‘Sir, Simon and I both think . . .’

‘“I do NOT”’—Proust’s voice rose to a crescendo as he drowned out Kombothekra’s words—‘“have any comment to make regarding the claims made by DCs Christopher Gibbs and Simon Waterhouse that they, on the twenty-ninth of February 2008 and the first of March 2008 respectively, found Ms Trelease alive and well at her home, 15 Megson Crescent, Spilling, RY27 3BH, and were shown by Ms Trelease several items of identification that confirmed her identity as Mary Bernadette Trelease, aged forty . . .”’

‘If a situation being at all unusual prevents us from taking a statement, sir, we might as well all give up now,’ said Simon. Cunning bastard. Proust had to prove he’d memorised the relevant facts before dismissing them.

‘Tell me why we aren’t charging Mr Seed with wasting our time,’ the inspector snapped. So the good mood was finite after all. Even so, Simon was sure Proust had broken his record; usually the ice storm was much quicker in coming.

‘Trelease told Gibbs she didn’t know Seed, but he thought she was lying,’ said Kombothekra. ‘What if Seed beat her up, left her for dead, and now she’s too scared to tell us in case he does it again?’ It came out sounding awkward because they weren’t his words. He was quoting Simon, trying to make amends for Nancy Beddoes.

‘Did Ms Trelease look as if she’d recently been attacked? Any scars, bruises, cuts? Any sign of limited mobility, hospital notes lying around the house, wheelchairs parked on the front lawn?’

‘No, sir,’ said Simon.

‘We’ve been able to find no evidence—substantial or circumstantial—that Aidan Seed’s committed any crime,’ Kombothekra told Proust. ‘That’s if we leave aside the verbal evidence . . .’

‘Verbal evidence?’ the Snowman intoned flatly. ‘You mean lies?’

‘I spent most of last night going through our unsolveds, just in case anything from any of them chimed in with what Seed and Bussey had told us.’

‘Chimed in? Are you a bell-ringer, Sergeant?’

Kombothekra smiled in deference to Proust’s witticism. ‘I found nothing that might fit the bill, however wide a margin I allowed myself: no suspicious deaths where the victim’s name or appearance or address was in any way similar to Mary Trelease’s. Nothing. We’ve put all three names—Seed, Bussey and Trelease—into Visor, Sleuth, the PNC, NFLMS. None of them have got form.’

‘Yes, yes, Sergeant.’ Proust waved his hand dismissively. ‘And you failed to find mention of them in the cast list of Rawndesley Opera House’s production of West Side Story.’

‘Simon and I think that, all this notwithstanding, we ought to take a statement from Aidan Seed,’ said Kombothekra. Nervousness about the brave stand he imagined he was taking made his voice louder than it normally was.

‘Not only Seed,’ said Simon. ‘Bussey and Trelease too.’

‘If only we could amuse ourselves by doing as you suggest,’ said Proust with feigned wistfulness. ‘Had we but world enough and time. Imagine Mary Trelease’s statement: “On a date that a man I don’t know called Aidan Seed refuses to divulge, he did not murder me.”’ Proust banged his fist down on his desk. ‘What’s wrong with the pair of you? Did you share a beefburger of questionable origin in the mid-nineteen-eighties?’