Three Little Maids by Patricia Scott Page B

where someone was working at the stove. Turner grinned. ‘It’s a bit early but I expect Marie will fix us up okay, won’t you? Two teas to start with please, love.’
    The canteen cook, a small blonde woman with a button nose, round rosy face and bright blue eyes, didn’t seem at all surprised to see them. She smiled and poured out their teas. ‘What are you after, Stan Turner? A bacon sandwich I suppose. Doesn’t our Carole feed you properly at home? Can I get you something, Inspector?’
    ‘A bacon sandwich will do me fine too.’
    They took their drinks over to a table and sat down. ‘Another cousin, Turner?’
    He grinned. ‘You’re getting warm. Marie’s my sister -in-law, guv. My brother, Eric’s, wife. She works extra hours Sunday morning sometimes during the holiday times. She’s putting her son, Richard through college. He wants to be a vet.’
    Marie brought over the plate of sandwiches with a smile. ‘Here you are Stan, Mr. Kent. Is it right that there’s been another murder? Another young girl?’
    ‘I’m afraid so.’
    She waited with a plump hand on the table top. ‘Do they know who she is?’
    ‘Not yet. Why?’
    ‘Well, my Eric said when he came in early this morning from his night shift that he picked up a young girl in his cab in the street near the Nag’s Head last night.’ She had their full attention immediately now. ‘And she asked to be taken to that old chapel at the back of the town on the West hill. So he made a quick comment like ‘isn’t it a bit late for a service?` But it didn’t go down very well with her. So he kept quiet after that.’
    ‘Did he say what time it was, Marie?’
    ‘Nearly midnight. He was going to take a break and have a snack. That’s how he remembered it being so late.’
    ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’
    Said she looked nervous when she got into his cab. Looked as if she wanted to change her mind at the last minute and hesitated, when he stopped outside the chapel. Then he asked her if she’d rather be taken straight home and she said, ‘No!’ A bit sharp with him she was.’
    Marie wiped the top of the nearest vacant table with a damp cloth she had in her hand.
    ‘So he dropped her off there at the chapel. He worried about her a lot afterwards and wished he’d stayed awhile longer to see if she was okay. Said she was just a kid. Wondered what she was doing there so late. She was foreign, he said. And spoke with a French accent. Could have been one of those foreign students.’
    ‘A French girl?’
    ‘Yes. We’ve got these students everywhere. Only he remembered this one. Said she was such a pretty girl. Much too attractive to be out so late at night in one of those skimpy, short dresses. He likes a good pair of legs. He waited till he saw her go in. Then he drove off. The main door wasn’t locked so she must have arranged to meet someone in there. Funny, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Very - thanks, Marie.’
    The two police officers looked at one another as they chewed their bacon sandwiches slowly. ‘Could be,’ Turner said, ‘It’s a lead to start with if it’s the same girl, guv. Certainly seems like it might be.’
    ‘Is it the chapel we visited yesterday to speak to Welbeck?’
    ‘Sounds like it.’
    Marie chipped in over the counter. ‘Eric knows that chapel well as he takes the two old Wilberforce ladies there every Sunday evening. They stay at the White Rock Hotel and he does special rates for them, Inspector.’

     
     
    18
     
    ‘My girl’s gone missing.’ A young man, with a quiff made of stiff jelled spikes of sun-bleached fair hair, which reminded Police Constable Bennett of a lavatory brush, hunched his muscular brown arms over the front office desk. ‘You’ve got to find her for me.’
    ‘And your name, sir?’
    ‘Jones. Cliff Jones.’
    ‘And her name, sir?’
    ‘Yvette Marceau, she’s a student.’
    ‘Would she be French, sir?’
    ‘Yeah, she is. She’s a student at the Language College. So what