Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

“What’s the gun?”

“Gun? That’s no gun,” said Johnny, glad of the chance to get one back. “It’s a toy. A plastic replica.” He turned to the postmistress, who up to now had preferred to remain on her side of the counter. “Did you know the man, Miss Marshall?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“But you told us-”

“Without the mask, I mean.”

“You’d better come round here and look.”

Miss Marshall unlocked, emerged from the serving area and took a long squint at the body. She was less troubled by the sight of death than me. “He’s a stranger to me. And I didn’t know it was a toy gun, either.”

“You were very brave,” Johnny told her, and muttered in an aside to Dr Leggatt and me, “Silly old cow.”

He went on to say more loudly that he’d like her to come to the police station and make a statement.

“What did you call her?” Leggatt asked, after she had been escorted to the police car.

“I meant it,” said Johnny. “She might have had her stupid head blown away for the sake of Post Office Counters Limited.”

Leggatt gave Johnny a look that was not too admiring. “What happened to good citizenship, then? Some of you coppers are born cynics. You’ve no idea what it takes for a woman to stand up to a gunman.”

“Have you?” Johnny chanced it.

“As it happens, yes. My sister stood up to one – and didn’t get much thanks from you people. You don’t know how often Miss Marshall will wake up screaming, reliving what happened this morning.”

“Hold on, doc,” said Johnny. “I said she was brave.”

The pathologist didn’t prolong it. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get this body to the mortuary.”

“Yes, and we’ve got to find his next of kin,” said Johnny.

When he said “we”, he meant me. He’d already decided there wasn’t anything in it for him.

I may be squeamish with dead bodies, but I’m fearless with the living, especially blondes. It was the day after the hold-up and I’d come to a flat in Salisbury, the home of a recently released prisoner. Jack Soames had served four years in Portland for armed robbery of a building society. Check your form runners first.

The chick at the door said he wasn’t in.

“Any idea where he is?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Yesterday morning. What’s up?”

Bra-less and quivering under a thin T-shirt, she looked far too tasty to be shacking up with a middle-aged robber. But I kept my thoughts to myself.

“Are you a close friend of his, miss?”

She made a little sound of impatience. “What do you think?”

“What’s your name?”

“Zara.”

“And you spent last night alone, Zara?”

“That’s my business.”

“Jack wasn’t here?”

She nodded.

“When he went out yesterday morning, did he say where he was going?”

“I’m his crumpet, not his ma.”

I smiled at that. “He could still treat you like a human being.”

“Jack’s all right,” said Zara. “I’ve got no complaints.”

Don’t count on it, I thought, sleeping with an ex-con.

Zara said anxiously, “He hasn’t had an accident, has he?”

“Does he carry a gun?”

“What?”

“Don’t act the innocent, love. We both know his form. Was he armed when he left here?”

“Course he wasn’t. He’s going straight since he got out.”

It was time to get real. “There was an armed raid at a sub-post office yesterday and a man died.”

“The postmaster?”

“No, the robber. It’s just possible he was Jack Soames. We’re checking on everyone we know.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Would you be willing to come to the hospital and tell us if it’s him?”

Zara looked, squeezed her eyes shut, and looked again. I watched her. She was easier to look at than the corpse.

“That’s him, poor lamb.”

“Jack Soames? You’re certain?”

“Positive.”

I nodded to the mortuary assistant, who covered the dead face again.

Outside, I thanked Zara and asked her where she wanted me to drive her.

She asked, “Will I have to move out of Jack’s place?”

“Who paid the rent?”

“He did.”

“Then I reckon you will.”

“I can go to me Mum’s place. What killed him?”

“We’ll find out this afternoon, when they do the PM.”

In her grief, she got a bit sentimental. “I used to call him Jack the Robber. Like… ” Her voice trailed off.

I nodded. “So you knew he was an ex-con?”

“That was only through the toffee-nosed bitch he married.” Zara twisted her mouth into the shape of a cherry-stone. “Felicity. She claimed she didn’t know she was married to a bank robber. Where did she think the folding stuff was coming from? She was supposed to give him an alibi and she ratted on him. He done four years through her.”

“And when he came out he met you.”

“Worse luck.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I tried to console her. “It’s not your fault he went back to crime, is it?”

She didn’t answer, so I decided not to go up that avenue.

She said, “What did he want to do a piddling post office for?”

I shrugged.

“Where did you say it was?”

“Five Lanes.”

“Never heard of it. He told me he was going up the Benefits Office.”

“It’s a village three miles out. That’s where he was at nine-fifteen yesterday.”

“Get away,” said Zara, pulling a face. “He was still in bed with me at nine-fifteen.”

“That can’t be true, Zara.”

She was outraged. “You accusing me of lying?”

“Maybe you were asleep. You just thought he was beside you.”

“Asleep? We was at it like knives. He was something else after a good night’s sleep, was Jack.” The gleam in her big blue eyes carried total conviction. “It must have been all of ten o’clock before he left the house.”

“ Ten ? But he was dead by then.”

“No way.”

“How do you know?”

“Me watch.”

“It must be wrong.”

She looked down at her wrist. “How come it’s showing the same time as the clock in your car?”

My boss was unimpressed. “Why is she lying?”

“I’m not sure she is,” I told him.

“How can you believe her, dickhead, when you saw the body yourself at just after nine-twenty-five?”

“She’s got nothing to gain from telling lies.”

“She’s muddled about the time. She was in no state to check if they were humping each other.”

“She’s very clear about it, guv.”

“Get this in your brain, will you? Jack Soames was dead by nine-twenty.”

“Would you like to talk to her yourself?”

“No, I bloody wouldn’t. You say she identified the body?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then.”

I had to agree. Something was wrong with Zara’s memory.

Horgan made the first constructive suggestion I’d heard from him. “Find the wife. She’s the next of kin. She’ll need to identify him.”

I didn’t fancy visiting that mortuary again, but he was right. I traced Felicity Soames routinely through the register of electors, a slight, tired-looking woman in her fifties, who lived alone in a semi on the outskirts of Salisbury and worked as a civil servant. She was not much like the vindictive creature Zara had portrayed.

“I don’t want any more to do with him,” she said at first. “We separated.”

“But you’re not divorced?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you’re still the next of kin.”

For the second time that morning, I stood well back while the mortuary assistant went through the formalities.

Felicity confirmed that the body was her husband’s.