Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

Dave finished his painting, the M62 was closed for two hours by grass fires, and I mowed my lawn. A judicious grass fire would have saved me the bother. Once again the bright tables and umbrellas sprang up all over the precinct, like toadstools in a book of fairy stories, and commerce slowed to a standstill. Crime didn't. Lust is mercury-filled; it rises and falls with temperature. Hot afternoons, scant clothing, walks in the meadows; it's a potent mixture. Add lunchtime drinking outside the pub with the new girl from Telesales and you have all the ingredients for rape, and we had several. Not by the inadequate loner, waiting for a victim, any victim, and striking violently. These were between semi-consenting couples who were carried away by the moment. Two of them were mothers complaining about the boys next door and their daughters, and one housewife thought that inviting the builder in for a beer was normal behaviour, even if she was wearing a bikini and had spent all morning sunbathing topless. We had a rubber stamp made that said: "She was asking for it," to speed up the statements.

The druggies changed their modus operandi, too. Open windows facilitated the taking of tellies and videos, but demand was down.

Garden tools, barbecue furniture and big chimney pots, plants for growing in, became the new currency. It added some variety to the job and the wooden tops had to learn how to spell some new words.

"Ta-da!" Dave fan fared as he came into my office on Wednesday morning, his smile broader than a seaside comedian's lapels.

"What?" I said, lifting the pile of papers in my in-tray and sliding the request for next year's budget underneath.

He sat down and grinned at me.

"Go on," I invited, 'or is that it?"

"That Piers Forrester is a really nice bloke," he told me.

"He's a supercilious twat," I replied.

"He's been very helpful."

"He wears a dickie bow."

"Oh, so he's a supercilious twat because he wears a dickie bow, is he?"

"Yes."

"And Graham's OK, too."

"He's all right, I suppose."

"Because he doesn't wear a dickie bow?"

"He wears Yves St. Laurent short-sleeved shirts. That must say something about him."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. You're the detective, I'm just the office boy. What have you found out?"

"Right," he replied, eagerly. "We've cracked it."

"Go on."

"Melissa went to grammar school in Beverley, didn't she?"

"Yep."

"And then on to Essex University."

"Mmm."

"So Graham has paid them a visit to have a look at her classmates there, like I did for Duncan in Leeds. And guess what?"

"I'm all ears."

"There was another girl enrolled there at the same time, from the same school in Beverley. She was called Janet Wilson. She's bound to have been in the same class as MeliSSa, don't you think? She must know her."

I let my glum look slip, but only briefly. "What do you mean by was called Janet Wilson?" I asked.

"She's married, that's all. She's now called Janet Holmes, and lives at the Coppice, Bishop's Court, York. We could be there in an hour."

You can learn a lot about a person from the pictures they have on their wall. This one was a tinted drawing, larger than average, of a circular construction. It looked Moorish at first glance, and I expected it to be called something like jn the Courtyard of the Alhambra, but when I looked closer I realised it was biological. What I'd taken as tiles or pieces of mosaic were individual cells.

"Do you like it?" Mrs. Holmes asked as she came into the room, carrying a tray.

"It's not what it seems," I replied, 'and that intrigues me. It's also very attractive."

"Your sergeant's call certainly intrigued me," she replied. "Please, sit down."

"Constable," Dave corrected.

There was a caption and a signature under the picture. They read:

Ascaris lumbricoides and J. Holmes. I said: "Did you do this, Mrs.

Holmes?" sounding impressed.

"It's what I do for a living," she answered. "I'm a technical illustrator. I took a few liberties with the colour on that one, but it's not great art."

"The inspector's into painting," Dave told her. "Went to art college.

He does all our wanted posters."

"Really?" she replied.

"He jests," I told her. "So what exactly is an ascaris what sit "It's a nasty little parasite that lives in pigs and occasionally in humans."

"You mean, like a tapeworm?"

"Very similar, but they only grow to about a foot in length."

"Only a foot!" Dave exclaimed. "Blimey! So how long does a tapeworm grow?"

"Oh, the common tapeworm can reach twenty feet," she told him.

"Urgh!" he responded. "I'll never have another bacon sandwich."

Mrs. Holmes poured the tea and suggested we help ourselves to milk and sugar. "Now, what is it you want to know about Essex University in the early seventies?" she asked. "I'm totally fascinated."

She was a good-looking woman, easier to imagine addressing a class or opening a fete than looking through a microscope. I sat down and took a sip of tea from the china cup. She'd also supplied scones which looked homemade and more in character with her appearance.

"Do you work from home?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "My husband left me two years ago, as soon as the children were off our hands. Traded me in for a younger model; and more streamlined." She patted her hips, which looked perfectly reasonable to me. "I'd always been an illustrator, which was considered something of a cop-out for someone with a degree, but now there's a bigger than ever demand for my services. I do lots of computer animation, too, of course, but a good animator can name her own price, almost."

It explained a lot. The house was a four-bed roomed detached on a swish estate just down-river from the bishop's palace. We knew she'd lived there for nine years, so it must have been the marital home, but she'd managed to keep it. Working alone, in her studio, explained the hospitality, which was above that we normally received. Two handsome detectives were visiting and she probably hadn't spoken to anyone livelier than a checkout girl all week. Get out the decent cups and some buns.

"So," she said, 'what's this all about?"

I reached for a plate and a scone and settled back in my easy chair, gesturing towards Dave. "DC Sparkington will tell you," I said, adding: "The scones look good."

"They're from Betty's," she told me.

"And I thought they looked homemade," I replied.

"No. I'm afraid I'm the world's worst cook." Ah, well, I can't be right all the time.

Dave took a drink of tea and placed the cup and saucer back on the low table that was between us. "You went to the Cathedral Grammar School at Beverley, I believe, Mrs. Holmes?"

"Yes, that's right." She leaned forward, interested, and interlinked her fingers around her knee.

"And from there?"

"From there I went to Essex University for four years, as you know."

"Reading…"

"Biology."

"Was anyone else from Beverley accepted for Essex?" Dave asked. I had to smile. A week ago he'd have said: "What were you taking?" and:

"Did anyone else go to Essex?"

"Yes, there was one other girl," she replied.

"Called…" Dave prompted.

"Melissa. Melissa Youngman."

"How well did you know her?"

"Quite well. We weren't friends, but we were in the same classes at Beverley for seven years, plus a year at Essex."

"Were you on the same course?" Dave asked, puzzled.

"No. Melissa read palaeontology, but some of our courses were combined for the first year. And we shared a house."

"You shared a house? How did that come about?"

"Melissa's parents bought a little semi for her, and I had a room in it. It was normal for freshers to stay in a hall of residence, so we had to have a special dispensation, but it only lasted a year. I moved out and Melissa moved on."