Chapter 14 – Back to Front

Scribbs was back at the station and just coming out of the loo when Ash bumped into her in the corridor. "Hi, Ash," she greeted her colleague.

"Scribbs."

She saw the way Ash's eyes were screwed up and her forehead furrowed. "Problem?"

Ash shook her head. "I don't think, no I am convinced, that Jenny's husband didn't kill her."

"Or he's a very good actor," Scribbs scoffed.

Ash shook her head. "I don't think so." She leaned against the wall to think. "And Jenny was pregnant."

"By who?"

"Whom." She shook her head. "Maybe pathology can give us a clue."

The women were walking to their desks when Scribbs called out, "No!"

Ash sighed. "Now what?"

"Ash, we are going at this all wrong. We've got it back to front."

"In what way?"

"Look, we were set to task to find Jenny Browning. A missing person."

"And we did. She's dead."

Scribbs frowned. "And so is the vet Michael Barnard, who appears to have been her boyfriend, although she was married."

"Yep. And?" Ash was getting a little irritated as detectives and police officers pushed around them as the two of them stood in the corridor.

"When you were at school, ever been given those mazes to solve? You know. It's all a messy labyrinth and you had to mark out the way to the center?"

"Of course. What's this got to do two murders?"

Scribbs eyes brightened. "When I was at school we'd be coloring; I liked that a lot. Then the teacher told us to stop and handed out a maze. Then she said, 'When you finish the maze you can go back to coloring.' Don't you see?"

Ash shook her head. Where was Scribbs going with this? "No but go on."

"I learnt that if you start at the end of the maze, in the center, and work it backwards, you can very quickly solve it! All the false paths become obvious!" She grinned. "So, I raced thru the maze, gave it to teacher, much faster than the other kids, then got straight back to coloring! Got it?"

"And?" Ash said slowly, just starting to understand.

"We determine who wanted Michael Barnard dead! Jenny may have been in the wrong place…"

Ash cut her off. "At the wrong time!"

The two detectives stared at each other open mouthed. Finally, Scribbs added, "So, why was Barnard killed? Was it because Jenny Browning was with him? Or something else?"

Ash jerked her head towards their open desks in the office. "I have an idea." At her desk she took out a sheet of paper. "Who are the people that know Michael? And who knows Jenny?" She drew two circles overlapping them slightly. One circle she labelled 'Michael Barnard', the other 'Jenny Browning'. "Let's write down, in each circle, who knows each of them. A Venn diagram."

"A what diagram?"

"Maths was not your strong suit, was it? Look. The overlap of the two circles; who knew them both, may give us a clue!"

The list was fairly short, co-workers of the vet, the neighbors at the house the vet had been refurbishing, and so on. For the dead woman they had her husband, her friends they'd spoken to, and the clerk at the health club.

Both detectives laughed as one. "The health club!"

"Yeah," Ash sighed. "What did the clerk say?"

"Kandi. That she'd seen the vet and Jenny together at a club." Scribbs flipped open the case file. "Ah, here - Tiger Pub."

Scribbs grabbed her coat and shrugged into it. "Come on, Ash. Off to the pub, but this is working so no drinking."

Ash smiled as she followed Scribbs out of the building. The words of the statute rang flashed in her head: 'Police officers do not purchase or consume alcohol when on duty, unless specifically authorised to do so or it becomes necessary for the proper discharge of a particular police duty.' "Coffee alright though?" she prodded her partner.

Scribbs slid into the car behind the wheel. "Sure, long as you are buying."

"Me?"

"I didn't have breakfast this morning, so I am hungry. A hot sandwich would be good as well."

Ash sighed. "No breakfast?"

"I was… running late."

"How come?"

"Oh…" Scribbs smiled, "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

"Gosh! You were with someone!"

Scribbs looked away. "Uhm, maybe."

"Maybe be damned, Scribbs. Who?"

Scribbs got the car going and drove out of the parking area. "You don't know him."

"Well, he must be new, or you'd have said something."

"Only a couple of dates, Ash."

Ash grinned. "But one of those dates was last night?"

And horizontal and delicious, Scribbs thought. "We'll talk about him later."

"Fine." Ash shook her head. "But I want details."

"Oh, like the way you didn't tell me about that airline pilot?"

"He was an RAF Captain, Scribbs."

"So, you get to have secrets and I don't?"

"Sorry. No."