Death in Devon: A County Guides Mystery by Ian Sansom

Author:Ian Sansom [Sansom, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062449092
Amazon: 0062449095
Barnesnoble: 0062449095
Publisher: Witness Impulse
Published: 2016-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

BASIC PSYCHOLOGY

‘WELL, THIS IS RATHER DISTRESSING,’ said Morley. ‘Photographs, Sefton?’

‘We have requested your assistant not to take any photographs, sir,’ said one of the two policemen who had arrived to investigate the death of Michael Taylor, and who had now taken charge of events. They had indeed requested me not to take any photographs, though the request had been couched in rather more direct – shall we say Anglo-Saxon – language.

‘My assistant is a professional photographer, Officer,’ said Morley. This was, in fairness, something of an overstatement: I was then and remain now at best an enthusiastic amateur. Morley sometimes jokingly referred to me as his ‘Cartier’, but I was alas no Bresson and anyway I was not particularly inclined at that moment to take any photographs – particularly not photographs of a mutilated cow.

The poor thing seemed to have had its stomach split from top to bottom, and its head had also been brutally removed: it was the head that the boys had been vigorously prodding with their sticks, making quite a mess of it in the process. The bloody head sat staring at us now, set apart from the carcass, as though bizarrely illustrating some complex Cartesian point about the division between mind and body: the kind of illustration indeed that Morley himself might have included in one of his books on philosophy for children. (All Cretans Are Liars: Philosophical Puzzles, Conundrums and Quizzes for Use in Schools, Colleges and at Home, for example, published in 1932, includes a rather odd, jumbled appendix of diagrams and doodles – featuring teapots, razors, lions, tooth fairies – all apparently intended to illustrate Zeno’s Paradox, the Gordian Knot, the Problem of Evil and etcetera, though in fact, to my mind at least, they simply confused matters further. It was not perhaps his most successful book.)

‘Hmm,’ continued Morley, surveying the scene of butchery. ‘Distressing. But very interesting.’

Thankfully, by the time I had alerted the police to the mystery of the poor dead cow, Founder’s Day was coming to an end, parents were drifting away, boys bidding them farewell, and so this latest All Souls’ scene of distress – down in the bushes, beyond the croquet lawn – seemed to have gone unnoticed by those not directly involved. The two policemen had quickly and efficiently taken statements from the boys who were present at the cow-prodding, and I had explained to them the matter of the disappearance of the chickens – and the goat and the donkey – from the farm.

‘Disgusting,’ said one of the policemen, who was in possession of an extraordinary pair of jug ears and a menacing stare. ‘Should be ashamed, the lot of them,’ he said, raising a fist towards the boys, who remained gathered around as though awaiting their own horrible execution.

Left to his own devices I rather think the jug-eared policeman might well have begun dispensing summary justice: I feared serious consequences for the boy or boys who were found responsible for the cow’s slaughter. But

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