Exit. Belinda Bauer
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that dug, dug pavement. One focused a telescope into the pointy ear of his neighbour.
‘I’ll take the gnomes,’ said Pete, as Calvin had known he would, so he went to the immediate neighbours. The squat woman who opened the door looked vaguely familiar.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Hello, Calvin!’
It took Calvin a moment before the penny dropped. ‘Hello, Mrs Moon!’
Just a few hundred yards from this very spot, Marion Moon’s husband, Donald, had climbed over a gate in a lay-by and stepped on to a murdered woman’s face.
‘How are you and Mr Moon?’
‘Can’t complain, Calvin, and yourself?’
‘Can’t complain.’
‘We heard you broke up with Shirley.’
Calvin blinked in surprise. That was the thing he hated about being a copper in a small town. People he hardly knew knowing things about him that he’d rather they didn’t.
‘Got a couple of quick questions, if you don’t mind, Mrs Moon?’
Her face clouded over and she leaned in and whispered, ‘Police business?’
He nodded.
‘Because Donald’s not up to it,’ she went on. ‘Standing on that woman, you see? It knocked him for six. And then just as he was getting back, one of the sheep broke his leg and that knocked him for another six and he had to retire and sell that little bit of land we’d kept because it was all too much, and move here, and Donald doesn’t like being in the town, you see, and his nerves are terrible, and he’s just getting over a chest infection, so I don’t think he’s up to much.’
‘Of course,’ said Calvin, reeling from the litany of disasters that had befallen Donald Moon since he’d stood on Frannie Hatton’s face. It was too tangled to even start to unravel, so he just pressed on, lowering his own voice in consideration of Donald Moon’s nerves. ‘We had a call from a lady earlier today about two people who were seen going into the Canns’ house. Was it you who called?’
‘Not me,’ said Mrs Moon. ‘I didn’t see anybody.’
Calvin considered for a moment, then asked, ‘Might I ask Mr Moon if he noticed anyone?’
Marion pursed her lips.
‘It’s really very important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.’
She sighed, and Calvin followed her through a dark hallway and into the back room, where Donald Moon sat in a chair by the window with a pair of binoculars in his lap. He’d lost weight and looked ten years older than he had three years ago.
‘You remember Calvin, Donald!’
‘Calvin?’ Donald Moon looked up vaguely. ‘No.’
‘From the police. Remember?’
‘Oh, the police,’ he said, and didn’t smile.
Calvin put on his best cheerful voice. ‘Hello, Mr Moon, nice to see you again.’
‘Mm,’ said Donald.
‘Sounds like you’ve had a bit of a tough time of it since we last met.’
‘Could say that.’
‘Sorry to hear it, sir. But I wondered if you might be able to help me. There were a couple of strangers around the street this morning,’ Calvin said carefully. ‘Did you see or hear anything odd?’
‘No.’
‘Not through the old bins?’ Calvin gestured at the binoculars.
‘They’re for the birds,’ he said, and his wife smiled anxiously at Calvin.
‘We can’t have sheep now, you see? So Donald looks after the birds.’
‘Got to look after something,’ the old man said grumpily and turned and lifted his binoculars to his eyes to look down the long garden.
‘Well, thank you anyway, Mr and Mrs Moon. It’s good to see you again.’
Marion saw Calvin out. ‘You must excuse him,’ she said at the step. ‘He hasn’t been the same since all that happened.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Calvin. Donald Moon had been a simple farmer who’d dutifully reported a gruesome find – whereupon he and his wife had become collateral damage in the quest for a serial killer. He’d been questioned about Frannie Hatton until he’d broken down, and then he and Mrs Moon had wept again as the police had torn apart their old farmhouse on the cliffs. They’d had to, but it had all been for nothing. Donald Moon had had nothing to do with the crime. No wonder he looked guarded now. He would probably never trust the police again, and Calvin couldn’t blame him.
‘Is everything all right next door?’
Calvin knew he should fob Mrs Moon off with police-speak, but felt he owed her some honesty, so he told her that Albert had died.
‘Oh dear!’ she gasped. ‘Poor man. Was it his lungs?’
‘We’re not sure what happened,’ hedged Calvin. ‘How well do you know the Canns, Mrs Moon?’
‘Not well,’ she said. ‘We only moved in eighteen months ago. We knew they were sick, of course. Albert and Skipper. Reggie told us. But he’s a lovely boy. Looks after them a treat and works full-time. And Albert wasn’t an easy man, you know?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just not easy. He and Donald had words soon after we moved in. Over who was supposed to repair the fence between us. It’s their fence, you see? But it was rotten and their little dog kept coming through and doing his business in our garden. Donald fixed it in the end. With his bad leg and all. But then Albert got sick and we didn’t see him much after that.’
Calvin nodded. ‘Did you ask Reggie to fix the fence?’
‘No, no. We could see he was snowed under. I don’t know what they’d do without him. And when we moved in he helped me move furniture about while Donald was in plaster. I gave him some scones to take home and he brought the plate back all washed and dried and everything. Oh dear. Poor Reggie. And now you think these two people might have something to do with it?’
‘Yes,’ said Calvin, ‘but you mustn’t worry about it, Mrs Moon. We don’t know yet what happened but it looks like a one-off in very specific circumstances.’
She nodded, regaining her sensible demeanour. ‘I don’t think I’ll tell Donald,’ she whispered. ‘He hardly gets out any more. Down the garden to feed the birds and that’s about it, and he hasn’t even done that for a week, so he won’t notice anything’s amiss next door for a good while.’
‘That’s probably best,’ nodded Calvin. ‘Would you have any idea who might have called the police? It was a woman.’
‘There’s Jean over the road where the gnomes are. She’s very nosey.’
‘Yes, thank you. My colleague is speaking to Jean.’
‘Other than that the only women are me and Mrs Digby next door.’
Calvin thanked her and said goodbye, and moved on to the next house, where Mrs Digby – a very old woman on a walker – took for ever to reach the glass front door. Then, when she made it, she couldn’t hear Calvin, even when he shouted.
‘I’LL FETCH MY HEARING AID!’ she finally yelled, as if it was something that had to be toted about by Sherpas instead of worn in her ear. Calvin almost told her not to bother, and then – after another five minutes of fruitless conversation on the doorstep – wished he had.
Calvin saw Pete knocking on the door of the middle house and called over, ‘Any luck?’
Pete shook his head.
Calvin