The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

DAPHNE McANDREWS AND THE SMACK-HEAD JUNKIES Stuart McBride

Half past eight on a cold autumn evening and Sergeant Dumfries had his feet up on the reception desk, a mug of tea in one hand, a copy of the Oldcastle Advertiser in the other. Reading about the hunt for little Lucy Milne. The lobby door clattered open, letting in a howling gale, setting the posters flapping on the notice board. He sat upright with a sigh, put the newspaper away and plastered a professional smile on his face. An old lady with a walking stick was wrestling a tartan shopping trolley in through the heavy wooden doors. She had a little Westie terrier on the end of an extendible leash, barking happily as bright orange leaves tumbled in around the old woman’s ankles, twirling about the police station lobby like demented Highland dancers.

“Can I help you with that, madam?”

She flashed him a smile. “No, no we’ll be fine.” There was something familiar about her, but Dumfries couldn’t put his finger on it. Five foot two, overweight, grey-brown overcoat, tartan headscarf, granny boots, face like a wrinkled cushion… With one last tug she got the trolley inside, letting the lobby door slam shut. For a moment the swirling leaves hung in the air, before slowly drifting to the linoleum floor.

She trundled her shopping trolley up to the reception desk and peeled off her headscarf, revealing a solid mass of grey curls, hairsprayed within an inch of their life. “Dear, oh dear,” she said, giving a little shiver. “What a dreadful evening! I was saying to Agnes this morning – we always have tea in the Castlehill Snook: they do a lovely fruit scone – and I was saying how the weather seems so much worse this year. I remember when-”

Dumfries stifled a groan as she wittered on – just his luck to get stuck with an old biddy in for a bit of a chat. “So,” he said, making sure his fixed smile hadn’t slipped, “what can I do for you, madam?

She stopped talking and studied at him for a moment. “Norman, isn’t it? Norman Dumfries?”

“Er…” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Yes?”

“Who would have known you’d turn out so tall! You were such a wee lad at Kingsmeath primary – see, I told you eating your greens would do you the world of good.”

And that’s when it clicked. “Mrs McAndrews, thought I recognized you!” This time Sergeant Dumfries’s smile was genuine. “How you been?”

“Not too good, Norman,” she said, leaning forward and dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “There’s a naked man in my shed, and I think he’s dead.”

While most school dinner ladies were waxing lyrical about the exotic delights of custard creams and garibaldi biscuits, Daphne McAndrews had remained steadfast: as far as she was concerned it was homemade shortbread or nothing. Humming happily, she arranged some on the tray, next to a fresh pot of tea and six mugs, and carried it out the back door.

The police had set up a pair of huge spotlights, training them on the shed at the bottom of the garden, making the wasp-chewed wood glow. The rest of the garden was shrouded in darkness, the trees groaning and creaking in the buffeting wind. Daphne tottered carefully down the path, trying to keep the tea things from blowing away.

The shed door was propped open and half a dozen men, dressed in those white plastic over-suit things they wore on telly, were poking about inside. It was a big shed, Bill’s pride and joy, but she’d barely touched it since he’d gone, just dusted from time to time. It was comforting to know that there was something of him in here: in a grey urn at the back, next to the little wooden fire engine he was working on before he died.

“Is everyone ready for a nice cup of tea?” she asked, stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind her, shutting out the wind.

Someone spun round and stared at her. “You shouldn’t be in here!”

“Oh, wheesht. My Bill used to say that all the time, but a bit of shortbread always made him change his tune.”

“No, you don’t understand. This is a crime scene.” He flapped his hands in the direction of the naked young man, sprawled against the far wall – under the shelf with Bill’s urn on it – wearing nothing but a pair of argyle socks.

“It’s not a crime scene, it’s Bill’s shed. Now stop being silly: time for tea.” She started pouring. “Beside, it’s not like I haven’t seen a naked man before. And as a dinner lady, you get used to being around death. One lump or two?”

“Err…” He looked around at his companions, but no one came to his rescue. Policemen were just like little boys: you had to be firm, stand your ground, and not let them get away with anything. Cheeky monkeys. He cleared his throat and stared at his shoes for a moment, before saying, “Two please.”

The shortbread was going down a treat – she wasn’t a leading light of the Women’s Rural Institute for nothing – when the shed door banged open again. A small pause and then someone roared, “What the hell’s going on in here?” It was a man with a moustache and a thunderous expression. “Sergeant, this is supposed to be a crime scene, not a bloody tea party!” The policeman with two sugars blushed and apologized, the words coming out in a shower of crumbs. The newcomer’s head looked like it was about to explode. Shouting and swearing, he dragged the policemen out into the back garden and shouted at them some more. Going on about trace evidence and shortbread crumbs and disciplinary hearings… Then he noticed Daphne was still in the shed, sipping her tea.

“YOU!” he said, flinging a finger in her direction. “Get back in that bloody house!”

A nice WPC was sent in to take her statement. “Don’t worry about DI Whyte,” she said, as Daphne opened a tin of Pedigree Chum Senior. “He’s going through a bit of a divorce at the minute.”

Daphne gave a haughty sniff and scraped a solid tube of chicken and heart into a clean dish. “If my Bill was alive today…” But he wasn’t, so there was no point even thinking about it. She put the dish down on the floor, and whistled. “Come on darling, din-dins!” An old, yellow-white Westie dog clattered into the kitchen, little stumpy tail going at twenty to the dozen. He had Mr Bunny, his favourite, tatty old squeaky toy, clamped in his jaws.

“Oh, he’s so sweet!” The WPC beamed. “What’s his name?”

Daphne reached down and ruffled the fur between her boy’s ears. “This is Little Douglas. Bill named him after my father, on account of the family resemblance. He’s going to be fifteen in February. Aren’t you Wee Doug, aren’t you? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” He gave a cheerful bark and stuck his nose in the dog food.

“Can you tell me when you found the dead man in your shed, Mrs McAndrews?”

“Hmm? Oh, it was…” Daphne frowned in concentration. “Coronation Street. That blonde lassie was having an affair with the Asian chap and I was thinking I could really do with a nice cup of tea. So I waited for the next advert break and went through to make one. Only before I turned on the light I saw this naked woman running climbing over the back fence. And I thought-”

“Wait, you saw a naked woman? Not a naked man?”

“Oh, yes. When you work in a school canteen you get to know the difference. Anyway, she was clambering over the fence, and I got Wee Doug and we went out and he was very brave, weren’t you? Mummy’s little soldier. He’s very protective, you know. Anyway, I saw the shed door was open and I went to close it and there he was. So I got on my overcoat and went to the police station and reported it.”

“Why didn’t you just dial 999?”

Daphne shook her head sadly. Young people these days. “My dear, reporting a dead body isn’t like ordering a pizza. Some things you just have to do in person.”

The Castlehill Snook was nearly empty at half past ten on a Tuesday morning – just a middle-aged couple in the corner, bickering over a map – so Daphne and her best friend Agnes McWhirter had no trouble getting their usual table by the window overlooking the Castle car park. A large coach from Germany was disgorging tourists in front of the pay and display machine, all of them clutching little Scottish flags and plastic bags from the Woollen Mill. The sky was the colour of warm slate, wind making the tourists’ cagoules whip and snap as they tried to get round the Old Castle ruins before the rain came on.

Daphne unclipped Wee Doug’s lead and let him snuffle about the tiled floor; by the time the waitress arrived with the cake trolley, he was curled up beneath a chair. Snoring.

Agnes ordered her usual fruit scone, but Daphne shocked everyone, even herself, by asking for a slice of Battenberg instead. “Are you feelin’ OK?” asked Agnes, staring aghast at the slice of yellow and pink sponge. Taking a deep breath, Daphne told her about the dead body in her shed, the naked woman clambering over the back fence, and what that nice Sergeant Norman Dumfries had said when she’d called in past the station first thing this morning to see how they were getting on.

“Fancy that!” said Agnes, pouring the tea. “Naked drug addicts in your shed!”

“I know, I’m that mortified.” Daphne shuddered, took a bite of her Battenberg and chewed suspiciously. It wasn’t like her to entertain baked goods involving marzipan. She fed the rest to Wee Doug.

“They were probably having kinky, drugged-up sex. That’s what these people do, you know, get high and indulge in filthy sex games: it was in the Sunday Post. Mr McAndrews would not have liked that!”

Daphne nodded; her husband had been as conservative in the bedroom as she was in the biscuit department. He would never have asked her for a fig roll when there was perfectly respectable shortbread available.

“Of course, they’re all at it.” Agnes tapped on the window. On the other side of the castle car park a ragged figure was trying to sell copies of the Big Issue magazine to the scurrying German tourists. “Drug addicts the lot of them. ‘Junkies’ – they’re everywhere these days. It was in the Sunday Post. I tell you, Oldcastle’s getting more like that Los Angeles every day. Next thing you know there’ll be drive-by shootings and prostitutes on every street corner!” She nodded sagely and the first drops of rain speckled the teashop window, getting heavier and heavier, sending the tourists scurrying back to their bus. The scruffy figure watched them in silent resignation then tromped away into the downpour.

The shed was filthy by the time the police were finished with it, covered in fingerprint powder, nothing put back in the right place. Dressed in her “Sheep of Scotland” pinny and yellow rubber gloves, Daphne scrubbed and polished and tidied until it was all good as new. She stood back and examined her handiwork with grim satisfaction – there was a lot to be said for a clean shed. She frowned. Bill’s urn didn’t look right.

It was a medium urn, because her husband had been a medium man. His remains would have looked short-changed in a large urn, and buying a small one would have meant leaving bits of him at the crematorium. And you never knew which bits they’d be, would you? The last thing she wanted was to get up to heaven and find that Bill was missing a leg, or a hand. Or his gentleman bits. He wouldn’t like that. She picked the urn off the shelf and squirted it with furniture polish, buffing it up with a yellow duster until it… the lid was loose. With trembling hands she unscrewed it all the way.

Daphne had never felt more like a drink in her life. Not even when Bill died. Sitting at the kitchen table she poured herself a stiff sweet sherry, threw it back and poured another one. “Oh, Bill!” His urn sat on the tabletop in front of her. A big scoop of his ashes were missing. Someone had stolen bits of her husband… Wee Doug padded back and forth under the table, his claws clickity-clacking on the linoleum, whimpering. He knew his mummy was upset.

Biting her bottom lip, Daphne screwed the top back on the bottle. Wallowing in self-pity wasn’t going to do Bill any good. If she wanted justice, she was going to have to get off her backside and do something about it. It was what Bill would have wanted.

Rain clattered against the cobbled street, shining like beads of amber in the yellow streetlight as Daphne trudged along Shand Street, heading back up Castle Hill to the teashop, pulling her tartan shopping trolley behind her. Wee Doug’s nose poked out through a tiny opening in the top, sniffing the cold night air for a moment, before sensibly ducking back down again, out of the rain. The teashop would be closed, just like all the other shops she passed on her way up the hill, their windows glowing, but lifeless. Like the empty streets. “That’s because everyone with an ounce of sense is indoors!” she told herself, stopping for a moment to rest. It was hard going and her hip was beginning to complain. Dampness seeped in through the seams of her old raincoat, her left boot squished as she walked, and her glasses were all fogged up. Sighing, she leant on her walking stick and thought about turning round and going-

A noise.

She froze, struggling to locate the sound over the rain drumming off her plastic headscarf. Nothing. She tried all the settings on her hearing aid, but it didn’t make any difference. Probably just her imagination playing tricks… And then she heard it again, someone singing and swearing softly to themselves.

Slowly Daphne crept up the road, pulling the trolley with her, scanning the empty shop doorways on either side. A wee cobbled close disappeared off between the knitwear place and the kilt shop, the little alleyway roofed off by a hairdresser’s on the first floor. It stretched away into the darkness, a link between the towering sandstone buildings on Shand Street and the dour brick of Mercantile Road. Gloomy and forbidding. That was where the noise was coming from.

Plucking up all her courage, Daphne stepped into the alley. It was dark in here, the streetlights on Shand Street barely making a dent in the shadows, but she could just make out a figure, huddled in a doorway, a grubby pink blanket pulled round his shoulders, sitting on a pile of flattened cardboard boxes. The flare of a match and she saw his face as he lit a scrawny, hand-rolled cigarette – bearded, dirty. Not the man who’d been trying to sell the Big Issue; but, as Agnes said, they were all drug addicts. He was probably doing drugs right now, chasing the rabbit, or whatever it was called. Straightening her shoulders she marched right up and said, “Excuse me?”

The man didn’t answer, just kept on swearing away, so she poked him with her walking stick.

“I said, excuse me.”

He squealed and scurried backwards into the wall, jittering and twitching, watching her suspiciously. “What you want?” His eyes glittered in the dim light like a snake.

“I’m looking for a woman.”

The man leered. “You wanna them big fat lesbians?” She poked him with her stick again. Hard. “Ow! Cut it out!”

“This particular woman was in my shed last night, with a young man. She took someone… something of mine and I want it back!”

There was a silence as the man stared at Daphne – probably undressing her with his eyes. These drug addicts were all alike. Sex mad. “So…” he said, leaving his doorway, the filthy pink blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, smelling of urine and Marmite. “You gonnae make it worth my while, like?”

Daphne blushed. Sex mad – she knew it. Quickly, she rummaged in the damp pockets of her raincoat and came out with a half-empty bag of mint imperials. “Would you like a sweetie?”

He reached out and snatched the bag. “Got any money?”

“Manners!” Daphne bristled. “What would your mother say if she-?” He shoved her aside and she slipped, clattering down onto the cold, wet cobbles, grunting in pain. Oh, God – what if she’d broken her hip?

“Where’s your purse?” He loomed over her, digging through the pockets of her raincoat, sniffing anything he found, before hurling it away into the rain. Handkerchief, lipsalve, hairgrips, the tatty old tennis ball Wee Doug liked to chase in King’s Park. Then her house keys. Grinning, he held them up to the light. “Brilliant.” He stuffed them in his pocket. “Now where’s your bloody purse?”

Daphne raised a shaking hand and pointed at the tartan shopping trolley. The junkie rubbed his hands and unzipped the top compartment. A grumpy growl rumbled out and the filthy smile fell from his face: “What the hell’s this?” Swearing, he kicked the trolley’s wheels out from under it, sending it flying, spilling Wee Doug out into the gutter. Ignoring the Westie’s indignant barks, he rummaged inside the trolley. Mr Bunny was hurled out into the night, closely followed by a plastic bag full of rolled-up plastic bags and a spiral-bound notebook covered in shopping lists. Wee Doug scurried off after his squeaky toy as the man grunted, “Ya beauty…” and settled back on his haunches to rifle through her handbag.

Gritting her false teeth, Daphne pulled herself to her knees, laddering her support stockings on the rough alley floor as she struggled upright, trembling with rage. Her walking stick was lying in the gutter; she grabbed it. “Did your parents never teach you any MANNERS?” It was a good sturdy walking stick: a shaft of tempered oak and a thick handle carved from a Stag’s antlers. It made a satisfyingly wet thunking sound as she battered it off the man’s head.

He yowled and she hit him a second time. Harder. He tried to say something, but she swung the handle into his face – something went crack and teeth flew, so she did it again. His cheekbone cracked. And again: his left eye spurted blood. And again: he got his hands up in time to shield his face and she heard finger bones snap. Again, and again and again…

Daphne leant back against the wall, puffing and panting, one hand clutching her aching chest, wondering if she was about to have a heart attack. The man lay on his side, curled into the foetal position, not moving. Wee Doug sniffed the back of the drug addict’s head, then cocked his leg and peed on it. When he was all done he picked up Mr Bunny, trotted over and sat in front of Daphne, little tail wagging away sixteen to the dozen, happy as could be.

It took her a while to calm down, but eventually the pain in her chest subsided and her breathing returned to normal. She wasn’t going to join Bill just yet.

She jabbed the horrible man with her stick, forcing him over onto his back. His face was all swollen and puffy, misshapen, covered with blood, a flap of skin hanging loose on his forehead. Leaking out onto the cobbles. He gave a little cough and a small plume of red sparkled in the dim light. She prodded him in the chest and he groaned. “I asked you a question, young man: who was the naked woman?”

He said something quite rude and Daphne battered the head of her walking stick off his knee. It wasn’t quite a scream, wasn’t quite a moan, but it sounded painful. “Who was she?”

He was crying now, tears and snot mixing with the blood and dirt. “I don’t… I don’t know…”

“You’re lying.” She hit him again, right on the ankle joint.

“Oh, God, no! Please! I don’t know!” Sobbing, rocking back and forth on the ground, covering his head with his arms. “Please…”

Daphne scowled and counted to ten. So much for plan A. “If you don’t know: who does?”

“I don’t… Aaagh!” It was the elbow this time “Please! I don’t…” Ankle again. “Aaagh! Colin! Colin’ll know! He sells stuff. He’ll know!”

She smiled. “And just how do I find this ‘Colin’?”

Daphne had never been in a public bar on her own before – it wasn’t the sort of thing a respectable lady did – but she owed it to Bill. Screwing up her courage, she marched through the doors of the Monk and Casket, a seedy-looking place at the bottom of Jamesmuir Road. It was mock Tudor on the outside, but inside it was all flashing gambling machines, vinyl upholstery and sticky floors. It wasn’t a busy pub, just a handful of men and women looking somewhat the worse for drink at half eleven on a Wednesday night.

Stiffening her courage she hobbled up to the bar, taking her shopping trolley with her, and ordered a port and lemon. And a medicinal brandy – her hip was still sore and she was soaked through after walking all the way here from Castle View.

The bartender was a big hairy man with earrings and a missing front tooth. He leant forward and whispered, “We’ve actually called last orders, so I can’t legally serve you,” then slid her drinks across the bar. “If you’d like to make a donation of two pounds fifty to the lifeboat fund, that would be OK by me.” Wink, wink. Blushing, Daphne thanked him and slid the money into the orange plastic lifeboat sitting on the bar.

“I’m looking for a man,” she said.

The barman smiled. “Sorry, darling, I’m married.”

“No, a man called ‘Colin’. Do you know him? Someone told me he’d be here.”

Silence from the hairy barman, and then, “Are you sure you’re looking for Colin? Colin McKeever? Crazy Colin?”

Daphne nodded, looking around the bar, trying to see if anyone looked like a “Crazy Colin”. It wasn’t a big place: just a handful of tables; some framed photos of the local football team; the pinging, chattering fruit machines; and a single door leading off the room marked Toilets, Telephone And Function Suite. The customers were as seedy as the pub. A pair of over-made-up women cackled away in the corner with their alcopops, a fat man with a beard hunched over a pint of stout, two suspicious-looking types in black leather by the dartboard… “Is he the one in the hat?” She pointed at an unusual, weaselly looking man with long black hair and a baseball cap, sitting on his own.

“No, that’s Weird Justin. Crazy Colin’s upstairs with Stacy. Now, why don’t you finish up your drink and I’ll call you a taxi, OK? A nice little old lady like you doesn’t want to have anything to do with the likes of Colin McKeever.”

A small flutter of excitement – he was upstairs with a woman! Maybe it was the one from the shed? “Of course, of course.” She downed her brandy in a single gulp, then did the same with the port and lemon. “I’ll just nip off to the loo…”

Grabbing the shopping trolley’s handle, she pushed through the door and into a stinky corridor. A door on either side said Gents and Ladies, but right at the far end was a set of stairs with a small plaque hanging over it: To Function Suite. Daphne took a deep breath, and started hauling the shopping trolley up the stairs.

One floor up and the sticky linoleum gave way to sticky carpet, with just enough room at the top of the stairs for Daphne to catch her breath. Unrecognizable “music” thumped through from the other side of a battered wooden door. Why did no one know what a tune was any more? When this was all over, she was going to go home, put on some Barry Manilow and get herself a nice cup of tea.

She fiddled with her hearing aid – trying to tune down the horrible music – and opened the door to the function suite. It was about the same size as the bar downstairs, but more neglected. Ancient chairs lined the walls, fold-away tables piled in one corner, a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling, glittering over the small wooden dance floor in the middle. A man and woman rocked slowly back and forth, shambling round to the “music”. She had her arms wrapped around his shoulders, he had his hands on her buttocks. Kneading away as if he was making bread.

The current song bludgeoned its way to a halt and then another one, equally dreadful, started. There was one of those “boom-box” things sitting at the side of the dance floor, so Daphne marched straight over and turned the horrible machine off. Blessed silence. The man stopped rearranging his girlfriend’s underwear and scowled. He wasn’t the most attractive of men – thin and short, with a scabby little beard thing, spiky hair and glasses. But he looked like a Colin.

“What the hell did you do that for?” He let go of his partner, but she continued to dance, shuffling round and round in the absence of music, on her own.

Daphne squared her shoulders. “I want my Bill!”

“I’ve not sold you anything.”

“Don’t you play games with me, young man. Your hussy broke into my shed and she stole my Bill! I want him back.”

Crazy Colin looked back over his shoulder at the dancing woman. “You saying Stacy’s kidnapped someone?” He laughed as Stacy tripped over her own feet and tumbled to the floor. She made an abortive attempt to get back up then gave up, sprawled on her back in the middle of the dance floor, like a dead starfish. “You’ve got to be kidding – she couldn’t tie her shoelaces unsupervised. You got the wrong girl, Grandma.”

“I said I want him back!”

“Nothing to do with me, Grandma. You got a problem with Stacy, you take it up with her…” He grinned. “After I’ve finished, like.” He started to take off his shirt. “You wanna watch? No charge.”

Oh… my… God… He was getting undressed! She didn’t want to see some strange man’s private parts! She hadn’t even liked looking at her husband’s. “I don’t want any trouble; I just want my Bill back.”

“Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill.” He turned his back on her, unfastening his belt.

Daphne hurried back to her shopping trolley and unzipped the top, lifting out Wee Doug. He yawned and looked around the room, then sat down and had a bit of a scratch. Daphne pulled herself up to her full five foot two inches and pointed an imperious finger at Crazy Colin as he unbuttoned his fly. “Go on, Wee Doug, KILL!”

Wee Doug looked up at her, then at the end of her finger.

Daphne tried again. “Kill!”

Still nothing.

She grabbed Mr Bunny from the shopping trolley and hurled it at the undressing man. The toy rabbit landed right in the crotch of Colin’s trousers as he tried to get them down over his shoes. Wee Doug growled, his little feet scrabbling on the wooden floor, not going anywhere fast… until suddenly his claws got purchase and he was away, tearing across the dance floor like a dog half his age. Barking.

The man spun round at the noise, eyes wide. He grabbed the waistband of his trousers and hauled them up, which was a mistake as Mr Bunny was still trapped in there – his two ragged ears sticking out of the man’s fly at groin level. With a final happy bark Wee Doug leapt and clamped his jaws onto Crazy Colin’s crotch. There was a high pitched scream.

Daphne took a firm grip of her walking stick and went to shut him up.

Shaking, Daphne washed the blood off her hands and face with cold water and bitter-smelling hand soap in the ladies’ lavatory. Wee Doug was happily sitting up in the shopping trolley – the reclaimed Mr Bunny looking none the worst for his adventure in a strange man’s trousers – watching as she stuck the head of her walking stick under the tap, the water turning pink as Crazy Colin McKeever’s blood slowly rinsed away.

“No one knows…” she told herself. “No one knows Not even the girl – she was comatose the whole time. Couldn’t have seen anything. Couldn’t have – A knock on the toilet door and she almost shrieked.

“Hello?” It was the bartender, sounding concerned. “Are you in there?”

Oh, God, he’s found the body! “I… I…”

“You OK? You’ve been in here for ages.”

“I… I’m fine.” She looked at herself in the mirror. He doesn’t know. No one knows. “Just a gyppy tummy.”

“That’s your taxi.”

She nodded at her reflection and plastered on a smile, then opened the bathroom door, taking Wee Doug and the tartan shopping trolley with her. “Thank you,” she said, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice as he helped her out through the front door and into the cab.

“You take care now.” He stood in the street, waving as they drove away.

It was a rumpled Daphne McAndrews who slouched into the Castlehill Snook at quarter to eleven the next day. She’d slept badly, even with a quarter bottle of sweet sherry inside her, knowing that they’d put her in prison for the rest of her natural life. The police would find Colin McKeever’s body and do all that scientific stuff you saw on the telly. And they’d know it was her. Provided the nasty man who’d tried to steal her purse in the alley hadn’t already reported her for thrashing him. She couldn’t bring herself to use the walking stick today, not now it was a murder weapon, and her hip ached.

Daphne collapsed into the chair opposite Agnes and looked sadly out of the window at the Castle car park. Determined not to cry.

“You feelin’ OK, Daphne?”

She just shrugged and ordered a fruit scone and a big mug of coffee. When the waitress was gone, Agnes leaned forward and asked, in her best stage whisper, “Did you hear about the murder?” Daphne blanched, but Agnes didn’t seem to notice, “Beaten to death,” she said, “a drug-dealer – in a pub! Can you believe it?”

Daphne bit her lip and stared at the liver spots on the back of her hands. “Did… Do they know who did it?”

“Probably one of them gangland execution things. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Oldcastle’s getting more like that Los Angeles every day. I tell you…” She launched in to a long story about someone her Gerald used to go to school with, but Daphne wasn’t listening. She was wondering when the police were going to come for her.

The patrol car pulled up outside the house at half past seven. At least they hadn’t put the flashing lights and sirens on. She’d have died of embarrassment if the neighbours had seen that. She’d spent the day cleaning the place until it sparkled: no one was going to say she went off to prison and left a dirty house behind. With a sigh Daphne climbed out of Bill’s favourite chair and answered the front door. It was Sergeant Norman Dumfries, the little boy who wouldn’t eat his greens. She ushered him through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Just because he was here to arrest her, there was no need to forget her manners.

“Tea?” she asked as he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“Er… Yes, that would be lovely.” Adding, “Thank you,” as an afterthought.

She made two cups and put them on the kitchen table, along with a plate of shortbread, telling Sergeant Dumfries to help himself. “Er…” he said, looking sideways at Bill’s urn, still sitting on the tabletop from last night. “I’m afraid I’ve got something very awkward to tell you-”

Daphne nodded. There was no need to make it hard on the boy, he was doing his best. “I know.”

He blushed. “I’m so sorry, Mrs McAndrews.”

“You’re only doing your job, Norman.”

“I know, but…” he sighed and reached into his police jacket pocket. This was it, he was going to handcuff her. The neighbours would have a field day.

“It’s all right.” Trying to sound calm. “I won’t put up a fight.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, before bringing out what looked like a little plastic freezer bag. It was see-through, and full of grey powder. “We, um… the man you found in your shed had…” He stopped and tried again. “We did a post mortem on him yesterday. He died because he’d injected himself with… Er…” He held up the bag. “We had to take a sample to make sure. I’m sorry, Mrs McAndrews.” Gently he picked Bill’s urn off the table and tipped the contents of the plastic bag inside.

“Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs McAndrews. We think they were already under the influence of drugs when they broke into your shed to fool around. They discovered Mr McAndrews’ remains and… Well, the man had residue in his nasal passages and his lungs, so it looks like they tried snorting the… ah… deceased. When that didn’t work, the man tried injecting. And then he died.” It was silent in the kitchen, except for the sound of Wee Doug snoring. “I’m sorry.”

She grabbed Bill’s urn and peered inside. It was nearly full. “Did they both…? You know?” Sergeant Dumfries nodded and Daphne frowned. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought of Bill being inside another woman, and Bill would certainly not have been happy about being inside a naked man.

“Anyway,” Sergeant Dumfries stood up. “I have to get back to the station.” He looked left and right, as if he was making sure they were alone. “Just between you and me,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “we’ve got a drugs war on our hands! One bloke got worked over right outside the kilt shop last night – said it was a gang with baseball bats – and the next thing you know some drug dealer gets battered to death! Mind you, at least we’ve got a witness to that one.”

Daphne covered her mouth with a trembling hand, the girl: she was unconscious! She couldn’t have seen anything – it wasn’t fair!

Norman helped himself to a piece of shortbread. “We found this doped-up woman at the scene,” he said, in a little spray of crumbs, “who swears blind some huge hairy bloke with a Rottweiler kicked the door down then bashed the victim’s skull in with a pickaxe handle.” He shook his head in amazement as Daphne went pale as a haddock. “I know,” he said as she spluttered. “Miami Vice comes to Oldcastle, how bizarre is that?” Sigh. “Anyway, better make sure you keep your doors and windows locked tight. OK?”

When he was gone, Daphne sat at the kitchen table, trembling. Drug War. She let out a small giggle. The giggle became a snigger, then a laugh, and ended in hysterics. She’d gotten away with it. Wiping her eyes she pulled Bill’s urn over and peered inside. There was only about a teaspoon missing. What would that be – an ear, a finger, his gentleman’s bits? He’d miss them, even if she wouldn’t…

With a smile she ripped the edge off a couple of teabags and poured the powdered leaves in. At his age he’d never know the difference.