Carmel looked sad. ‘He insisted. He read an article about people dropping off the perch and not being found for years. I thought something might be wrong when he didn’t collect his newspaper. I’m up with the sparrows every morning. I go out and get my paper. Merv gets the paper delivered too. I pick up both papers from where the newsagent flings them from the window of his car, and I put Merv’s up on the little table on his front porch. He has trouble bending over. I saw him once. He’d dropped his packet of cigarettes as he was opening his front gate. He turned as red as a beetroot trying to pick them up.’ Carmel’s voice suddenly trembled. ‘It’s horrible to think of him, alone in there.’ She nodded in the direction of the house next door.

‘I don’t think he suffered,’ said Wozza gently. ‘And he’s lucky to have you to report this so quickly. Some folks aren’t that fortunate.’

Carmel nodded.

‘Did Merv have many visitors?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Occasionally, an old fellow might stop by. Mostly, he goes to the pub. And the TAB.’

‘Does he win?’ asked Wozza.

‘We’ve never discussed it, but by the looks of him and his house, if he does win, he must spend it on beer and cigarettes.’

‘Have you noticed anything unusual about Merv lately?’ I said.

Carmel’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Something odd happened on Thursday afternoon. Jack—’ She broke off.

‘Jack?’ My heartrate increased a notch.

‘The man you …’ Carmel looked unsure of herself.

I raised my eyebrows in a question.

‘Jack Barratt came and banged on Merv’s door. I was pruning in the front garden and I called over to tell him Merv wasn’t home. He’d gone down the pub.’

‘How do you know Jack Barratt?’ I asked.

Carmel glanced in my direction, a look of pain shooting across her features as she did. ‘He was a friend of my son’s,’ she said in a quiet voice.

’Yes.’ I realised the two would have been a similar age.

‘Did you tell him which pub?’ Wozza asked.

Carmel looked guilty. ‘Normally, I don’t know which pub Merv goes to, but I was heading off to the shops on Thursday afternoon at the same time he left for the pub, and we walked to the end of the street together. He said he was avoiding the Commercial because of all the police—’ Carmel’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I suppose he meant you.’ She blushed.

‘There’s a distinct possibility,’ I said wryly.

‘He said he was going to the Royal instead. And that was the last time I saw him.’

‘And did you tell Jack that Merv was at the Royal?’ Wozza asked.

She nodded. ‘He said he’d catch up with him there.’