Ellis Peters - George Felse 10 - The Knocker On Death's Door by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

edges. He thought of fragments of hair and skin adhering, to make the manner of the assault certain, and of fingerprints to identify the hand that had held the weapon. But no, not from that stone, not a hope! It was a bright, whitish lump, full of mica crystals, without a smooth surface anywhere on it. More likely, perhaps, to have abraded the attacker’s fingertips when he struck with it, and collected some sample of skin or blood tissue that might lead to him by another way. There was a police forensic laboratory in Birmingham; the full treatment would be available within a couple of hours at the most.
    The thought was at once reassuring and chilling, as though the valley had already been invaded by the apparatus of unlawful death, as indeed it had from the moment the stone was plucked out of the grass. No going back now. Dave had never felt himself so much a native. He also felt, to tell the truth, a little sick, but no one looking at his dour, quiet face would have realised it.
    If he had ever entertained any idea that the law moved slowly and sleepily in these parts, he was soon disabused of it. Sergeant Moon and one of his constables came rattling down the valley from Abbot’s Bale in the sergeant’s old Ford within thirteen minutes, slipped the car inside the vicarage drive, and arrived without alerting the village. The relief and security Dave felt at the very sight of the big sergeant was illuminating; after all, he was only Middlehope at all by marriage, but of his membership in the islanded community here there could no longer be any doubt. He might have been there since before Eliseg’s grandson set up the memorial pillar to him, over in Wales. He even walked and talked like a Middlehope man. Easy to see why he never wanted to move away, not even for promotion. What did he want with promotion, when he was already, after his fashion, a minor prince?
    “Ah,” said the sergeant, considering the body of the photographer from Birmingham with the same gravity and calm with which he daily summed up the weather prospects at the edge of winter, and estimated his commitment in case of isolation. “Stranger. Didn’t I see him last Sunday? With a camera?” It was not really a question, unless to himself, and already provided with its answer. Dave said nothing, not yet. When the sergeant wanted anything from him, he’d ask for it.
    “You found him, Dave? Statements come later, now just tell me.” Sergeant Moon knew every soul who belonged in his domain, and could call them all by their first names.
    Dave told him, slowly and accurately, with times. He knew when he’d left home, he knew how long it took to drive a car round into the vicarage garage and walk back here. “I know who he is—or at least I know who he said he was. He brought his car in to our place yesterday morning with damaged steering, and gave me his card. He said he might stay overnight. I had the car ready last night, but I didn’t think anything when he didn’t come for it, after what he’d said. His name’s Bracewell. And you’re right, he was here on Sunday covering the service. He was in ‘The Sitting Duck’ that evening. That’s all I know about him. Except that he was interested in that door—more than most, I mean. As if he thought he was on to something special about it, and thought he might get a good story out of it. I don’t know how, he didn’t say.”
    For Dave it was quite a speech. The sergeant patted his shoulder vaguely, and digested, with no vagueness at all, what he had told him. The Reverend Andrew hovered, with nothing to do but confirm the circumstances that had brought him there.
    And then, within three quarters of an hour of the discovery of the body, the whole apparatus suddenly went into top gear. The succession of events was bewildering. First came the valley police doctor, hurtling in preoccupied and surly to kneel beside the dead man, touch him delicately, probe half-heartedly for a temperature (the body