She had long, bony fingers which she wrapped round the door as she peered out at Penny Yewdall and Tom Ainsclough through the narrow gap which she permitted between the door and the doorframe. She glanced wonderingly at the officers’ identity cards and then gazed at Ainsclough and Yewdall in a seemingly confused and timid manner. ‘Look,’ Yewdall spoke calmly, ‘we assure you that it would be a lot easier if you would let us in – much, much easier. You see we, my colleague and I, are from New Scotland Yard. We are members of the Murder and Serious Crime Squad and we are not at all interested in crimes that can be dealt with in a magistrate’s court; anything lower than crown court material is of little concern to us. The crimes that we investigate get people put away for life, not fined twenty pounds and bound over to keep the peace.’ ‘We can smell the cannabis,’ Tom Ainsclough added, with a serious tone in his voice, ‘and we are not bothered about it, not in the slightest.
