Easy As Falling Off a Bike pt 3096

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The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike, est. 2007)
Part 3096
by Angharad

Copyright© 2017 Angharad

  
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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
*****

The senior plod asked to speak to the professor and I called Tom. He reminded me I was a professor too, I left them to it and started sorting the lunch—David was away visiting his sister—he’ll have a surprise when he returns with all the gossip.

I watched Tom pointing up the drive behind the garage where my old Jaguar was. I wondered what was going on. However, I was busy playing with a chicken when he came back into the house and it was only when I saw a Landrover pulling a caravan did I understand what was going on.

“Jeez, what the hell is that?" asked Julie as the shadow passed the kitchen windows.

“At a guess, a mobile incident room—looks like we’ve got ourselves a murder.”

“Does that mean we’ll all be questioned by detectives?”

“Probably.”

“Great—just what I needed.”

“I suspect we’ll all be able to say that.”

“Surely they don’t think we'd kill someone and just leave them to rot.”

“I have no idea what they think, but you and Phoebe were out quite late.”

“Mummy, you don’t honestly think I killed someone, do you?”

“Put the kettle on and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“How did he die, anyway?”

“I have no idea, darling, did they bring the cups back?”

“Dunno,” she shrugged, “didn’t you like examine the body?”

“No, I established he was dead and called the police.”

The window was tapped and I went to the door. “Sorry to trouble you, ma’am but have you the key to the garage up round the back?”

“What d’you need that for, it’s always locked, so there’ll be no clues in there?”

“Um, we need to run some electricity from there, your dad said we could.”

“I’ll bring it up in a moment.”

He nodded and left.

I swore under my breath, my classic Jaguar was in that garage and I didn’t want loads of sticky fingered plod touching it.

With an attitude far from gracious, I opened the garage and let them plug their cables into the plugs there.

“Cor, what a crackin’ car,” said the guy who’d knocked on the window. "Jeez, Ben, come an’ see this.”

Another officer arrived and looked at my pristine vintage car. “Oh beautiful,” he said walking round it, “She’s in magnificent nick; don’t wanna sell her do you?”

“No I don’t and if I did, I doubt you could afford her.”

“She’s yours?”

“Yes, why shouldn’t she be?”

“It’s usually a man thing, old sports cars.”

“How many Jags you got?”

“Me, just this one and the estate out the front.”

“What the XRF?”

“Yes.”

“There’s three others out there.”

“The F type and the XK are my husband’s and the XE is my daughter’s.”

“Nice to have a few bob, innit?” said the copper to no one in particular.

“Yes, but we all work very hard for it.”

“I’m sure you do, bet you get more than a measly thirty k.”

“I do.”

“What d’you do then?” he asked.

“I’m a professor at the university.”

“Oh professor of what?”

“The faculty of science, I have eight departments under me, with their own professors.” I thought I’d show that I did work for my money.

“So you’re some sort of super professor, then?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Cor, knew I shoulda listened to my old man, he always said best thing you can do is get a good education. So how many degrees you got then, to be a professor?”

“Three, why?”

“What? A PhD?”

“A bachelor of science, master of science and doctor of philosophy.”

“Nice, anyway, we’re gonna run the juice from here—don’t worry we measure what we take and will reimburse you.”

“Could we shut the doors once it’s all connected.”

“Dunno if they will, this is quite a thick cable.” In the end and because I persisted, they managed to close the garage doors and lock them with cable in place. I took the key back with me promising there would be someone available to give it to them if they needed to get into the garage. I thought it unlikely until they needed to remove the caravan, which was closer to David’s cottage than our house, pretty well where the caravan he’d used for several months when his house was damaged in that storm. I wasn’t sure what he’d think about it all.

“Ye’ culd hae let them borrow thae key f’ thae garage.”

“I didn’t want them playing around with my Jaguar.”

“Is that the one you said I could have, Mum?” exclaimed Danni.

“I haven’t said anyone could have it. It was given to me by Mr Whitehead and I feel honour bound to look after it as best I can.”

“So keepin’ it under dust sheets in the garage, does that does it?” pouted my teenage daughter.

“What you mopin’ for, you can’t drive it for another three years anyhow?” challenged Julie.

“’S’all right for you, you already got a Jag.”

“Paid for it myself, get a job.”

“Girls, please.” I asked and they continued sniping until Simon banged the table and they all shut up immediately. That makes me so cross, that they ignore me just because I’m their mother, but one word from Si and they behave.

Tom looked across at me and winked as if he’d read my mind. I rolled my eyes in reply and he smiled.

“So what do we know about this unfortunate?” asked Simon.

“Which one’s that, Daddy, the guy up the orchard or Danni for being too young to drive?”

“At least I won’t be too old to in a few years,” snapped back Danielle.

“Ooh watch out Posh Beckham’s getting up close and personal.”

“Girls, please.” Simon asserted himself and it fell quiet. “So, have the police said anything?” he addressed to me.

“Only thank you for the teas, oh and they’ll want to talk to everyone at some point to see if anyone saw anything last night.”

“Danni didn’t, she was ever so slightly pissed,” said Julie.

“I want to speak with you about that,” I said quietly but with just a hint of menace. Julie blushed as did Phoebe and Danielle suddenly became very interested in her dinner.

I glanced at Simon who smirked momentarily as he was just glad it didn’t fall to him to conduct the interrogations.

While Julie and I were clearing up, the Inspector in charge asked for me to go up to the incident room for a chat. I knew what that meant and pulling on a coat wandered up with him.

For perhaps twenty minutes he went over my story of the discovery of the body—the dog barking at it—and if I knew anything else about the victim. As I didn’t know who he even was, I felt I couldn’t tell them anything much at all, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t there the day before.

“Oh we know that, he was definitely killed last night probably about midnight. You didn’t hear any shots being fired—I mean it’s usually pretty quiet round here, isn’t it?”

“Usually but there were several lots of fireworks which could quite easily have masked a shot.”

“Yeah, that’s what we thought.”

“Do we know who he was?”

“Oh yes, he’s known to us all right.”

“That sounds ominous,” I replied.

He shrugged, “Can’t tell you anything at this stage.”

“But he was shot?”

“Three times.”

“Are we going to be safe here?”

“I think so, besides there’ll be someone in the van overnight guarding the site.”

“I can assure you we won’t be visiting it.”

“I know that Lady Cameron, but there are plenty of ghouls who will try.”

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Comments

So where's Miss Marple when we need her?

Too bad Cathy does not have a Miss Marple-esque busy body neighbor who will come by and help her solve these mysteries on her property. If you think about it, Cathy's property has been the scene of at least a dozen dead bodies, maybe even a dozen and a half. And she has only lived there, how long? 6 years or so?

I still think the plod should give her her own POC to report things :)

Miss Marple!

Angharad's picture

What's wrong with Trishlock Holmes?

Angharad

Never mind Danni

in another 3 yrs you could be earning some very nice cash playing football , Whilst its true that womens football does not attract the ridiculous amounts ( rumour has it a Chinese premier league team are prepared to offer a top premier league player £800,000 per WEEK to play over in China )They can certainly make a very nice living from the game, Especially if they move abroad .Then Julie would be the one who is jealous .

Kirri

Sounds like there is way more

Sounds like there is way more to what happened there than is being said by the Chief Inspector. If they have an incident van on site now, it seems that they would be able to make the scene pretty secure by doing their forensics on the body and the surrounding area of the body location and then remove it.

Murder most foul.

Three shots sounds like some sort of contract job except for the method of disposal. There's bound to be lots of clues because it takes effort to to kill and successfully dispose of a body and this job seems to have been sloppy.
Ah well, another mystery to solve.

Thanks for the added interest (Again!) Ang.

xx

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Not the girls

Podracer's picture

It could get very stressful if the victim had anything to do with the girls' night out just gone. At least none of them are acting suspiciously.

"Reach for the sun."

Wait a minute ! The plods are

Wait a minute ! The plods are going to leave the body there overnight ?

Karen