‘Who was she?’ said Reid.
‘A little servant girl from one of those villas up there,’ said Alec, pointing. ‘I rather suspect she was out walking with her true love too and didn’t want it known that she had been.’
‘A wee servant girl?’ said Reid.
‘You’ll have to have another crack at her,’ I said.
‘Out walkin’ with her felly?’ He was frowning.
At that moment the motorcar door opened and the sergeant leaned out and barked (the only word for it) at the constable.
‘Reid!’
‘Aye, Sarge,’ said Reid. ‘We’re just away in the noo.’ He dropped his voice before he spoke again. ‘I tell you what, though. I’m no’ taking the poor man through and letting the sarge tell him. I’ll tell him myself and get Sergeant Turner after. He’s no’ got a good touch with folk tae my mind.’
But his concern was wasted, for when we entered the cafe it was to find Joe Aldo already in a state of shock so all-consuming that one wondered whether any fresh horrors could touch him. Even so, we shooed the hungry crowd out of the door (to gales of protest) and I scribbled a sign – 10 mins – and propped it up in the window. Then all four of us crushed into the back kitchen, Alec urged Joe into a chair and Constable Reid told him very gently that ‘a lady had passed away’ and would he ‘just glance at her to say it wasn’t his wife, please’ before leaving to fetch his sergeant for the rest of the interview.
‘Where?’ was the first word Joe uttered, when the two policemen had returned.
‘Up in the wee cove at Dunskey,’ said Reid. Joe’s face paled to an ugly cream colour and he rubbed his hand over it roughly.
‘From – from the water?’ he said.
Reid nodded.
‘Is Rosa?’ asked Joe.
‘I couldnae say,’ said Reid. ‘I’ve never met your wife, sir. Sarge?’
‘I didn’t know her,’ said the sergeant, his past tense making me wince.
Joe threaded a hand in under his apron and drew a wallet out of his waistcoat pocket. He flapped it open and held it out to us all, showing us a small photograph, rather dark, of a young woman in old-fashioned dress staring solemnly ahead. She might have been a great beauty; it was hard to say.
‘My Rosa,’ he said. ‘Is Rosa? In the cove?’
‘Can’t say,’ said the sergeant. Luckily, Joe Aldo was mystified by this response, blinking slowly and looking around us all. If he had realised why we could not say he might well have fainted.
‘So…’ said Reid.
Joe nodded, rummaged under his apron front again and pulled out a watch.
‘After the dinner time,’ he said. ‘One hour is the very most. Once my customers all are gone.’
‘Now hang on, pal,’ said the sergeant, causing a stir of protest from both Alec and me – he really was one of the most abrasive characters I have ever encountered and police sergeants are not known for being soothing. Constables and inspectors, in my experience, reflect the sweep of humanity but a sergeant always has something of the fox terrier about him. ‘We’re needing to crack on. We can’t hang about for you.’
‘Quite right, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘We’ll bring Mr Aldo to the cable station and you can, as you say, crack on. You’ve a case to solve and an obvious place to start from.’ I raised my eyebrows at Alec. He stared blankly back at me. I glanced at Reid. Both he and Alec continued to gaze back as though unable to guess at my allusion.
‘Taking statements from witnesses, for instance,’ I supplied, with another eyebrow wiggle at Alec and Constable Reid. They were two statues. It seemed ‘the sarge’ was not to be told of the servant girl and her observations.
‘I’m the best judge of my business, madam,’ said the sergeant, rather primly. He stood, straightened his suit coat and walked away. Joe shook himself, gave one last miserable look at Rosa’s photograph and went to reopen the shop. The three of us remaining – Reid, Alec and me – kept our seats in the back kitchen and as soon as the crowd had re-entered and their clamour would cover our voices I charged them with it directly.
‘Why on earth not tell Turner about the witness on Tuesday night?’ I said.
‘I found her,’ Alec said. ‘I’m not going to hand her over to him.’
‘Quite right, sir,’ said Reid. ‘I agree.’
I turned on him.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘She’s as timid as a little rabbit,’ Alec said. ‘Sergeant Turner would terrify her.’
‘Sergeant Turner does terrify her,’ said Reid. ‘The both o’ them do.’ To our puzzled looks he offered an explanation. ‘It’s the Turners she works tae, see?’
‘She’s Sergeant Turner’s very own servant?’ I said. ‘How do you know?’
‘Well, Mrs Turner’s really,’ Alec said.
‘Well, then of course you should have-’ I began, but Reid cut me off.
‘Can I just ask, sir? How did you track her down?’
‘Well, I didn’t so much track her down as run into her,’ Alec said. ‘She came down here to the shack at the same time as me this morning.’
‘To buy an early luncheon?’ I asked.
‘Never,’ said Reid. ‘Cissie Gilhooley hates thon greasy muck.’
‘How on earth do you know that?’ I asked.
‘It’s not the least bit greas-’ Alec began, but then shook himself. ‘Cissie came down because Mrs Aldo was supposed to go and collect the washing yesterday and she didn’t show up. So the lady of the house sent the girl to see what was wrong.’
‘And you pounced on her?’ I asked.
Reid shifted in his seat.
‘I asked when she’d last seen the woman,’ Alec said, ‘and she blurted out “Tuesday night” and blushed to the roots of her hair. It was then that I pounced on her. And she’s obviously going to get into considerable trouble if her mistress gets wind of her wanderings, so I’ll have to get even firmer with her if I’m to learn any more.’
‘Naw, no’ really,’ said Reid. ‘It’s right enough the wee lassie would get her papers if she got found out and we’ll can get it out of her without any o’ that anyway.’
‘You’re sure?’ I said.
‘Fine an’ sure,’ said Reid, shifting in his seat again. ‘It was me she was comin’ to meet.’ He turned as red as the big glass bottle of tomato ketchup on the table between us.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I see. You’d get into more trouble with your sergeant than she would with her mistress? Not that a little chivalry isn’t a welcome sight in these discourteous days. At least…’ I lowered my head and looked at him from under my brows. I have rather suitable eyebrows for the gesture, black and straight and formed for knitting. ‘… I hope it’s chivalry. I’m assuming your intentions are-’
‘She’s got a diamond ring on a chain round her neck, till we’ve a bit more saved and she can put it on her finger.’
‘Jolly good,’ I said. ‘And I suppose you didn’t see the mysterious stranger?’ He was shaking his head before the words were out of my mouth.
‘I did not. Cissie said she wanted to go a walk instead of sittin’’ – the blush deepened until he was almost purple from collar to hairline – ‘’cos of there bein’ other folk about and, to be straight wi’ youse, I didn’t really believe her.’ I pulled my eyebrows down again, not liking the sound of this at all. ‘Sitting’, as Reid called it, had to be at the lady’s discretion, surely. I could not think how to put this into words, however, without killing him off from embarrassment and quite possibly sending Alec with him. Besides, my eyebrows seemed to be doing the job on their own. He hung his head and scraped his boots against the floor and we left it there.
Outside in the cafe the luncheon trade had picked up again to full strength after the break in service. Orders were being shouted, the bell on the till was dinging, the rush and sizzle of hot fat as cold chips poured into it broke out over and over again. All that was missing was Joe’s voice, describing his wonders and urging the crowd to ‘eat, eat, eat, eat’ as he had with Alec and me at breakfast time.