Episode 93

Cedric Morgan pulled a small notepad from his jacket pocket and scribbled down a name and address. He pushed the pad across the battered table of Interview Room Number One and glared at Yaxley Farcett. 'She is my PA' he said through gritted teeth. 'She will confirm my whereabouts for eight o'clock on Friday morning'.

 

Yaxley ripped off the top sheet and neatly folded it before leaning across the table and saying, 'We could have saved ourselves a lot of time, couldn't we Mr.Morgan ?'. The MP stood up, brushed the remains of crushed cigarettes from his face and walked round the table to stand face to face with Farcett. 'Do not think I will forget this Farcett. If any of this reaches the ears of my wife or daughter...I will...I will...' he paused as a suitable threat struggled to find the tip of his tongue. 'Poison my dog ?' Yaxley suggested as an ending for his sentence. Morgan stared at him, obviously confused. 'What madness is this now ?' he spat. 'What dog ?' Yaxley gave a wry smile...'Forget it Morgan. You're free to go to your evening soiree now. You might get there in time for the port'. As Morgan's hand reached for the doorknob, Yaxley called him back. 'You're not thinking of going too far are you ? I might have to speak to you again'. 'Don't worry' replied Morgan. 'I've got to get back for tomorrow's Open University Bash at the Cathedral. I'm presenting some of the awards.'

Yaxley went to the window and watched Morgan climb into the back of the patrol car once more. He had instructed the driver to put the siren on and get him to the Guildhall as quickly as possible. Although loathing the man, he was now beginning to think that maybe it hadn't been a good idea to shove a packet of cigarettes in his mouth and twist his ears. Once the car had disappeared around the corner, Farcett turned to 'Stumpy' Stumpsfield.

 

'Right Dave' he said smartly, 'Is our man ready next door ?' Stumpsfield nodded. 'This might help an all' he said and passed Farcett some sheets of paper. 'What's this then Stumps ?' asked Farcett. Stumpsfield explained that Burton Coggles had taken some digital pictures of Dixon's battered torso and had scanned them so they could be sent via e-mail to Ealham station. Stumpsfield had printed off the pictures while Morgan was telling Farcett about his 'other woman'. Farcett laughed and said 'You catch on quick. I am impressed !' Stumpsfield beamed at receiving such praise and said 'It's the digikal age !'

 

Following the same routine as before, Farcett and Stumpsfield barged into Interview Room Two and asked the young PC to go and put the kettle on. As he left, Farcett sat down opposite Graham Trent and stared at him, unblinking. After about a minute, in which neither of them had so much as fluttered an eyelid, Yaxley pulled the sheets of paper from his jacket pocket and threw them across the table at Trent. 'Explain !' he barked. Trent gave Yaxley a sidelong glance and sifted through the pictures of Dixon's injuries showing little obvious interest. 'So...Who is it ?' he asked. Yaxley clenched down hard on his teeth to suppress his anger. He had never come across such blatant arrogance. 'Well, there's no face in the picture is there ?' argued Trent.

 

Yaxley let out a huge sigh. 'Trent...I have evidence that you have been and still are involved in a fraud involving property in the parish of Barnham. I have a signed statement saying that you had a fight with Reg Dixon on Thursday night and that you were threatening to go to see John Worthington. You also sacked Dixon a fortnight before his death. Still you had the gall to say he had a 'spurkerling parsonality'. He paused. 'Where were you on Friday morning at eight o'clock ?'

 

Trent eyed Farcett suspiciously. 'Lots of grand words there. Hope you can prove all this. It'll make for a good editorial in next weeks Ealham On the Net. I need some more readers to win back the ones that Dixon scared off'. Yaxley frowned. 'What do you mean ?'  Graham Trent pulled a sheet of A4 paper from his pocket and passed it to Farcett. 'I reckon he was going round the twist. He kept hounding me all the time about this bloody land deal...which I have nothing to do with, by the way... and his writing got more and more bizarre. You read that crap !' Yaxley smoothed out the sheet of paper and gazed down. Dixon had written a review of the Hadlode Thespian's spring show. Bucking the normal trend of praising the show to the rafters to encourage the community in their amateur efforts, Dixon had written a scathing condemnation of village productions with all the biliousness of an NME reviewer. Liberally smattered with four letter words and exclamation marks, the review blistered across the page.

Gwen Tweedy, a veteran of twelve such productions was described as a 'screeching witless hag that should have had her vocal cords extracted at birth'. The song which the ensemble cast sang at the finale was considered by Dixon to have been not just been murdered by the collective but taken out into a back alley and kicked to death.

Yaxley whistled and said '...and this went on your site did it ?' Trent nodded. 'Yeah. He used to go on line directly after I'd edited his first few articles about badgers and magpies. I trusted him. It was about November when he started all this trendy critical rubbish' and he pointed angrily to the review. 'It was two days before I knew what he'd done and by then the damage was done. Most of my advertisers had pulled out by then. It took me a month to get them back'. He paused and added, 'Have you read the last bit ?'

Yaxley looked back down at the sheet of paper. According to Dixon; 'Rather than have suffered this performance of 'Cinderella', I would have preferred to stay at home and set about my nipples with a cheese grater'.