Free Amendment of Life by Catherine Aird

Pete Carter. ‘That’s right, mate, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Carter, still monosyllabic.
    â€˜And the men’s bothy is there,’ added Captain Prosser. ‘That’s where they keep all their tools. That’s behind the stable yard.’
    â€˜Where it doesn’t lower the tone of the place,’ said Kenny Prickett, straight-faced. ‘Not that we’re around much any longer on Sundays, Pete and me. No overtime, these days, you see.’
    Captain Prosser’s face turned a ripe shade of red, but he kept silent. Pete Carter stood unresponsive at his mate’s side.
    â€˜And when do the staff come off the gate and the maze?’ asked Sloan.
    â€˜Five o’clock,’ said Prosser.
    â€˜Sharp,’ added Prickett.
    The other men looked at him.
    â€˜Everything’s sharp here,’ said Prickett pointedly. ‘Isn’t it, Mr Prosser?’
    â€˜Punctuality helps oil the world’s wheels,’ said the soldier.
    â€˜And how, may I ask,’ enquired Sloan, ‘can you be sure that there’s no one left in the maze when you all go home?’
    â€˜We count them in,’ began Prosser.
    â€˜And we count them out,’ chanted Kenny Prickett.
    â€˜And?’ said Sloan.
    â€˜And if the numbers don’t tally,’ said Prosser, ‘we ask Miss Pedlinge to check.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘She likes that.’
    â€˜One evening she caught a couple in her binoculars canoodling under the statue of that fancy lad in there,’ chortled Kenny Prickett.
    â€˜Androgeos,’ said Captain Prosser.
    â€˜They wanted to stay there all night,’ said Kenny, giving a loud cackle. ‘Found that Androgeos an inspiration, I daresay.’ He grinned. ‘Reckoned without Miss Daphne and her long-look glasses, didn’t they? Soon winkled them out.’
    â€˜The postern gate,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, rising above this and unerringly putting his finger on the weakest security spot, ‘when is that locked?’
    â€˜That’s locked to vehicles at five o’clock, too,’ said Captain Prosser. ‘The pedestrian access gets locked last thing at night by Milly Smithers when she goes home.’
    â€˜She puts Miss Daphne to bed,’ volunteered Kenny, ‘and opens up first thing in the morning when she comes in to get her up.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan noted the information with relief. Fixed points of reference were always a help in a police investigation.
    There was another fixed point of reference worth exploring, too.
    â€˜Perhaps you’d take me over to see Miss Pedlinge again,’ he said to Jeremy Prosser.
    A woman with nothing to do but look out of a window could be a great help in any investigation, but her probity as a witness would have to be established, too. With her history she might well have been trained in misinformation, let alone disinformation.
    Besides, an old lady at odds with an heir was someone to be watched in her own right. But there was something else about the elderly that Sloan had been trained to keep in mind; their increasing indifference to matters of supreme importance to the young and the middle-aged. As his old station Sergeant had been fond of reminding him, ‘Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.’

Chapter Eight
    Sharon Gibbons took one look at David Collins’s expression as he came through the door of Double Felix and disappeared back into her own office, murmuring, ‘Coffee coming up, pronto.’
    â€˜I must say I could use it,’ admitted Collins, slumping down at his desk and running his hands through his hair. ‘It’s been one hell of a morning, Eric.’
    â€˜What news?’ asked his partner, never a man to waffle.
    â€˜Margaret wasn’t at the hospital,’ said Collins, pushing a pile of notebooks to one side with a hand that was not entirely