Omens of Death Read Free Page B

clothes winter and summer alike, consequently few who observed him away from the office knew what kind of jacket he preferred when out of doors, because that old greatcoat enveloped his upper torso.
    His shirts were on view, however, or at least the upper portion of the breast and collars were. They were clean, neat and tidy, thanks to Millicent’s loving care and he always wore a dicky bow of sky-blue, his lucky colour. He liked to sport a white collar with his many coloured shirts — but so few shops sold collar studs these days. He sometimes congratulated himself upon his foresight in accumulating a large stock of them.
    His jacket was the same colour as his trousers, rather like a faded Macmillan tartan with some wrong colours added. All his external jacket pockets had buttoned flaps, with pleats to allow the material to expand in direct proportion to the objects stuffed within. His breast pocket was always bulging with fountain pens and propelling pencils, and he sported a pocket watch and chain which he kept in a shiny waistcoat of chestnut hue. By no stretch of anyone’s imagination, therefore, could Montague Pluke be described as well-dressed or even tidy, but he was distinctive. Although he considered himself an adequately attired gentleman, Millicent had, in her younger days, attempted to dissuade him from wearing his old coat and spats, but he had rejected her pleas. He’d been emphatic that his distinctive mode of dress was part of the renowned Pluke family history — his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had worn these very clothes and he, being the last of the Plukes, was determined to uphold the family tradition until his dying day. Millicent had sometimes said he would be buried in his old greatcoat, probably in a horse trough-shaped coffin. There were times when he thought this a good idea.
    Over the years, though, Millicent had come to accept that the Pluke menfolk were eccentric dressers. That character trait had extended into Montague’s early days as a uniformed constable. To the chagrin of his superiors, he was always untidy, with tunic buttons missing or undone, and pink or yellow socks showing below his uniform trousers which were too short. And none of his supervisory officers would agree that spats looked right with police uniform. Regular expressions of concern to the then Police Constable Pluke had failed to make any impression, so the Chief Constable had transferred Montague to the CID, the plain-clothes branch of the Service.
    Montague, on the other hand, considered his transfer had been a recognition of his criminal investigative skills, but for his superiors it signified intense relief from jokes about the be-spatted constable, while no one could say there was anything plain about that particular plain-clothes constable. But for Montague, being a detective meant he could personalise his attire while working for the good of society.
    Side-shuffling Montague into the CID had been a wonderful piece of personnel management, although his subsequent progress had not been spectacular.
    But he had been lucky. Due to amalgamations of Force boundaries, there had been a vacancy for a detective sergeant and he had been the sitting tenant. He was the only available detective constable who had passed his exams, so he had won promotion. Likewise, his promotion to detective inspector arose because none of the detective sergeants had passed their promotion exams at the time of that particular vacancy. His somewhat rapid and spectacular rise through the ranks led Montague to believe that he was a very successful detective. After all, one of his triumphs had been the arrest of a gang of teenage tearaways who were stealing cricket balls from unattended pavilions. It was a feat which had won him an invitation to Crickledale Cricket Club’s annual dinner as the guest of honour, when he had delivered a memorable talk about horse troughs in cricket fields.
    It was the prevailing air of tranquillity and