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‘But stopping them as has a mind from resigning and then joining up is another thing. They are more than welcome in the military police, because of their experience. I’ve lost two young constables that way. And a woman constable too; she had to go home to look after her mother in Scotland, so she applied for a transfer, and I can’t replace her. And what chance do you think, Lady Peter, one of my men in uniform would have of getting information about a young woman out of her friends? People just don’t confide in police officers about that sort of thing.’
    ‘About what sort of thing, Mr Kirk?’
    ‘Troubles of the heart, you might say. Playing the field. Whatever it was that got someone worked up enough to kill her.’
    ‘What makes you think it was that sort of thing?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘What else could it likely be?’ he asked. ‘When a crime involves a woman it’s nearly always that. I heard about one case what was about the ownership of a plot of land; but that was the exception that proves the rule.’
    ‘Mr Kirk, if Peter were here, I know what he would say. He would say motives are moonshine. When you know how you know who. I’ve heard him say it over and over again.’
    ‘Well, this time there isn’t any mystery about how. I’ve got a preliminary post-mortem report. Someone met her in the street, and struck a violent blow to her chin, breaking her jaw in two places. Then he spun her round, put his hands round her neck, applied pressure to her carotid arteries, and kicked her in the back. She was dead when he dropped her.’
    ‘She was lying on her back, though?’
    ‘You’re a sharp one,’ said Kirk appreciatively. ‘Her assailant must have rolled her over – perhaps with his foot, like. She was as slack as a sack of potatoes by then, and that’s how come she looked quite natural when you got a sight of her.’
    ‘You know,’ said Harriet thoughtfully, ‘that sounds very expert to me. Not the sort of thing that just anyone could have done.’
    ‘Six months ago I would have agreed with you,’ he said. ‘Happy days! Only someone trained in the Great War, I would have thought. But now half the population of England is training to kill. ARP units, Home Defence units, hundreds of people. There aren’t any guns for them, so they are drilling with wooden rifles, and learning how to use their bare hands. I’m almost sorry for any German parachutist who runs into an average English villager.’
    ‘Well, we can be reasonably sure that Wicked Wendy wasn’t a German parachutist,’ said Harriet.
    ‘Is “Wicked Wendy” what they were calling her?’
    ‘I’m afraid so.’
    ‘Then it most likely was the sort of thing I was suspecting.’
    Harriet couldn’t deny it.
    ‘In view of which,’ he added, studiously avoiding her eye, ‘and seeing as Lord Peter isn’t available, I was wondering if you would feel like lending a hand.’
    ‘At a bit of detecting? I’m a very poor substitute for Peter.’
    ‘Your books are very ingenious, my lady. You have the aptitude.’
    ‘Now you have surprised me, Mr Kirk. I never thought to hear a policeman express any sort of admiration for crime fiction. You have made a great concession.’
    ‘Do you think you could help out, as a kind of war work?’ he said. ‘I mean, we can’t let villains get away with murder just because there’s a war on.’
    ‘You’d have to be willing to put me completely in the picture, as you see it,’ said Harriet doubtfully.
    ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘This isn’t the usual situation, I’m not a-going to insist on the usual procedures.’
    ‘Then I will stand at your right hand. What precisely do you want me to do?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘And keep the bridge with me!’ he said. ‘Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Oh, quite like old times, Lady Peter. I’d like you to find out all that you can about the girl. Her friends, boyfriends, background, that sort of thing. Was she walking out with someone? Could you ferret