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Authors: Catherine Aird

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Hole in One (3 page)

BOOK: Hole in One
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‘Switchboard here, Inspector Sloan,' said the voice at the other end of his telephone. ‘Message for you from the Superintendent.'
‘But he's not in today, surely, Melanie?' said Detective Inspector CD Sloan, puzzled. He was certain of that. It was one of things that all those at Berebury Police Station always knew instinctively without being told.
‘No, sir,' agreed the voice on the switchboard. ‘He isn't in.'
‘So?' When Superintendent Leeyes was in the building it had the same effect on his underlings as did the arrival of a sparrowhawk on a garden full of little birds. Everyone there then lay very low and quite still, heads well down. When the Superintendent wasn't there everyone went about their usual avocations no less dutifully but in a more relaxed manner.
‘He says he wants you urgently.'
‘So how come he wants me urgently, then, if he's off-duty today?' Detective Inspector Sloan was Head of the tiny Criminal Investigation Department of “F” Division of the Calleshire County Constabulary at Berebury. Known as Christopher Dennis to his friends and family, the Inspector was for obvious reasons called “Seedy” by his colleagues at the Berebury Police Station.
‘He was ringing from the Golf Club,' explained the telephonist.
He should have guessed. Superintendent Leeyes might possess a perfectly good house in a pleasant part of the old market town and work at the Police Station in the not-so-nice High Street, but to all intents and purposes he lived and had his being on the golf course. ‘But why?'
‘All I know is that he wants you and your team over there at the Club quicker than soonest,' said Melanie, lapsing into
the vernacular. ‘Like pretty smartish.'
‘All right, then.' Detective Inspector Sloan grinned to himself. There was only one other person who would be glad to know that Sloan was on his way to the Golf Club and that was his own wife, Margaret. ‘You can tell him I'm on my way'
In spite of his protests to the contrary, Margaret Sloan was quite convinced that therein – membership of the Golf Club - lay the only way to promotion. He'd lost count of the number of times that he'd told her that he didn't see how hitting a small white ball for the number of times it took to walk three and a half miles up hill and down dale in pursuit of that same small white ball led to an instant rise in rank. And that he preferred growing roses anyway.
‘As for my team, Melanie,' he went on, quickly suppressing the spectre of having to play against the Superintendent as part of his wife's game-plan, ‘you can say that Constable Crosby's the only one around just now …' he stopped and changed this. ‘No, on second thoughts don't tell him that.' Detective Constable Crosby was not the brightest penny in the purse: usually he only had to open his mouth to put his foot in it.
‘Better to let the bad news wait,' Sloan murmured to himself as he put the telephone down.
‘Perhaps, sir,' suggested that very same Detective Constable Crosby, at the wheel as the police car slipped out of the station yard at Berebury and into the traffic stream, ‘the Super's lost his ball and needs the detective branch to find it for him …'
‘You just concentrate on getting us to the Golf Club in one piece, Crosby.' Sloan put his thumbs firmly inside his seat belt to stop his hands rising protectively in front of his face as the police car cornered at speed. ‘And keep the jokes for later.'
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'
‘Besides, speculation ahead of the facts will get us
nowhere.' In police work, it could be very dangerous, too; especially – an ever-present worry – when it led to preconceived ideas shutting out other – better – lines of enquiry. But this was something Crosby would have to learn for himself. There was only so much about detection that could be taught. The rest had to be caught. ‘Apart from anything else, Crosby, it's a waste of time.'
Superintendent Leeyes was waiting for them on the steps of the Clubhouse. Crosby steered the car as near to him as he could and came to a stop with a noisy flourish of brakes.
‘Not there, man,' spluttered Leeyes at the Constable, as Sloan clambered out from the passenger seat beside him. ‘Can't you read? That notice says that the parking here is reserved for the Men's Captain. Get that car out of the way before anyone sees you.'
Crosby reversed at an equally fast speed and disappeared in the direction of the professional's shop in a cloud of dust.
‘You, Sloan,' commanded Leeyes, ‘come with me.'
‘Yes, sir.' It occurred to the detective inspector that he hadn' t often seen the Superintendent out of uniform, although the police chief wasn't now so much dressed in mufti as appropriately clad for the game of golf, which wasn't the same thing at all.
‘This way, man,' Leeyes turned on his heel, and set off at a dog-trot round the side of the Clubhouse. ‘We'll make for that practice tee over by those trees. Can't go in the Clubhouse in these shoes. Not allowed.'
Sloan's gaze travelled downwards and took in the fact that his superior officer was wearing brogues worthy of a Highland Chieftain of yesteryear.
‘It's the spikes,' explained Leeyes. ‘They damage the carpet. Besides, we need to get away from all the Rabbits in there.'
‘Rabbits, sir?' echoed Sloan cautiously. If quite ordinary people could lose their marbles, then presumably so could
senior policemen.
‘Beginners, Sloan, absolute beginners,' he said with a grimace, ‘and in this case, which is worse, women beginners. And those in there are making the very devil of a noise.' He snorted. ‘No one can get near enough to the ladies to quieten them down, let alone get a decent story out of anyone, more's the pity. Fortunately I was almost first on the scene myself – after the woman who found the body, that is.'
‘That'll be a great help, sir,' said Sloan, unconvinced of any such thing. ‘So if I might just make a note …'
‘You won't get any sense out Helen Ewell and Ursula Millward – that's the pair who were playing,' snorted Leeyes. ‘Nobody can. For a start they're all holed up with the other women in the Ladies Section.'
‘Ah.' As always, Sloan was glad to get hold of names. Any names. At this stage, at least, it would be something to go on.
‘Helen Ewell won't stop crying,' Leeyes blew out his cheeks, ‘and none of the women in there with her will leave her to come out and talk to us.'
‘What about?' ventured Sloan, resolving to send at once for Police Sergeant I Perkins. She had a way, born of long practice, with wailing women.
‘The bunker at the sixth, of course.' said Leeyes, unabashed. ‘Didn't I say? Now, come along this way, Sloan. We can talk over there on the practice tee without anyone overhearing us.'
The Superintendent had started off leading the way at a good pace but he came to a sudden halt in front of the Clubhouse when he caught sight of a man standing at the foot of the flagpole there. The man was gesturing uncertainly in the direction of the two policemen.
‘Don't do anything until I say, Arthur,' the Superintendent called out to him. ‘We don't know yet whether the deceased was a member or not. You'll just have to wait and see.'
The golfer thus addressed acknowledged this with a wave of his hand and walked back over the lawn to the Clubhouse.
‘We always fly the flag at half mast, Sloan,' explained the Superintendent, ‘when we lose a member.'
‘Quite so, sir,' murmured Sloan, adding tentatively, ‘and you think you've – so to say – lost one, do you?'
‘Someone, somewhere has lost someone,' pronounced Leeyes. ‘Whose body it is, we don't know yet.'
‘But one has been found,' persisted Sloan.
‘A dead body has been partially unearthed in the bunker at the back of the sixth green,' said Leeyes impressively.
‘Might I ask exactly what sort of a dead body, sir?'
In Sloan's experience there were bodies and bodies: old and new, for instance, and young and old, too. And male and female …
‘Difficult to say just from the head,' said Leeyes, ‘and I'm afraid that's as much as we've got to go on so far.'
Detective Inspector Sloan drew breath ‘A severed head?' Now that was something that hadn't often come his way in all his years in the Force.
‘No, no,' said Leeyes tetchily. ‘The head's only as much of the body as can be seen so far without disturbing the scene.'
‘I get you, sir.' An image not unconnected with the grin on the face of the Cheshire Cat in
Alice in Wonderland
rose and then died aborning in Sloan's mind.
‘At least the woman had the sense not to dig any further than she had done already.' The Superintendent managed to convey that this restraint in a lady golfer had come as something of a surprise.
‘A clear field is always a help, sir.' Actually it was a luxury not often enjoyed by his Department.
Leeyes shot him a suspicious glance. ‘You could do a lot of damage to a cranium, Sloan, with a mashie-niblick if you didn' t know how to handle it.'
Sloan paused and said thoughtfully, ‘And probably even more if you did, sir.' In his time he had seen weapons take many forms: for all he knew a mashie-niblick might well be one to add to the list. Knowing how to use it was something else.
‘It's the best club of all for some lies – the really difficult ones,' said Leeyes seriously. ‘Remember that, Sloan.'
‘I will, sir.' He hurried into further speech before the golfer in the man completely overtook the policeman in the Superintendent. ‘I take it that there is good reason to believe we're dealing with a non-accidental death?'
As far as he was aware golf was not a contact sport although he'd heard often enough of men having heart attacks on the course … He'd always supposed it was the frustration that did it. Perhaps this was something he should mention to his wife …
Leeyes sniffed. ‘All I can tell you, Sloan, at this stage is that we're dealing with a non-accidental burial, which is usually the same thing.'
‘And in a bunker, sir, I think you said?' Sloan had an idea that the Americans called those hazards “sand traps”. He opened his notebook.
‘The one behind the sixth green and of course it's unlikely to be natural causes,' said Leeyes, irritably. ‘Not out there.'
‘Nor suicide unless someone else has buried him.' Detective Inspector Sloan started to spell out in his mind the NASH classification of the causes of death: Natural Causes, Accident, Suicide …
‘Which just leaves homicide,' grunted Leeyes. He jerked his shoulder in the direction of the first tee where a little clump of men could be seen to have congregated. ‘Naturally I told them to close the course at once. Not popular, mind you,' he said, bracing his shoulders as one who had only performed his painful duty. ‘But it had to be done. The Club Secretary
agreed with me, of course, and put up a notice straightaway.'
Sloan nodded appreciatively. At the Police Station the Superintendent's actions – however bizarre – did not require endorsement by anyone. It was obviously a different matter here at the Berebury Golf Club. He scribbled some names in his notebook. ‘I'll alert Dr Dabbe, sir, and the photographers and the rest of the Scenes of Crime people …'
Leeyes wasn't listening. He was looking back towards the Clubhouse. ‘Ah, there's the Captain arriving now. I must have a word with him at once …you go on ahead, Sloan. And take Constable Crosby with you before the fool says the wrong thing.' He screwed his eyebrows into a ferocious frown. ‘It wouldn't do for that to happen, you know. Not here at the Club.' He gave a little cough. ‘I'm up for the Committee, you know.'
‘Walk?' echoed Crosby, the dismay in his expression almost comical.
‘Walk,' repeated Sloan. ‘That is, Crosby, as in putting one foot in front of the other.'
‘But …'
‘Repeating as necessary,' said Sloan. That had been the instruction on the last prescription he had had from his doctor and the phrase had stuck in his mind. ‘If you remember, that is what men on the beat used to do all the time.'
‘Only the PC Plods,' protested the Constable, whose own ambition it was to be transferred to Traffic Division as soon as possible.
‘And incidentally,' swept on Sloan, since this was a sore point at the Police Station, ‘what the Great British Public would like us to be doing a lot more of.'
‘It's all very well for the Numpties,' muttered Crosby, half under his breath. His own wish to be transferred to Traffic Division was only exceeded by the determination of Traffic Division not to have him join them.
‘But the public forget that walking the beat doesn't get the villains caught,' said Sloan absently, his mind now on an unknown body, buried up to the head.
BOOK: Hole in One
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