Thus, while the Black Bull had a view – of sorts – over the Green, all that could be seen from the store was a seemingly endless row of grim stone cottages. The store was no more than a stone cottage itself, Woodend noted. And a badly neglected one, at that. The paintwork around the door and window frame was cracked and blistered. The window itself was streaked with dirt. And though the man who ran it was a widower, the sign over the door announced that it was owned by Alfred and Doris Raby. The Chief Inspector stepped closer to the window, and peered inside. There wasn’t much to see. Central to what could only charitably have been called a window display was a jumbo-sized cardboard model of a brand of cigarettes which Woodend was sure the manufacturers had stopped producing shortly after the war. This sad, fading and dusty relic was flanked by an advertisement for a chocolate bar that virtually no one ate any more, and a haphazardly arranged set of mugs celebrating the coronation of the Queen, eleven years earlier.
