The corpse of the late Detective Inspector Dixon sat slumped in his favourite chair. His shabby living room smelled strongly of the Queen of Sheba, his favoured tobacco, and his Hawkbill pipe lay on the floor, having apparently fallen from his hand at the moment of death.
At his elbow, on a small table from a nest he’d inherited from his grandmama, was an unfinished cup of Earl Grey, a plate of Super Wine biscuits and a copy of the Rev Richard Coles’ Murder Before Evensong.
The television, an antique, wood-panelled thing, was still on. It was playing an episode of Midsomer Murders, the one where a murderous, private school tutor, spurned by his fiancée, dresses each of his victims as a bride or groom.
Constable Hewitson put down her notebook and started fishing for a Werther’s Original from a large jar Dixon had kept on the room’s sideboard. Snaffling one at last, she unwrapped it quickly, popped it in her mouth and instantly regretted it. She hated Werther’s Originals.
How had Dixon died, Hewitson wondered. Was this another cosy crime scene? Or was it just a cosy scene that happened to contain the corpse of her late boss?
It was possible his death might have something to do with what would now be his final case.
Another mysterious murder victim had been found in the third-best bedroom, but this time with the macabre twist of the killer, or killers, carefully arranging their victim’s body like that fellow on Midsomer Murders.
This corpse had been laid out on a newspaper with its tail pointing quite precisely towards a quote from a famous sportswoman, “You can achieve more together than you can on your own,” and above a headline that read, in part, “more to come”.
Dixon had thought it was another message from the killers, whom local gossips believed to be the Infamous Whiskers Gang, a band of thugs who lived in the second-best bedroom.
Once again, Dixon had struggled to identify the culprits. And now he never would. Hewitson suspected that despite being a detective, her late boss hadn’t been much of an investigator.
Still, she had her own mystery to unravel, now: the unexpected death of Detective Inspector Dixon. Where would the clues lead her?
The coroner’s cough came unexpectedly and suggested the poor fellow might not be long for this world. So resonant was it, it rattled the windows of the poky, first-floor court room.
Seated at the back, Hewitson was surprised by how few had turned up for Dixon’s inquest. Why had the Infamous Whiskers Gang not come to gloat?
As she was wondering this, the coroner, one Reginald “Reichenbach” Falls, banged his gavel and spluttered, “Next case.”
The clerk stood and read the name out to the court: “Gregory Aloysius Samson Dixon.”
Hewitson moved to the witness box. It had been her investigation and it was her job to present what she had found to the court.
Hewitson read aloud her report, detailing all she had discovered: the reek of the Queen of Sheba, the fallen Hawkbill, the unfinished Earl Grey and plain biscuits, Murder Before Evensong, the Werther’s Originals, Midsomer Murders, the tartan slippers and dressing gown, along with the findings of the autopsy report. The pathologist had been unable to come to a decision on the exact cause of Dixon’s death, though it definitely wasn’t suspicious.
“However,” Hewitson told the court, “the pathologist who examined Detective Inspector Dixon’s body during the post-mortem did determine that at the time of his death, Dixon was suffering from extremely high levels of cosy crime.”
As Hewitson returned to her seat, the coroner’s cough rattled the windows once again.
When the fit had subsided, he declared there would be no need for him to reserve his decision. The case was plainer than his wife’s late mother.
“It couldn’t be clearer,” Falls wheezed. “This was death by whimsy.”
Not a great epitaph, Hewitson thought as she left the courtroom. But what a hell of a title for her first cosy crime novel.
