Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

“A lady with a problem.”

“Oh, I would say so. She’s close to losing her job because of it; maybe it’ll take that to make her sit up and take notice of herself. I’m afraid she’s killing herself. As a medical man, I can see it happening. But back to our man, that’s the nuts and bolts, and my report will be with you forthwith.”

“Many thanks.”

“Oh, before I go, I should say that the absence of textile fibre means that he was partially clad when he was killed. No footwear came with him and shoes would have been identifiable after years of exposure to the elements. It’s a further indicator of foul play.”

“Again, thanks.” Donoghue replaced the receiver, rekindled his pipe, and glanced out of his office window along the length of Sauchiehall Street. It was a fine early summer’s day. He pulled gently on his pipe and pondered a tall man being struck from behind by a smaller person. The body was then conveyed to a moorland site. A small person couldn’t carry a larger person any distance at all, so the likelihood was that some years ago, two or more people entered into a conspiracy to murder. The first step, as always, was to identify the corpse; then, hopefully, the rest should fall into place.

Fourteen days after Keith Stoddart had chanced across the bones on Fenwick Moor, they were identified. They were identified by dint of a computer search for the names of missing males aged between fifty and sixty years who had been reported as missing for more than two years and less than thirty. Twenty names sprang up on the flickering screen. Of those twenty, only one had the stature of the deceased. Douglas Minto was six feet tall and had been fifty-five years of age when he was reported missing twelve years ago. A comparison with his dental records and the teeth of the lower jaw of the bones confirmed his ID.

The file made interesting reading. It had all the pungent aroma of foul play, yet classically, without a body or a confession, there had been little the police could do. And, as always in such cases, time is on the side of the perpetrator; as police resources are stretched, more recently committed crimes scream for attention. The file on Douglas Minto began to sink lower and lower in the pile, and eventually it left the minds of hard-pressed officers and so ceased to be “alive” as the world continued to turn. But yet, time is not really on the side of the perpetrator, though there is perhaps that illusion. Should new evidence come to light, then the file can be accessed, it can be reopened. The case can be picked up where it was left off, unless the crime concerned is shown to have been committed more than seventy years ago: That’s the cutoff point, the perpetrator by then being deemed to be deceased. But twelve years ago... in police terms, thought Donoghue, as he turned the dusty pages... in police terms, twelve years was, well... yesterday. Especially in the case of murder.

Douglas Minto, according to the file, was a self-made man. His wife was forty-seven when she reported his disappearance and had been his wife for twenty-five years. It appeared to be a long-term, stable relationship. A successful union. But the interested police officer at the time had recorded his suspicions about the nature of the relationship between Mrs. Minto and a young man who had been present in the house when he had called to take a follow-up statement a few days after the initial statement had been made: “...it is my impression there is something between Mrs. Minto and the young man in the house whom she described as a family friend.”

Interesting, Donoghue pondered, reaching for his pipe. Very interesting.

The Mintos lived in comfortable middle-class Busby. They were childless. Sheila Minto didn’t work. She was a kept woman. According to the notes, the housework was done by a maid and the gardening by a gardener, a Mrs. O’Sullivan and a Mr. Dollar respectively. Mrs. O’Sullivan’s home address was some distance away in the sprawling Castlemilk housing scheme. Mr. Dollar’s address was closer at hand, in Busby itself. Donoghue picked up the phone on his desk and tapped a four-figure internal number.

“C.I.D. DC King.” A crisp, efficient voice.

“Donoghue here.”

“Sir.”

“Can you come to my office, please, Richard? Got a couple of jobs for you.”

Self-respecting poverty. That was Richard King’s first and lasting impression of Mrs. Mary O’Sullivan’s flat. She revealed herself to be a portly, amiable woman in her late middle years, very house proud but also a woman of slender means. Silver-haired, she sat in an old armchair in a flat which was clean, immaculately swept, but she didn’t seem to be able to run to polish or air freshener. Her television was ancient, probably a black and white set, and her furniture even older. Possibly it had been inherited from parents so, so many years ago, or else purchased from the charity shops.