Death and the Princess by Robert Barnard

the murderer, coming in with the wine, had seen the girl (if, in other words, she did not conceal herself under the bedclothes with shame, which was hardly likely in this day and age), then he would certainly have known she was not the Princess. But the murder could still have succeeded rather than failed: the intended victim could have been Bill Tredgold or Carol Crossley, his bird. And if it was Bill, there was no reason totally to rule out the possibility that the Princess was still involved. He had recently been sleeping with her, and his reporter’s instinct (a nice way of saying his nose for dirt) could have smelt something fishy going on around her. In which case, it was a fair bet that the details would be in his notebook.
    The rest of the day was spent pleasantly, but not very productively. I questioned the staff and the owner’s wife about the procedures when wine was ordered to a room, trying to discover whether any of the other guests had ordered wine that day, but I was not surprised when I drew a blank. I phoned the Shrewsbury police, with whom my coming had been cleared in advance, and had them start an enquiry for anyone who had bought a bottle of white wine in a public house, and perhaps in some way got hold of glasses at the same time. I told them also to check the wine dealers, but asking about people who had bought a bottle of wine there three months before really did seem to be wasting the Salop police’s time most unconscionably. Then I went and sat with the locals in the public bar, drawing, once again, very much a blank. Not, of course, that they were not interested in the matter: the death of these two — ‘not wed, they weren’t, an’ too much on their minds to worry about a little bit ofgas,’ etc., etc. — would in any case have been the local event of the year. If it were to turn out to be murder, it would be the event of the century. Whisper had already got around about this possibility, but it didn’t prevent the locals finding the whole thing rib-nudgingly funny. On the whole their explanations tended towards the comic-supernatural.
    ‘Reckon if you ’n’ I, Jim ’ed gone upstairs that night, we’d ’a found a phantom waitress, all rustlin’ skirts, carryin’ a tray wi’ wine an’ wine glasses, a-goin’ to do ’em in for havin’ a bit o’ what you fancy.’
    They had a good chortle over that one. All their remarks were of that sort. They reminded me of bit parts in a particularly tedious comedy by Goldsmith or somebody. I could have sat with them all night, if I’d got that much time to waste. As it was, I turned in early.

CHAPTER 7
    Family and Friends
    Bill Tredgold’s family lived in an unattractive suburb of Birmingham, the sort of area where people struggle valiantly with a little patch of garden, but where nature fights a losing battle against fumes and dirt, and the shadow of jerry-building. Their semi-detached probably dated from the age of Baldwin, when the virtues of Englishness were proclaimed even as England was being destroyed: thin strips of board were pasted on to stonedash, in an effort to assert tradition. At least, I thought, Bill Tredgold’s short life could be seen as some sort of progress: from mock-Tudor to the real thing.
    I had phoned in advance to say that I was coming, and when his father opened the door to me, he muttered:‘Don’t set her off if you can help it, will you?’ Their loss was clearly too recent to have been assimilated. I squeezed myself into the dim little hallway, and he led me through into the front room, which was obviously opened up for the occasion. It was cluttered with furniture, some pre- and some post-war; there were embroidered headrests on the backs of the chairs, and a virulent orange fire of simulated logs. I edged my bulk carefully through the clutter, and sat down. The two of them sat down too, looking at me quietly but expectantly.
    Both of them were in their sixties, comfortable, slightly seedy people,