Page 8 of The Veteran

‘Jack, there was a call for you.’ He studied a notepad. ‘A Miss Armitage. A florist.’

Burns was puzzled. He had ordered no flowers. On the other hand, Jenny was returning in another week. A bunch of flowers might help with the romantic side of things. Good idea.

‘Something about a limping man,’ said the sergeant.

Burns took the address and went back to the car with Skinner.

The Misses Armitage, twin sisters of many summers, ran a small flower shop on the Upper High Road. Half of their wares were inside the shop, half displayed on the pavement. The latter blooms fought a battle for survival with the billowing clouds of fumes from the juggernauts heading south towards Highbury or north to the industrial Midlands.

‘It might be the man,’ said Miss Verity Armitage. ‘He seems to answer the description. You did say Tuesday morning, did you not?’

DI Burns assured her that Tuesday morning would have been about right.

‘He bought a bunch of flowers. Not an expensive one, in fact about the cheapest in the shop. Oxeye daisies, half a dozen. From his appearance he did not have much money, poor dear. And the paper says he has been injured.’

‘Badly hurt, ma’am. He cannot speak. He is in a coma. How did he pay?’

‘Oh, cash.’

‘In coins, f

rom his trouser pocket?’

‘No. He produced a five-pound note. From a wallet. I recall that he dropped it and I picked it up for him because of his leg.’

‘What kind of wallet?’

‘Cheap. Plastic. Black. And then I gave it back to him.’

‘Did you see where he put it?’

‘In his pocket. Jacket pocket. Inside.’

‘Could you show me a bunch of oxeye daisies?’

They lunched back at the Dover Street canteen. Burns was glum, disappointed. A credit card would have left a record: name, and from the credit company an address or a bank account. Anything. But cash . . .

‘What would you do, on an afternoon in August, with a bunch of flowers?’ he asked Skinner.

‘Take it to a girlfriend? Give it to your mum?’

Both men pushed their plates aside and frowned over the mugs of tea.

‘Sir?’

The voice was timorous and came from further down the long table. It was from a WPC, very young, just arrived from training school. Jack Burns looked down the table.

‘Mmm?’

‘It’s just an idea. Are you talking about the limping man?’

‘Yes. And I could use a good idea. What’s yours?’

She blushed a fetching pink. Very new PCs do not usually interrupt detective inspectors.

‘If he was walking where he was, sir, he would have been heading for the High Road five hundred yards ahead. And the buses. But five hundred yards behind him is the cemetery.’

Burns put down his mug.

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