Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

The inspector was less impressed than Mrs. Skeets had expected him to be. He believed that she had produced a viable explanation. Sadly, ‘That has to be it,’ falls short of the standard demanded by the Crown Prosecution Service. Mrs. Skeets was honest: at no stage of the incident had she seen a weapon rather than a mobile phone.

Belatedly she recognized that El Greco’s gesturing left hand had been a conjuror’s ploy to divert attention from what his other hand cradled as he left the corpse behind. An ingenious theory, and it might even be valid. The not-looking-round thing was persuasive — but it wasn’t evidence.

Melanie Skeets was positive that she knew better, although as she had feared, nobody took her seriously. Not at first, that is. Assertive in her quiet way, she got a hearing in the end.

That might have been the end of it; the inspector took her name and address without troubling her for a formal statement. If a prime suspect emerged, then she would be asked to attend an identification parade.

As for the rest — cute idea, the woman had a vivid imagination, don’t call us...

Sadly for Nigel Crane, his bad luck persisted.

There was, as has been stated, a platoon of reluctant visitors to police stations across Southeast London. Most demanded legal representation before uttering so much as “No comment.” Not any old first-cab-off-the-rank brief neither, but ‘their’ Mr. So-and-so, who took time to respond.

Our Inspector was dealing with the potential witnesses at the crime scene. He was ready to clock off when Inspector B drew him aside to beg a massive favor.

Inspector B had investigated the violent removal of a costly watch from the wrist of a minor yet delectable Hollywood actress in London for an awards ceremony. She had agreed to have dinner with him that evening. “There’s only a couple of faces left at Harvest Green. It’s just round the corner, you’ll be home in an hour. These are Couldn’t-Possibles, just give ’em a spin and kick ’em out the door...”

Reading the paperwork at the Harvest Green police station, Our Inspector decided that Inspector B hadn’t been kidding. Somebody seemed to be using Tasty Eddie Balch’s demise as pretext for hassling the opposition.

Nigel Crane was a glaring example. A scrawled note from the copper who had picked him up at the airport confirmed that the man’s ticket to Brazil had been booked months in advance. Somebody had spotted the wretch checking in, asked if there was any interest, and bang went Nigel Crane’s vacation.

His reputation as hit man had been enough for the chief investigating officer. The CIO wasn’t riding off in all directions, but he was pulling in bad citizens from as many compass points.

Noting that Crane had waived legal representation, Our Inspector started with him to get the dross out of the way. Nigel Crane told his sad story of Paradise Lost, Copacabana Beach anyway, and Our Inspector, heartless fellow, sniggered, “You shouldn’t tell lies to the girlies if you can’t take a joke, killer.”

“Very droll,” Nigel Crane groaned. Restless in the hard chair, he smoothed his hair. Wincing, he pulled his hand away and switched to tapping his feet. “What?”

Our Inspector was studying him raptly. “Nasty place on your face, you need some ointment on that, my son.”

“S’nothing, razor burn.”

“But first,” Our Inspector continued as if Crane had not spoken, “we’ll get that injury photographed, have the doc take a look. Doesn’t look like razor burn to me.”

Nigel Crane swallowed once. “I want my brief.”

“No sooner asked than granted.” Yet Our Inspector kept inspecting Crane’s face. “I know you slotted Balch, and now that that’s established, the rest is routine. The only way you got to the airport that quick is on a motorbike, and something tells me you aren’t into them. You paid somebody for the ride, probably a courier who knows all the shortcuts. And probably a mate of yours, so he’d ask no questions. That cuts the candidate list down.”

“I want my brief.”

“When your mate is looking at joining you on a murder charge it will loosen his tongue a treat. Tell me I’m wrong...”

Nigel Crane remained unhappily mute.

“We’ll find your ride, depend on it. What with traffic control, speed cameras, cameras monitoring the buses-only lanes, and a load more watching for terrorists, you’ll have been a right little film star. We’ll run all the tapes, look for a bike with two aboard, one in a dark suit — nowhere to change near the mall and you were in a hurry anyway, so you changed at the airport before checking in.

“The rider will get out from under at the speed of light, swear he didn’t know what was going on, all he did was give you a lift from the mall maybe ninety seconds after the shooting. And there’s a corker of an eyewitness can place you there, right next to Balch when he went down.”