Gallows View

He crossed the south side of the deserted market square and walked through the complex of narrow, twisted streets to King Street. Then he cut through Leaview Estate toward Gallows 'View. The terrace of old cottages stood like a wizened finger pointing west to the Dales.

As he passed the bungalows and crossed Cardigan Drive to the dirt track in front of the cottages, Trevor noticed some activity outside the first house, number two. That was where the old bag, Matlock, lived. He walked by slowly and saw a crowd of people through the open door. There was that hotshot copper from London, Banks, who'd got his picture in the local paper when he'd got the job a few months back; that well-known local thug, Hatchley, who looked a bit unsteady on his pins; and the woman standing in the doorway. What on earth was she doing there? He was sure it was her, the one who lived in the fancy Georgian semis across The Green from the East Side Estate, the one Mick was always saying he'd like to fuck. Maybe she was a cop, too. You never could tell. He walked into number eight to confront his father once again over homework not done.

II

Je

Despite the horror of the scene, Je

The house was oppressive. Not just because of the all-pervading presence of death, but because it was absolutely cluttered with the past. The walls seemed unusually honeycombed with little alcoves, nooks and cra

She watched Banks at work. As she had expected, he was professional and efficient, but he often seemed distracted, and sometimes a look of pain and sadness crossed his features when he leaned against the wall and gazed at the old woman's body. The photographer popped his flash from every angle. He looked far too young, Je

Also in the midst of this routine, robotic activity sat Ethel Carstairs, who had discovered the body. Though trembling and white with shock as she sipped the brandy a police constable had brought her from Alice 's medicinal bottle in the kitchen, she had regained enough control to talk to Banks.

" Alice was supposed to call on me this evening," said Ethel in a weak, shaky voice. "She always comes on Sundays and Tuesdays. We play rummy. She's not on the phone, so when she didn't come there wasn't much I could do. As time went on I got worried, then I decided to walk over and see if she was all right. She was eighty-seven just last week, Inspector. I bought her that sugar bowl broken on the floor there."

It looked as if someone had pulled all the drawers out of the old oak sideboard, and a pretty, rose-patterned sugar bowl lay in several places on the flags.

"She always did have a sweet tooth, despite what the doctor told her," Ethel went on, pausing to wipe her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

"Is this exactly how you found her?" Banks asked gently.

"Yes. I didn't touch a thing. I watch a lot of telly, Inspector. I know about fingerprints and all that. I just stood in the doorway there, saw her and all the mess and went to the box on the corner of Cardigan Drive and phoned the police."

Banks nodded. "Good, you did exactly the right thing. What about the door?"

"What?"

"The door. You must have touched it to get in."

"Oh yes, silly of me. I'm sorry but I did have to open the door. I must have smudged all the prints."

Banks smiled over at Vic Manson, who was busy dusting the furniture with aluminium powder. "Don't worry, Mrs. Carstairs," Manson assured her. "Whoever it was probably wore gloves. The criminals watch a lot of telly these days, too. We have to look, though, just in case."

"The door," Banks went on. "Was it ajar, open, locked?"

"It was just open. I knocked first, then when I got no answer, I tried the handle and it just opened."

"There's no sign of forced entry, sir," added Detective Constable Richmond, who had been examining the doorframe beside Je

Hatchley came down from his search of the upper rooms. He wasn't irredeemably drunk, only about two sheets to the wind, and like most professionals, he could snap back into gear in a crisis. "It's been gone over pretty thoroughly," he said to Banks. "Wardrobe, drawers, laundry chest, the lot."

"Do you know if Mrs. Matlock owned anything of value, Mrs. Carstairs?" Banks asked.

"It's Miss Matlock, Inspector. Alice was a spinster. She never married."

"So she has no immediate family?"

"Nobody. She outlived them all."

"Did she own anything valuable?"

"Not really what you'd call valuable, Inspector. Not to anyone else, that is. There was some silverware-she kept that in the sideboard cupboard, bottom shelf." The cupboard door gaped open and there was no sign of cutlery among the bric-a-brac scattered on the flags. "But her most valuable possessions were these." Ethel gestured toward the knick-knacks and photographs that filled the room. "Her memories."

"What about money? Did she keep much cash in the house?"

"She used to keep a bit around, just for emergencies. She usually kept it in the bottom drawer of her dressing table."

"How much did she have there, as a rule?"