Foyle
He had barely got the car door shut when the inevitable happened.
"Sir, I was thinking..." and she was off. Foyle settled more comfortably into his seat and wondered when the magpie like chatter had changed from intrusive and slightly annoying to something almost stimulating and even pleasant. It was even more odd when he considered how his first impression had been in many ways accurate, if possibly somewhat incomplete. And it had not been a good impression. A small part of it had, of course, been down to finding a young woman reporting as his driver. He was willing to admit that to himself; but then that it should have been such an awfully young woman…
Thinking back to that first trip with Sam, she had made him feel like a father taking his child for an ice-cream. The constant, almost unbearably bright prattle had not been at all what he was used to. He wouldn't have objected so much he supposed if they had been in some other type of situation, although what other circumstances would have lead him to spending time with a 21 year old girl he couldn't imagine.
Foyle smiled slightly as he remembered making a note to himself about half way to the landing to check and make sure that Miss Stewart hadn't lied about her age so as to join the MTC. He had already decided that first thing when they got back to the station he would start looking for another driver, somebody with a little more experience or at least enough age that they would be able to conduct themselves with a little decorum, or even somebody who would listen to a direct order! Of course that had been before Sam had prevented the escape of the suspect with the timely application of a dustbin lid!
"… and wouldn't that explain it all, I mean even the fish?"
Foyle quirked one eyebrow up slightly as he finally got the chance to respond. "Hhmm, well wouldn't his neighbours have heard? After all the nearest one is only about 25 yards down."
"Well, what if he only did it during raids sir? Nobody would have noticed it then, would they?"
Foyle sucked lightly on his back filling to disguise his smile. "Seems like a lot of risk doesn't it? Besides, even if he was willing, there haven't been enough local raids to account for the total amounts we're talking about."
Foyle knew he shouldn't laugh, it would actually make a excellent explanation, for a magazine serial. Really there was a lot of potential in Sam. She was quick and observant and quite a bit more intelligent than most gave her credit for. If he and Milner between them could just get her to slow down and realise that just because an explanation was interesting and exciting did not necessarily mean it was the most likely, then it would be possible that some quite impressive things could come from Miss Samantha Stewart.
Sam
"Oh, well I hadn't thought of any of that". Sam turned her attention back more fully to the road as she thought how nice it was to hash out these tricky mysteries with Mr. Foyle. Her father was always nice about it, but his most frequent response to her more, well, long - winded speculations was to smile indulgently and then chide her for letting her imagination run away again. He certainly didn't take her seriously enough to actually think through her arguments as if they could possibly have merit on their own. And Mum was much more likely to take it as an excuse to deplore her choice of reading material. (Unfortunately Mother had very definite ideas on what was appropriate for a young lady.) Most of her own friends were just amused by it, "There goes Sam again, running off pell-mell over nothing".
Milner
"Hello, Sir, how was the meeting?" Milner offered by way of greeting as Foyle stepped into his office.
"Much the same as the last. At least this one had the pretence of involving actual police business. Have you found anything on Mr Taver?"
"Well, he had lived in Alaska for a number of years, but it looks like he worked on the railways, not in a gold mine and because of his arthritis he was almost unable to leave his house. He could just manage to get around the house itself and the yard. The local ladies would stop on their way to the shops for his ration book and a list of whatever he needed. He did apparently make it a habit to give gifts of fresh fish to several of them although none of them ever seem to have asked where he got them from." Milner looked up from his notes with a slight apologetic smile. "That's really all the background I could find. Doesn't seem to help us much, does it, Sir?"
"Nnoo, not really. And you found no fishing gear either in the yard or house, right?"
With a slight shake of his head Milner responded, "No, and nobody claims to have seen any unfamiliar people about his house either," Milner checked his watch quickly, "Although I think I will go ahead and ask at the quay after anybody doing private sales. I have to go down there anyway on the halfoak case"
"Might as well but so far the fish appear to be all fresh water varieties. Sam's going to drive you down there, right?" Milner nodded at this. "See if you can get her to tell you her theory … at least it would be easer than getting her not to anyway, hmm?"
Milner shared a look of amusement with his Superior before heading out the door to find Sam. As he walked he thought about Sam's bright manner and cheerful gabble and how when he was talking with her sometimes it seemed that all he had to do was close his eyes, and he would be back before the war, or even back before adulthood when the greatest tribulation was being put in charge of his younger cousins for the afternoon.
Talking with Sam, listening to her enthusiasm and optimism, it was easy to forget things like the war, the low background of fear, the constant uncertainty; the...
… the screams and curses, the smell of blood and worse... the confusion and mounting panic as they just kept coming...
… the dive bombers...
… the sudden shock and odd detached feeling where there should have been pain...
Jane saying all the right words but not once actually looking at him ...
Yes, Milner thought he would make sure to ask Sam what she thought about the case and they could spend the whole trip discussing it and exchanging theories and speculations.
Milner/Sam
"But everybody said he was a gold prospector, I mean, didn't they?"
"Well yes, several people did at any rate, but they all got the idea from their children." As Milner began his explanation he reflected that while Sam had a tendency to be both a little too trusting in regards to people's statements and was much too eager to view a crime through the lens of either the pulps or the movies, she at least was always more than willing to listen to criticisms of her theories. In truth, she was almost as eager to discuss the weaknesses as the strengths. It was quite a far cry from most of the actual young police officers he had dealt with.
"So it appears that Mr Tavers thought that being a gold miner in the wilds of Alaska made for a better story to tell the local children. Apparently he was quite popular. They could go there to get some tea and hear stories of his adventures, all in return for a few small chores"
"But they use explosives when they build railways too, right? That could have been where he learned about them."
Milner gave his response a few minutes of thought before starting, "Explosives are certainly used in the construction of railways and it is possible that Mr Tavers could have picked up some skill with them there, but it looks very like he was killed by a grenade explosion, which they most definitely don't use in the construction of railways." With a small grin at Sam Milner went on to say, "It's not really a bad explanation in many ways. He has access to the river right at the bottom of his property and he was getting a great many fish from somewhere."
"Well rather! What was it, almost a hundred pounds found?"
Milner gave a small nod as he raised his eyebrows, "Yes, just about. Forty five pounds preserved in salt in his cellar and another fifty on that makeshift drying rack in his shed." Milner grew a little more serious as he remembered that as much as he enjoyed these discussions with Sam, both he and Mr Foyle also looked on them as something in the nature of a kind of training opportunity. "But we're only really interested in the fish if it should turn out he acquired them illegally, say from the black market."
"Well, it would be illegal, wouldn't it? You're not really supposed to do that are you?"
"No, but to be honest, even then we would still be more interested in where he got the grenade and that is really the question in this case. How did an 84 year old man come to die by grenade in his own back garden?" Milner stopped for a minute to gather his thoughts and see if Sam had any more interjections, but she appeared to be fully involved in listening to what he had to say. That was another nice thing about Sam; while she loved to chatter, when the situation called for it she could be an excellent listener
"So we need to first find out if it was murder or some sort of accident or even suicide, but the second priority must be to find out where the explosive came from."
With that Milner waited to see what Sam's new theories would be, because as sensational as thy tended to be, there was often some surprisingly well thought out lines of reasoning in them.
Sam
"Well rather! What was it, almost a hundred pounds found?" Sam said with just a little of her usual breathless excitement. She tried to stay calm and present a more professional side, she really did. It was just so very puzzling and exciting and, well, in this case it was also kind of sad. Mr Tavers seemed to be such a nice old man. Sam often wondered how Mr Foyle and Paul could do it. Maybe it was just experience. Johnny Makepiece would have said it was because they were men and so their brains weren't as flighty as women's. At least he would have back before she pushed him in the mill pound. That had been very satisfying even if she had to go to bed for a week with no pudding. And it was quite satisfying to hear Paul, a real police sergeant saying how good one of her theories was. It would be nice if Mr. Foyle was a little more forthcoming with compliments like that though. And really she had thought of it straight away, as soon as she remembered about how the Janson boys used to catch all their fish during summers at her uncle's farm.
"Well, it would be illegal, wouldn't it? You're not really supposed to do that are you?" Sam asked. She remembered her father being very disapproving about the Jansons' type of fishing, but he could be a little bit old fashioned sometimes and her uncle and just about everybody else had known and not cared. At least until they accidentaly blew a hole in the mill dam that is.
Sam/Milner/Foyle
"I wish you had let me drop you off at home," Sam said over her shoulder as Milner held the station door open for her. "I mean there's just a quarter of an hour left before quitting time."
"Thanks Sam, but that should give me just enough time to finish up some reports," Milner responded as he let the door close behind him. "Are you going to have enough time? You're supposed to meet some of your friends tonight, right?"
Sam's grin got even wider as she replied, "Yes, if I go straight home and change after dropping off Mr Foyle. It's going to be lovely. I haven't been dancing in ages."
Before Milner could reply to that they heard Mr Folye call out, "Ah there you two are, I was starting to wonder."
Milner began to ask if anything was wrong but before he could, Sam started apologising, "Sorry, Sir, but it took quite a while to find the right slip and then we had to stop for a bit to eat on the way back …"
Foyle gently broke in before the explanation could get too involved. "That's alright, Sam, although I hate to say that I'm going to need both of you to stay on for a little while yet."
"Did something come in on the Tavers case then?" Milner asked.
Foyle answered the question in a slightly distracted voice, "Yesss, I heard back from the engineers about the type of explosive."
"Were they able to say where the grenade came from Sir?" Sam piped up.
"That's the thing. It wasn't a grenade. Mr Tavers apparently was blown to bits in his back garden miles from any fighting by a mortar round," said Foyle, still with that almost distracted air about him.