Gallows View by Peter Robinson

head on the windscreen when a car brakes abruptly. If, however, the blow is delivered while the victim’s head is stationary, then the wound is restricted to the area of impact. The blow that killed Alice Matlock was the kind of blow that could have killed anyone—and she was old, her bones were brittle—but it wasn’t necessarily murder; it could have been accidental; it could have been manslaughter.
    A red-eyed Richmond brought in Ethel Carstairs’ statement. Again, there was nothing new, but she had given an itemized description of the missing silverware. Manson had found only two different sets of fingerprints in the house: one belonged to the dead woman herself and the other to Ethel, who had been good enough to offer hers for comparison.
    At about two-fifteen, Superintendent Gristhorpe stuck his head round the door. “Still at it, Alan?”
    Banks nodded, gesturing to the papers that covered his desk.
    Gristhorpe looked at his watch. “Go get a pie and a pint over the road. I think we’d better have a conference about three o’clock and I don’t want your stomach rumbling all through it.”
    “A conference?”
    “Aye. A lot’s been happening. The peeper, the break-ins, now this Alice Matlock business. I don’t like it. It’s time we threw a few ideas around. Just me, you, Hatchley and Richmond. Have you read the young lad’s reports, by the way?”
    “Yes, I’ve just finished.”
    “Good, aren’t they? Detailed, no split infinitives or dangling modifiers. He’ll go far, that lad. See you at three in the boardroom.”
II
     
    The “boardroom” was so called because it was the most spacious room in the station. At its centre was a large, shiny, oval table, around which stood ten matching, stiff-backed chairs. The set-up looked impressive, but the conference was informal; a coffee pot sat on its warmer in the middle, surrounded by files, pencils and notepads.There were no ashtrays, though; unless he was in a pub or a coffee shop, where it was unavoidable, Gristhorpe didn’t approve of people smoking in his presence.
    “Right,” the superintendent announced when they had all arranged their papers and helped themselves to coffee. “We’ve got four break-ins—all at old people’s houses—involving one assault and one death. We’ve also got a Peeping Tom running around town looking in any window he damn well pleases, and we’ve got hardly a thing to go on in either case. I reckon it’s about time we pooled what brainpower we’ve got and let’s see if we can’t come up with some ideas. Alan?”
    Banks coughed. He needed a cigarette but had to content himself by fiddling with a paper clip while he spoke. “I think Detective Constable Richmond should speak first, sir. He conducted interviews with the dead woman’s neighbours last night.”
    Gristhorpe looked at Richmond, inviting him to begin.
    “Well, sir, you’ve all seen copies of the report. I don’t really have anything to add. We had a uniformed man on duty all night, and another made inquiries all the way down Cardigan Drive. A couple of people heard someone running, but that was all.”
    “We know who that someone was, don’t we?” Gristhorpe asked.
    “Well, not his identity, sir. But, yes, it was that chap who’s been looking in on women getting undressed.”
    “Right,” Gristhorpe said, turning over a page of the report in front of him. “Now, Andrea Rigby says that she heard running, then a knock at a door. Never mind the alternative explanations for the moment. Could there be any possibility that it was the peeper, not a burglar, who killed Alice Matlock? Maybe she knew him, maybe he came for help or protection, or to confess—she threatened to report him, they struggled and he pushed her? Manslaughter.”
    “The place had been gone over just like the others, sir,” Sergeant Hatchley pointed out.
    “And no prints.”
    “No prints, sir.”
    “Couldn’t it have been made to look like it was a burglary?”
    “How