The Methods of Sergeant Cluff by Gil North

Author:Gil North
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2016-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter VII

“Has he been there all night?” Margaret asked Jean.

Greensleeve’s two remaining assistants came up the High Street together, the street not crowded but comfortably filled with men and women on their way to work, the morning grey and dull like yesterday, the rain still threatening. The clock in the church tower showed a minute or two before nine.

“Why don’t you tell him?” Margaret pleaded.

The younger girl objected uncertainly, “But it can’t matter. How could it matter? I can’t go to him with a thing like that—”

“She’s been murdered.”

“What would he think of me?” Jean muttered, her eyes on Cluff.

“Worse if you don’t.”

“It can’t have anything to do with it. It can’t!”

“You don’t know.”

“If I was wrong—”

“You weren’t wrong.”

“I must have been.”

“He’s no better than anyone else,” Margaret said. She wasn’t looking at Cluff but at Greensleeve’s name above the door of the shop. “I’ve worked for him longer than Jane did. Has he ever paid any attention to me, or to you?”

“Why don’t you like him?”

“Do you?”

“We work there.”

“Have you seen his wife lately?”

“It’s nothing to do with Jane’s death.”

“She’s never in the town, is she? Do they ever go out together? Would you think he was married at all if you didn’t know?”

Cluff’s hands were thrust into the pockets of his coat. His hat was pulled forward over his eyes. He had Clive with him.

Margaret said, “He doesn’t deserve shielding,” not referring to Cluff.

“Couldn’t I have made a mistake?”

“You’re frightened.”

“It isn’t that. Our jobs—”

“Greensleeve doesn’t run this town, if he thinks so.”

“I’d never get another.”

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

Greensleeve’s car appeared on the road by the church. Margaret had her hand on Jean’s arm, pulling her gently past the chemist’s door in the direction of Cluff, farther away by the fruit-stall in his favourite spot.

The car swung perilously across the roadway, without warning to following traffic. Brakes squealed. A horn blew angrily. The car halted on the setts, its nose pointed at the pavement.

Greensleeve got out. Cluff remained still, his eyes on the flags at his feet, not looking either up the street or down, or at the windows he was facing. He took no notice either of Margaret and Jean, or of Greensleeve. He stood there, big and solid, conspicuous. Greensleeve couldn’t ignore him, any more than could the other pedestrians. Everyone in the vicinity was aware of Cluff, the sense of awareness transmitted from one person to another. They left him alone this morning, as they had done yesterday, not trespassing on his remoteness.

Greensleeve stepped forward, cutting Margaret and Jean off from Cluff. They stopped and the expression on Greensleeve’s face was difficult to interpret. He glanced over his shoulder at Cluff and when he looked back at the two girls he was smiling. Jean wriggled free from Margaret’s grip. She began to cross the pavement in front of Greensleeve. He passed her in the entrance to his shop and inserted a key in the lock. He carried himself straight, with his shoulders pulled back,

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