The Killing in the Café

TWENTY-SEVEN

Both Carole and Jude looked flabbergasted. ‘So what do you reckon they were doing in the boat?’ asked Jude breathlessly.

‘Well, as I say, I couldn’t see.’ Binnie Swales was clearly enjoying her moment in the spotlight. ‘But, piecing it together, working from the available information …’ Was she actually sending up their roles as amateur sleuths? ‘… one might conclude that the boat was being used to dispose of the body of Amos Green.’

‘Why do you say that? How do you know he was dead?’

‘You two found his dead body on the beach, didn’t you? He was certainly dead then.’

‘Yes, but that was about three weeks later. How did you know he was dead on the evening of the third of October?’

‘Well, I’d seen him dead, hadn’t I?’

‘You mean you saw him being killed?’

‘No, Carole, I didn’t say that, did I? Listen to what I say. I said I saw him dead.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which means just that. I saw him dead.’

‘Earlier that evening?’ asked Jude.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see him in the store room at Polly’s?’

Binnie nodded. ‘It was after closing time. I’d said goodbye to Sara, who was the only other member of staff still there. Hammo and the rest had gone home. Then Sara went to take some rubbish out to the recycling bins at the back and I suddenly remembered we were nearly out of doilies for the cake stands. So I thought I’d just check we’d got some in the store room and, if we hadn’t, I’d write them down on the “To Buy” list in the kitchen.

‘So I went into the store room.’ She was silent, pacing her narrative.

‘And?’ demanded Carole.

‘And I saw the body of the man who I’d served with an Americano that afternoon.’

‘He was dead?’

‘Definitely. There was a hole in his temple. Very little blood.’

‘Any sign of a gun?’ asked Jude.

‘One on the window sill. And no, there was no way he could have shot himself there and then fallen across the room. He was too far away from the gun. Someone else shot him, that’s for definite.’

There was a long, bewildered silence at the end of this narrative.

Then Carole said, ‘Binnie, have you told anyone else about what you saw?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Nobody asked.’