Five days ago. When it was raining. It was still raining. But he wouldn’t put it off any longer. Maxwell had grabbed a bite at the Nag; something they’d chalked up on a board as Navarin of Lamb, but it could have been anything. Still, they drew a decent pint at the Nag and it gave him time to marshal his thoughts. The truth of it was, of course, he told himself as he buried his upper lip in froth, that when it came to murder, Peter Maxwell was an amateur. Like most people, his knowledge of crime lay with the odd flight of fantasy. Well, then. How did it happen in English cosies, the thrillers he’d been brought up on? There was a body in the library or a death at the vicarage and some incredibly unlikely old fusspot, who was terminally ga-ga but had a mind like a laser, sorted it all out, muttering things like, ‘Of course, how preternaturally stupid of me.’ Joan Hickson was no doubt more immaculate as Jane Marple, but dear old Margaret Rutherford was infinitely more fun. All right.
