Free Grief Encounters by Stuart Pawson Page A

my reluctance to hand the case over. Mrs Johnson’s recovery had taken the pressure off me, but the Magdalena murder was bogged down and the thought of dashing all over town after more obvious criminals had great appeal. ‘Let me know if you need any help,’ I added as I accepted a mug of coffee from Maggie.
    ‘Ooh, I think we’ll be able to manage,’ he replied with a grin, reading my mind.
    ‘So what’s a corgi fitter?’ somebody asked.
    ‘They work for the gas board. Everything you have done to your gas has to be done by a corgi fitter.’
    ‘So what’s corgis to do with it?’
    ‘It’s like canaries down a coalmine,’ Brendan explained. ‘Every gas fitter has a corgi in a little basket. If there’s a gas leak it keels over.’
    ‘It stands for something…something…Registered Gas Installer,’ Dave informed us.
    ‘ Council of Registered Gas Installers,’ another added. Individually we might be rubbish, but between us we know everything.
    ‘So why did they name a dog after a company that looks for gas leaks?’ Maggie asked.
    ‘Because the Queen keeps corgis,’ Brendan informed us. ‘They used to be called something else, but one day there was a massive gas leak in Buckingham Palace and this brave little dog dashed into the State Room, where the Queen was about to give somebody a knighthood, and grabbed the train of her frock and started to drag her towards the door. The Queen didn’t realise what it was all about and, as she just happened to be holding a sword in her hand, she chopped off the dog’s head. “There, you little bugger,” she told it, “that’ll learn you,” but then she smelt gas and realised what the dog had been trying to tell her. On the spot she decreed that they be known as corgis for ever after.’
    ‘And she vowed never to smile again,’ Jeff added.
    ‘Oh aye. I forgot that bit.’
    I shook my head and stood up.
     
    Villains are unable to tell if a car has a Tracker device fitted, so they can’t take it to a secure hideout in case it has. They just leave it at the side of the road and wait. If we don’t collect it within hours they assume it’s safe, and pick it up at their convenience. Jeff would have the Subaru watched all day. They didn’t steal it to save a mile walk home. He’d also ask the mobiles not to stray too far away from Heckley, and ask for the chopper to be standing by with full tanks. We both had a feeling about the car, suspected it was all part of a bigger plan.
    Maggie and Dave joined me in my office. They were about halfway through the Popes who lived within East Pennine division, and Leeds were similarly placed. We were having to ask neighbouring divisions to help in the trace, interview and eliminate process because we didn’t have the manpower and my HMET authority cut across boundaries.
    When we’d finished discussing the case Dave said: ‘Did you hear about DCS Swainby?’ It had been exactly a week since he dropped his bombshell at the meeting and the rumour machine had been as quiet as a dead sheep on valium.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, it appears that vice have taken an interest as his name came up in the Operation Swampland disclosures. They’ve found thousands of obscene images on his computer.’
    Maggie said: ‘Swampland? That was the paedophilia enquiry, wasn’t it?’
    ‘That’s right,’ Dave replied. ‘They busted a major player and came up with all these names, and vice are slowly working their way through our quota.’
    I remembered what Swainby had told us. ‘When I saw him at his meeting he said we’d hear rumours. He asked us to give him the benefit of the doubt; claimed they were without foundation.’
    ‘I bet he did.’
    ‘Well I’ll not be listening to them. So what are we doing?’
    ‘More Popes,’ Maggie said.
    ‘Right. Keep at it. Any worth me doing a follow-up on?’
    There were, so that’s what I did, but it was a waste of time. There was a couple who had convictions for receiving stolen property, one