Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

Dick Flinders, for instance, left Rosetta Street nick on extended sick leave. As usual, he said nothing about it, but somebody left a confidential letter on the wrong desk, and it soon became public knowledge that a patch had been discovered on his lung; he was going to stay with relatives at the seaside and wouldn’t be back for a long time. Mary Taylor was sent to a pilot course in social studies at a Midlands university, and so it went for the thirty or more members of the team.

You can do a lot of talking while watching. Dick Flinders, of course, was more of a listener. And that was a rainy summer, even for England. Afterwards, Flinders’ mental pictures of Mary were of sitting with her in a string of drab cars and anonymous pickups and light trucks, with worm and amoeba patterns of rain on the window behind her profile.

She was a great one for poetry, the older, unfashionable kind that rhymes and scans. She could recite more than Flinders had ever bothered to read, and Tennyson was her favorite. Mary reeled off even the longer poems with only occasional pauses, as if telling a story. He never minded when she repeated them, and the couplets, drawing extra potency from their speaker, sank into his subconscious, ripe for retrieval.

And she talked about her youth, the sky-wide fields of Wiltshire where tractors work in threes and fours and racehorses exercise on the emerald, frozen waves of downland hills. The recollections stopped around her twentieth birthday.

Flinders gathered or guessed that her marriage, while enduring — she wasn’t the kind to break a contract — wasn’t a success.

Naturally, they also talked shop by the hour. At the time of Operation Nail, a detective-constable had been murdered at Roth-erhithe. He was a man with a heavy caseload and an even heavier list of enemies, so there were many suspects.

“I’d always leave a clue,” said Mary Taylor.

“Chances are it would be a fine thing. Ted Perry had other things on his mind, poor sod. They ran him down with a five-ton truck, luv — there wasn’t time for a dying deposition.”

She shook her head. “There’s ways, Dick. I bet I’d find one.” Mary could be very certain about professional matters, or pigheaded, if you wanted to be unkind.

There was a big celebration when Operation Nail, having run like clockwork, delivered like a fruit machine. Detective-Sergeant Flinders, impassive as ever, was probably the only officer involved who felt sad.

He and Mary slipped away from the pub after the third hour of euphoria. Inspector Flaxman, who was that sort, was showing people an Operation Nail tie he had designed. Superintendent Jelliffe, primmest and stuffiest of coppers, was wearing a lampshade.

“I’ll run you home,” Flinders offered. Mary Taylor lived on the Kent side of London, not many miles beyond Rosetta Street and his lodgings.

She shook her head. “Not a good idea. Well, is it?”

Flinders found a kind of eloquence. “Probably be years before we get together again. I think the world of you, gel. Your circumstances may change; mine won’t, there aren’t any. So if you ever want to get in touch, you know where I am.”

“You’re a gentleman, Dick.”

“Oh-aye, one of nature’s,” he scoffed, glad to lighten the atmosphere.

Mary Taylor always said what she meant, and took mild exception when others fell short of that. “Just a gentleman.” Her stubby, worn, and capable hand, a moth in the darkness of the car park, came up and settled on his shoulder and squeezed hard for a moment. “You look after yourself.”

Then she turned up the collar of the disreputable coat, freeing her hair with an abrupt shake of the head that put him in mind of a pony, yanked the belt tighter, and trudged off to the bus stop.

It was the last he saw of her. But two years afterwards he heard about Detective-Sergeant Mary Taylor.

“What exactly is your interest?” Inspector Mockridge returned Flinders’ warrant card and leaned back behind his desk, a man with the deceptive, florid jollity of high blood pressure and a short temper.

“I worked with DS Taylor on a target thing, backalong. And being in the neighborhood anyway, sir, I wanted to know what happened. Maybe I can call on the family.”

“There isn’t one to speak of,” Mockridge countered promptly. “Just Mr. Taylor, and I’ve already seen him. There are procedures for an, um, unhappy matter like this, sergeant. All being taken care of. Mr. Taylor never liked his wife’s career, he’s upset, and he won’t take kindly to a stream of coppers banging at his door.”

The big man waited woodenly.

Inspector Mockridge, spying a corner of newspaper protruding from the trenchcoat pocket, smiled narrowly. “You ought to know better, taking any notice of the papers. Typical media distortion. There’s no mystery about Taylor’s death: she was spring cleaning and fell off a chair, broke her neck.”

Mockridge’s smile grew a fraction malicious. “Not the domesticated type, DS Taylor — didn’t like women’s work.”

“Thanks, sir. I’ll be on my way, then.” But Detective-Sergeant Flinders did not travel far.