches of contrasting shade here and there over the ground and the tents and the people were gone but in essence the scene was very much as it had been earlier in the day.
    Detective-Inspector Sloan waited with Constable Crosby at his side as two burly Traffic men brought her across to him. She looked quite tiny between the two tall policemen.
    â€œMiss Mellows?” he began. “Miss Richenda Mellows?”
    â€œYes?” she said huskily. “Is there something wrong? These men wouldn’t tell me anything.”
    â€œI’m Detective-Inspector Sloan of the Criminal Investigation Department at Berebury.”
    â€œAnother policeman?”
    â€œYes.” He cleared his throat. “I have some questions to put to you – important questions.”
    Sloan found himself being considered by a pair of highly alert blue eyes. Their owner was on the tall side of short, with a crop of mid-brown hair. This looked to have a natural wave in it, which, if the casual nature of the rest of her appearance was anything to go by, was probably just as well. She was wearing blue jeans and a shaggy brown woollen jacket, and looked about sixteen. Eighteen was what she said she was.
    â€œI can’t keep warm in England,” she said, following his gaze. “I’d forgotten how cold the summers were.”
    Sloan nodded. Apart from the heavy jacket, though, she was wearing what every other youngster in the country seemed to be wearing these days.
    She flapped the jacket open with hands sunk deep into its pockets and again read his mind with uncanny accuracy. “When I got back to England there didn’t seem to be any other kind of clothes to buy in the shops.”
    Sloan could well believe it. He seldom saw any variety of teenager – good, bad or indifferent – dressed in anything else.
    â€œIt’s a sort of uniform now, isn’t it?” she said.
    â€œSort of,” agreed Sloan readily. The other thing about uniform was that it was a disguise too, though he did not say this. That was why policemen had numbers on their shoulders and motor vehicles had theirs fore and aft. It was the other sort of safety in numbers – though he did not say that either.
    â€œLike school,” she said gravely.
    There was something to be said for