Passing Strange (25 page)
Authors: Catherine Aird
That, decided Sloan, was where local knowledge came in. The Bank wouldn't have been satisfied with the rate of return on the estate and Stephen Terlingham would have been entitled to a closer look at the income and expenditure account.
Leeyes grunted.
“Thinking back, sir,” went on Sloan, “I'm not sure that Terlingham didn't have doubts himself and that that's why he'd dug his toes in about the succession. He might have suspected funny business without knowing what it was or exactly where to look.”
“He's too canny to say,” said Leeyes.
“Anyway, Hebbinge was getting every penny that the Agricultural Tenancy Acts would let him out of Sam Watkinson.”
Leeyes grunted. “Paying it into the estate, though?”
“Oh yes, sir. His paperwork was perfectly all right. The auditors don't seem to have had any qualms.”
Leeyes said something disparaging about all members of the accountancy profession.
“Not all crime shows up on a balance sheet, sir.”
That which was Cæsar's would have been rendered unto Cæsar, though.
“Figures mean what you want them to mean,” said Leeyes in an unconscious parody of the Red Queen.
“Watkinson's farm was bigger anyway,” said Sloan, “so it would look all right at first glance anyway. Everyone would expect the rent to be higher than the two others. There could be other things, too.”
“Other things?” said Leeyes.
“The two farmers could have had benefits charged to the estate that they should have paid for and split the difference.”
“Such as?” demanded Leeyes. There were no benefits about being in the police force. At football matches a policeman kept his eye on the crowd, not on the ball.
“Fencing,” suggested Sloan. “Piped water. Maintenance of farm roads. Anyway, sir, things were not as they should have been.”
“Monkey business,” said Leeyes succinctly. “That letter of Mrs Agatha Mellows about the colour of the baby's eyes?”
“Not only found by Hebbinge,” said Sloan, “but probably written by him, too. It's a passable forgery but the scientific people say the paper he used isn't old enough.”
“They always forget something,” said Leeyes complacently.
“Since the Brigadier died,” said Sloan, who had been very active indeed in the last hour or so, “I think there had been what you might call unjust enrichment.”
“So the other two,” said Leeyes, “Milsom and Kershaw â they'd had their fingers in the pie, too, had they?”
“As far as I can determine,” said Sloan cautiously, “the rents of Dorter End and Abbot's Hall were well below what they should have been.” He hadn't had anything like enough time to investigate in detail. “The leases were sound enough but Terlingham didn't come into the rent negotiations.”
Leeyes grunted.
“If you ask me,” Sloan forged on, “those two farmers were splitting the difference with Hebbinge. The difference between what the rent could have been and what they were paying, I mean.”
“I told you to look for who benefited, Sloan.”
“Yes, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I don't know that we shall ever be able to prove anything ⦔
“Come, come, Sloan,” clucked Leeyes bracingly, “that won't do. What did Milsom and Kershaw say when you tackled them?”
“Shut up like a pair of clams and started talking about their solicitors.”
“That proves it then,” said Superintendent Leeyes, jumping several sacred legal principles on his way to a conclusion. “What more do you want?”
“Very little, sir, thank you,” said Sloan sedately. “We shall get our conviction for murder and no doubt the â er â children of this world will get their just deserts, seeing,” he added, “that they are in their generation wiser than the children of Light.”
His mother had been a great reader of the Bible. “What's that, Sloan? What's that â¦?”
But Police Superintendent Leeyes did have the last word after all.
Though not until the next day: the Monday morning. Sloan had laid the rough outline of a draft report on his desk a little earlier.
“By the way, Sloan ⦔
“Sir?”
“There was one thing I wasn't sure about.”
“Sir?”
“I don't like loose ends.”
“No, sir.” Sloan knew that already.
“What became of the water otter?”
“Ah yes, sir. The water otter.”
“It was in the tent on the other side of Nurse Cooper.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sloan weakly. “I put Crosby on to looking into that.”
“Well?”
“You see, sir, it was like this ⦔
“Forget all about it, did he? Just like ⦔
“No, sir,” said Sloan hastily. “He didn't forget. He found out all right.”
“Sloan, are you keeping something from me?”
“No, sir,” Sloan swallowed. “They didn't hear anything in that tent.”
“Too much splashing about?”
“In a manner of speaking, sir.”
“Sloan, what do you mean? What exactly was in that tent?” he asked peremptorily.
“A kettle, sir.”
“A kettle?” A rising note of disbelief came into his voice. “Is that all?”
“On a primus stove, sir.”
“A kettle on a primus stove ⦔ began Leeyes. “How the devil ⦔ Then the Superintendent's voice fell away.
“It was,” added Sloan, greatly daring, “getting â er â warmer.”
“I get it,” said Leeyes. He sounded a broken man. “Don't tell me ⦔
Sloan nodded. “A water 'otter,” he said hollowly.
About the Author
Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty volumes of detective mysteries and three collections of short stories. Most of her fiction features Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan and Detective Constable W. E. Crosby. Aird holds an honorary master's degree from the University of Kent and was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to the Girl Guide Association. She lives in a village in East Kent, England.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1980 by Catherine Aird
Cover design by Tracey Dunham
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1064-1
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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