For three long days, Alf had sat by the side of old Millie, leaving her only to go out to the garden through the open back door to answer the call of nature. Though she was cold and lifeless he’d refused to leave her, preferring instead to snuggle close to the only human being who’d ever really cared for him and loved him. Millie was the one who’d saved his life when she’d found him beaten and bedraggled, floating half-dead by the side of the river, where he’d been thrown by his previous callous and uncaring owner for reasons Alf was never aware of. All he’d ever done was to try to give his love to the man, and he’d been repaid with cruelty and barbarism.
He’d found such love and warmth with Millie, who’d treated him the way a dog should be treated. He had a warm bed at night, toys to play with, and plenty of good food to eat. He and Millie had been a common sight around the village as she’d walked him proudly around the streets, and he would always enjoy the times in the little park when she’d let him off the lead and he could run around free and play with his favourite ball, often accompanied by one or two of the other dogs from the village, all of whom he was acquainted with. He had no pedigree, being a small, grey scruffy coated crossbred terrier with a tail that he held permanently bent over his back and almost constantly wagged, but Alf was intelligent and responsive to his new owner, and now he knew that all was not as it should be. Why wouldn’t Millie move?
Alf was hungry, and couldn’t really understand why Millie hadn’t got up and fed him. He knew where his food was kept, but couldn’t open the door to the pantry. That was something Millie always did, why wouldn’t she get up? Alf remembered the day the man had called, and Millie had been upset. There’d been some shouting. Alf hated the sound of loud voices, it always reminded him of his first owner, and though he’d been outside in the garden, when the shouting got louder Alf knew that Millie needed him. He’d gone running into the house just as the front door closed and he caught just a fleeting glimpse of the man’s back as he disappeared. Alf had run into the sitting room and found Millie lying on the floor with something warm and sticky running from her head. She hadn’t made a sound, and, knowing instinctively that something was amiss, Alf had licked Millie’s wound, then the rest of her face, hoping to revive her.
Millie had never moved from that moment until now, and the little dog was becoming desperate. His hunger gnawed at his stomach and something told him that Millie wasn’t going to wake up and feed him, or take him to the park, or stroke his head in the way he liked so much. That was when Alf began to howl, and the sad, plaintive sound of that howling was soon apparent to anyone walking past the cottage where he and Millie had lived happily together for the last eight years. It didn’t take long for word to get round that Alf was in distress in the cottage and that there might be something wrong with Millie. Three hours after the howling began and a number of concerned citizens had called the local police station, Police Constable Tom Beresford arrived on the scene.
Beresford tried the front door, and finding it open he called out Millie’s name.
“Mrs. Prentice, are you there? Is everything alright?” he shouted, hoping to elicit some response from the elderly inhabitant of Rose Cottage. Receiving no reply the constable strode along the hall and peered around the door to the sitting room. Millie Prentice was lying where she’d fallen, with a forlorn-looking Alf lying by her side. Seeing the constable, who he knew well from his numerous walks in the village, Alf plaintively wagged his tail at the officer, and with a pleading look in his sad eyes, he nudged his lifeless mistress in a last pitiful attempt to tell her of the arrival of their visitor.
“Hello Alf, old boy,” said Tom Beresford, quietly and reassuringly. “What’s wrong then boy? Is old Millie unwell? Now, you just let me see what the problem is.”
Tom Beresford bent down slowly and stroked Alf’s head. It wasn’t quite the way Millie used to do it, but Alf was glad of the contact and wagged his tail once again at the policeman. The police constable at first thought that Millie might have suffered a stroke or heart attack perhaps, but as he looked closely at the inert and lifeless form of the old lady on the floor he quickly noticed the vicious gash on her forehead, and a second laceration at the back of her head, visible through the pensioner’s thinning hair.
“Oh no, not you Millie,” he spoke into the otherwise deserted room. “What sort of miserable callous bastard would do this to you, eh?”
He’d known Millie for years. She’d always been a part of village life here in the place where Tom Beresford had grown up. He well remembered her when she was a much younger, very pretty and sprightly teacher at the local junior school. She’d taught Tom for a year just before he’d left to go the grammar school in town.
Now, looking at her lifeless body, cold and still on the floor in front of him Tom felt a great wave of sadness and loss wash over him. The sadness was quickly replaced by anger, anger that someone could have done such a thing to a helpless old lady who wouldn’t have hurt the proverbial fly. Tom called the incident into headquarters on his radio and in keeping with procedure he remained at the scene until relieved by the detectives who would take over the investigation. He touched nothing, knowing that the scenes of crime officers would need to survey the murder scene exactly as he’d found it. He dared not touch or move anything in case he disturbed vital forensic evidence. He used his eyes however, and tried to take in every inch of the room, committing every aspect of the murder scene to memory. All the while, Alf sat quietly at his side, no longer howling now that he had someone to keep him company. The little dog somehow knew that Tom was there to help, though he’d no idea in what way. He wondered why Tom hadn’t made Millie wake up, and why the policeman hadn’t fed him.
As if suddenly realising the dog was still there Tom reached out to Alf again, and squatted down on his haunches to pat and stroke the terrier. Tom then realised that the poor dog probably hadn’t eaten in some time and, knowing he couldn’t disturb anything in the kitchen even to feed Alf, he searched his own pockets for some morsel he could give to the dog. In his inside pocket was a cereal bar he’d been planning to eat with a cup of coffee at Martha’s Café during a break from walking his beat in a couple of hours. Thinking that Alf’s need was probably greater than his own he unwrapped the bar and broke it into three pieces which Alf devoured eagerly and then sat looking up at him waiting for more.
“Later boy. When they’ve finished here we’ll get you something to eat, don’t worry. You just sit and be patient for now, there’s a good dog Alf.”
Minutes later the team arrived from headquarters closely followed by an ambulance, and the police surgeon. Tom Beresford met the new arrivals at the door and showed them into Millie Prentice’s sitting room where they quickly assessed the situation and the police doctor pronounced the old lady dead, a formality that had to be observed before the body could be moved. The doctor was able to inform the police officer in charge, a Detective Inspector Lowry, that he considered the old lady’s death had been caused by some form of blunt force trauma to the head, though he covered himself by saying that this of course would have to be confirmed by the autopsy.
Dave Lowry carried out a detailed investigation of the murder scene and questioned Constable Beresford carefully as he’d been the first man on the scene. Beresford confirmed that he hadn’t touched a thing since entering the cottage and also proposed the theory that the dog was probably the only witness to whatever might have taken place on the day of Millie Prentices’ death.
“You’re probably right young Beresford,” the inspector agreed, “I doubt we’ll get much help from you my boy, now shall we?” he said, addressing the dog affectionately whilst patting Alf on the head.
“What’ll happen to the dog sir?” asked Beresford, concerned for Alf now that the major hue and cry of the initial examination of the scene had died down.
“I don’t know, Beresford,” Lowry replied, “Are there any close relatives that you know of who could take him in?”
“She had a daughter sir, but I think she lives up North somewhere, maybe in Scotland. I’m not sure. I’d hate to see the poor thing going into the pound. It looks like he’s stayed with her for days since she was killed. He deserves something a bit better than a cold hard floor and a draughty pen if you ask me.”
So it was that Police Constable Tom Beresford found himself with a small furry house guest that night, and as he and Alf settled down in front of Tom’s fire, Alf in his own basket that Tom had brought from the cottage, Tom felt well at ease with the little terrier by his side. Alf, though obviously feeling a little strange in his new surroundings and probably pining for his mistress seemed relatively happy and lay in his bed contentedly, occasionally looking up at Tom as if for reassurance that he wasn’t alone. Alf had eaten well for the first time in days. Tom had bought him a few tins of the food he’d seen in Mrs Prentice’s cottage, having taken nothing from the cottage except the dogs’ bed, and Alf had devoured two full tins as Tom had eaten his own evening meal. When Tom Beresford went to bed that night Alf slept warm and snug in his basket by the fire, which Tom left switched on considerately to give Alf a sense of warmth and security.

* * * *

The preliminary investigation into the death of Millie Prentice confirmed that she had indeed died from a series of vicious blows to the front and back of the head. Such was the force of the blow to the rear of the old lady’s skull that the occipital bone at the base of the skull had been fractured in three places. The autopsy revealed that she’d eaten a meal some time before her death, and also that she’d enjoyed a quantity of cherries not long before being attacked. The old lady hadn’t had time to digest them. Oddly enough Dave Lowry had found no sign of a bunch of cherries in the cottage and the assumption was made that she’d either eaten the whole bunch or that her murderer, who she perhaps knew, had brought them with him and given some to Millie before killing her. Lowry thought this a strange and improbable hypothesis. Millie must have bought a few cherries and eaten them, that was all there was to it.
The theory about Millie having known her killer arose from the fact that there was no sign of forced entry to Rose Cottage and it was assumed that either she’d left her door unlocked, allowing an intruder to walk straight into the house, or as was thought more likely, she’d invited someone in who had then turned violent and attacked the old lady. After all, a speculative burglar would hardly have walked up to her door just on the off chance that she might have left it open, or so Lowry’s theory went. Burglary was indeed Lowry’s idea of the motive for the crime, and he was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the old lady’s daughter to confirm if anything was missing. Her close friend Grace Simmons had confirmed Millie’s identity in the absence of there being any immediate family in the village, though when asked to try to ascertain if anything of value was absent from her friend’s house she’d been of little help, stating to the police that though she’d visited Millie regularly she’d only ever sat in the sitting room or kitchen, and really couldn’t say if there was anything missing. She’d never been upstairs, so if anything had been stolen from the bedrooms she would have had no idea.
Lowry had found the daughter’s name and address in Millie’s telephone and address book and it had been his sad duty to ring Emma Nichols with the news of her Mother’s tragic death. Constable Tom Beresford had been correct. Emma lived in the beautiful Scottish border town of Coldstream, and on hearing the news of her Mother’s death she’d promised to drive south to Barton Mere immediately.
As he waited for her arrival Lowry reflected on the sad state of affairs in the modern world in which he had to live and work. Barton Mere had always, in Dave Lowry’s mind, typified the archetypal English country village. Located in rolling countryside about fifteen miles from town, it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone, where neighbours helped each other, and where even today, crime was a rare occurrence. That a murder should have been committed in such a peacefully beautiful rural location was something of an abomination in the inspector’s mind, though he knew from bitter past experience that violent death can occur anywhere, and anytime. Barton Mere however, just wasn’t that sort of place and the tragedy of Millie’s death was the greater for that reason.
While Inspector Dave Lowry continued to explore the cottage for clues, Tom Beresford had been assigned with other officers to conduct a house-to-house inquiry in the village. Between them the four officers discovered absolutely nothing. No-one they questioned remembered seeing anything or anyone out of the ordinary on the day of Millie Prentice’s death. As most of them made a point of saying, Barton Mere was the kind of village where people kept themselves to themselves. They didn’t pry or spy on their neighbours, no matter how close they may be. Two people did remember seeing a gypsy woman selling clothes pegs and handkerchiefs door to door at some time that week, but, being elderly and a little forgetful they couldn’t swear to the fact that it had been the day of Millie’s murder. Still, it was something, and Lowry had put one of his men to work on trying to locate any gypsies or travellers in the area. The problem was, the countryside around the village was vast and open with villages spread all over the county and any gipsies or itinerants could have been miles away by now, maybe not even in the county any longer, and if indeed there was a gypsy selling clothes pegs on the day of Millie’s death she may have nothing to do with the case, and Lowry didn’t want to waste time and resources on futile inquiries.

* * * *

Emma Nichols was thirty two years old, dressed in a stylish blue two-piece skirt suit and looked every inch the solicitor she was. She was employed by a small legal firm in Coldstream and was slowly forging a reputation as a competent and able member of the legal profession, specialising in corporate work and bringing plenty of new business her employer’s way. A quick phone call to her sympathetic boss had enabled her to set off for Barton Mere within an hour of receiving Lowry’s call.
She now sat red-eyed and sobbing quietly on the sofa in the living room of her mother’s house, with Dave Lowry sitting opposite her in an armchair. He’d been waiting for her when she arrived and had thought it best to let her sit quietly in her mother’s room and gather her thoughts for a while before commencing with the questions he needed to ask if he were to make progress with the investigation.
“Why Inspector, why would someone do this my Mother?” she sobbed. “She was old, she wouldn’t have hurt a fly, and she couldn’t have been a threat to anyone.”
“I’m sorry Mrs. Nichols, I really am,” Lowry replied softly, “But whoever did this may have thought your mother could identify him, and killed her to prevent her doing that.”
“It just seems so cruel. She spoke to me on the phone last week, and she was looking forward to coming up to Scotland for a visit next month.”
“Listen, Mrs. Nichols, I really need your help. I want you to take a good look around the place and see if you can spot anything missing. I know you didn’t live here but I hope you’d know if there were anything valuable or important of your mother’s that had disappeared.”
Emma did as Lowry had asked, and went through every room of her mother’s cottage, firstly on the surface, then checking cabinets and drawers. After an hour of methodical examination she reported to the inspector that she could find nothing missing, at least nothing she could think of. It had been a few months since she’d been at the cottage, but as far as she was concerned, all her mother’s valuables were exactly where they should be.
This only served to make Lowry’s job harder. The killing may still have been a burglary gone wrong as opposed to outright premeditated murder, but without the prospect of stolen goods showing up somewhere in the vicinity or through the hands of a ‘fence’ there was no way of knowing that. So for the time being he had to proceed along both lines of inquiry. The murder of Millie Prentice could have been planned, or simply a hurried panic reaction to the old lady disturbing a thief at work.
Emma didn’t want to stay in her mother’s house for understandable reasons, and after giving Lowry as much information as she could, she drove to the Old Coach House Hotel where she booked herself in for the duration of her stay. Lowry meanwhile sat alone, back in his office, trying to put his thoughts into perspective. From what Emma had told him Millie and her husband, Emma’s father Eric had moved to Barton Mere about thirty years earlier. Emma had been born in the village and had stayed there until she left for university, where she met her husband Philip, from whom she was now divorced. Her father had died six years ago and she and her mother had since taken it in turns to visit each other twice a year, and had kept in touch regularly by phone. Her mother’s only previous contact with the law had been way back in the nineteen-sixties when she’d been a witness to a bank robbery gone wrong. The robber had panicked and shot a woman as he’d run from the bank with the proceeds of the raid in a bag under his arm. Millie had been walking past the bank at the time and had given the police a description of the man, but it wasn’t too precise. She’d been caught by surprise and he’d been running, and no-one was ever arrested for the crime of robbery and murder. Millie had been in shock at first but later said that as the man ran past her shouting “Get out of my way lady,” she’d felt as close to the Devil as she had in her entire life, such was the evil threat contained in his voice.
Time had passed however and Millie and Eric had eventually left their previous home near Liverpool to move to Barton Mere where she enjoyed a long and happy career at the local school. Emma could think of no reason why anyone would want to hurt her mother, but she’d promised to stay until the end of the week to help in any way she could. The funeral would of course be held over pending the current stage of the investigation, upsetting but necessary, as she understood fully from her own connections with the legal system.
She’d made a point of asking Lowry what had happened to Alf, knowing how close her mother had been to the little dog. Lowry assured her that the dog was being well looked after by one of his officers and when he told her it was Tom Beresford who had the dog she’d smiled her approval. She’d known Tom for a long time and was well aware of his own affection for animals. That night she’d eaten a sparse dinner at the hotel, finding her appetite completely absent, and decided to take a walk to Tom Beresford’s house to say hello to an old friend, and also to Alf.
“Emma, how are you? Come in please,” said Tom Beresford, answering the knock on his door and finding the pretty lawyer standing on his doorstep. She was a few years older than Tom and he’d had a bit of a crush on her from the time he’d first started to see girls as something other than a playground annoyance at school. He remembered her stunning legs and blossoming figure and the feelings she’d stirred in his youthful male body all those years ago. Of course, he’d been too young and too shy to say anything to her in those days and now was certainly not the time or place, but still, despite the sad circumstances, it was good to see her.
He made the usual condoling sounds to her and they sat talking for a while, Alf stretched out on the floor at Tom’s feet. He’d been pleased to see Emma but it was apparent that the dog had attached himself firmly to the young policeman. After an hour, Emma announced that it was time for her to be getting back to the hotel, but not before asking Tom if he’d like to keep Alf. She was sure her mother would have been happy for Alf to stay here in the village where he knew everyone and they knew him, and she’d made a point of the fact that she knew what a good home Tom would give him.
Tom was flattered and grateful for her offer and he readily agreed. He’d come to see Alf as a close friend already. The little dog scarcely left his side when he was at home and he thought he’d better fit a large cat/dog flap in the back door if he were going to keep the dog on a permanent basis. That way Alf could come and go as he pleased while Tom was at work.
They’d discussed the case of course, at least as much as Tom thought he should, as he was a part of the investigating team, albeit in a small way. He had happened to mention the fact that her mother had eaten cherries before she’d died and that they hadn’t found any trace of the rest of the bunch in the cottage. He speculated that perhaps Alf had eaten the remainder in his hunger as he’d kept his vigil beside Millie’s body.
“Oh no, Emma” had assured him. “Mum loved cherries, and I remember she’d once given one to Alf, after removing the stone of course, and the poor little dog was instantly sick. I doubt he ever touched one again, and I’m sure if he’d eaten any after Mum’s death you’d have found evidence of him being sick somewhere in the house.”
Tom filed that information away in his memory, intending to pass it on to the inspector the next day. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt the cherries held some significance in the strange and baffling case of Millie Prentice’s murder. Then again, he was just a simple village constable wasn’t he? Why would the inspector take any notice of his wild ideas and theories? Then again, he was always being told to use his initiative, and it wouldn’t do any harm to pass on his thoughts to the man in charge of the investigation. What was there to lose?
The next day Tom saw Inspector Dave Lowry as he left the cottage again after another search of the premises. He told Lowry of his meeting with Emma the night before and of Alf’s aversion to cherries. Whilst appreciating the constable’s desire to help Lowry failed to see that the cherries had any bearing on the investigation, and whilst he thanked Beresford for trying to help, he instructed the constable to “leave things to the experts.”

* * * *

Time passed; a month had gone by and the police were no nearer a solution to the murder of Millie Prentice. The old lady’s body had been released for burial, the police having decided that they’d obtained the maximum forensic evidence they could from her remains. Emma had attended the funeral along with most of the folk from the village of Barton Mere, including Tom Beresford and Alf who, with his new master, was allowed to stand next to the grave as his old friend Millie was laid to rest. There were tears aplenty that day, especially when Alf, as though knowing what was happening, suddenly lay down on his stomach with his front paws over the edge of the grave, and wagged his tail as Millie’s coffin touched the bottom of the grave. Tom thought that perhaps Alf was waving a sad farewell to the old lady who’d been his best friend, in the only way he could.
As they left the cemetery Tom and Alf turned left at the gate and began to walk towards the Rose and Crown public house where a few of the villagers had decided to hold a small wake in Millie’s honour. As they walked Tom became aware of a figure approaching them from the opposite direction. As the man drew closer Tom saw that he was of a slightly unkempt appearance, and the off duty police constable had no difficulty in guessing that the man was probably one of the gypsies or travellers who’d been reported as being in the area.
As the two men passed each other they both nodded a hello, Tom seeing no reason not be sociable with the man, no matter how scruffy and dirty he may have looked. Suddenly however Alf began to growl, then the growl turned to a bark, and finally the little dog began to howl at the man in the dirty coat. Tom, thinking that Alf was just afraid of the man’s appearance tried hard to clam the dog down. He’d never seen him like this, but Alf would not be placated. The man continued to walk away as Tom did his best to control Alf, but the little dog stood his ground, staring and howling at the figure that was now receding into the distance as the road bent to the right around the high bushes that lined the lane.
Tom suddenly had a thought. He knew that dogs had instincts that we humans sometimes had trouble understanding. Not only that, but Alf could have witnessed the murder of Millie. What if the man he’d just seen was the killer of poor Millie Prentice? Deciding to take a chance on Alf’s instincts, his own intuition, and a whole load of the initiative he was always being encouraged to use, Tom did a fast about turn and set off in pursuit of the man, Alf running beside him, quietly and determinedly. As he rounded the bend in the road he saw the man some way off, and Tom tried to hail him with a shout of “Excuse me, I need to speak to you.”
Alf began his howling once again, and the man turned, saw the dog pulling hard at the lead in Tom’s hand, and he ran. He set off as though the furies of hell were at his feet, and Tom did the only thing he could think of in the circumstances. He released his grip on the lead and let Alf go free! The little terrier leapt into action instantly, his legs devouring the ground beneath his paws as he quickly began to close the distance between himself and the running man. Tom ran behind as fast as he could but he knew he wasn’t going to reach the man before Alf. The range between dog and man gradually closed until, when he was no more than four feet away Alf suddenly leapt at the man. In an instant the dog was upon him and his powerful terrier’s jaws caught hold of and clamped hard on the back of the man’s left leg, sinking into the muscle and bringing the man to an instant halt as he tried to fend Alf off.
It took Tom Beresford another ten seconds to catch up with the action and when he did the man was doing his level best to hit Alf with a heavy wooden club that he’d had concealed in an inner compartment of his long dirty coat. Alf was successfully managing to twist his way clear of the man’s blows while at the same time clinging on to the man’s leg, his jaws firmly clamped shut on the limb. Tom had no choice. If he wanted to avoid the blows of the club he had to act fast. Without pausing in his run he launched himself in a flying tackle at the man and brought him down to the ground with a resounding thud on the hard surface of the road. Alf continued to hang onto the leg until Tom gave him the command to release the man, which to Tom’s surprise he did, obviously content to have caught his quarry and to release him into Tom’s custody.
The man struggled under Tom’s weight. He was strong, but Tom was stronger. Tom managed to wrest the club from his hand, and with a well timed punch to the head he laid the man out on the ground, where he lay, simultaneously panting for breath and holding his bleeding leg.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, letting that damn dog of yours attack me like that, you bastard?” screamed the man at Tom who now stood towering above him. I’ll have the law on you, I swear I will.”
“I’ve got a feeling the dog had good reason to go for you,” replied Tom, adding, “I’ve also got a feeling you were in the vicinity of Rose Cottage a few weeks ago weren’t you? This dog was Millie Prentice’s and I think he saw you kill his mistress, probably with that club you just attacked him and me with. I’m a police officer, so you’ve no need to call the law, and you’re coming along with me to answer a few questions.”
“Sod you, copper!” shouted the man, whose eyes blazed with malevolence at both Tom and Alf. “You’ll get nothing out of me, I ain’t done nothing to nobody, and you’ll never prove otherwise, so you just do your worst, you stinking cop.”

* * * *

Although he’d given his name as Michael Swan, fingerprints and other identity checks revealed the man’s real name to be sixty year old Andrew Kelly, a career criminal with a string of convictions for theft, assault and various other petty crimes. He’d been released from his last prison sentence two years previously and had drifted into life as a nomad with the group of travellers who’d taken him in. He supposedly earned a living by knocking on doors and gaining work sharpening knives and garden tools. At first he’d denied ever being in Millie Prentice’s house, but when the police searched him at the station they found a number of old cherry stones in his coat pocket. Forensic tests on the stones showed them to be of the Bing variety of cherries, the same as had been found in Millie’s stomach. Subsequent tests on the club he’d wielded at Alf and Tom Beresford showed traces of blood and hair that were matched to the DNA of the victim.
Faced with the evidence Kelly confessed that he’d killed the old lady in a moment of panic. She’d invited him into the house to sharpen her knives and he’d offered his eventual victim a handful of his cherries, as he said he thought she was just a nice old lady. He then told the inspector that as he followed her to the kitchen he’d said to her,
“Don’t worry missus, I’ll be out of your way just as soon as I can,” and that she’d suddenly turned around and told him that she knew him. She’d remembered his voice from a long time ago.
“It was you!” she’d shouted, “All those years ago in Liverpool. It was you who robbed that bank and killed that poor woman. I’m going to call the police!”
With that, Kelly had cracked, and reached into his coat and removed the club he carried ‘for protection’ as he put it. He’d struck poor Millie twice, once across the forehead and a second series of blows on the back of her head as she’d fallen. He hadn’t touched anything in the house and that was the reason there were no fingerprints in the property. He hadn’t stayed or tried to steal anything. He just wanted to get out of the cottage as fast as he could. He said that he did it because he couldn’t let the old woman turn him in to the police for a murder he’d committed when he was only twenty years old.
He’d been wandering the local countryside ever since the killing, picking up work whenever and wherever he could and he’d been completely bemused when the dog had suddenly chased him in the road and the policeman had come running after him. He swore to the police that the dog hadn’t been in the house when he’d killed the old lady, and he couldn’t work out how it had known it was him when they’d passed in the road.
It was left to young Tom Beresford to fill in the final blank for Inspector Lowry, based on his intuition and the information that Emma Nichols had given him.
“Well sir,” he said as Dave Lowry sat opposite him in the small office at Barton Mere Police Station, “I think that the dog probably came into the house from the garden just after the killing, and he must have picked up and retained some sense of Kelly’s scent, but he would also have smelled cherries, the ones Kelly gave to Millie, and he caught the scent from the stones in Kelly’s pocket. Emma told me that Alf absolutely hated cherries. He’d eaten one once and it made him sick. Every time old Millie ate cherries after that he’d growl and do a runner to another part of the house until she’d finished, so, when he and I were walking along and Kelly passed us, Alf smelled the combined scent of the man and the cherries and that was enough to tell him that Kelly was the man who’d attacked and killed his mistress. I think you know the rest, sir.”
“I must say young Beresford, that it’s quite incredible. I also admit that I was wrong to dismiss your hunch about the significance of the cherries in the investigation. If it weren’t for them, and the dog’s acute aversion to them we might never have collared Kelly. As it is we’ve got him not for just one murder, but for two! He must have thought he’d got away with the bank job all those years ago and that no-one would ever connect him with Millie Prentice, but he was wrong. Well done Beresford, you did a good job!”
“Thank you sir, but I think the thanks are due to Alf really, he’s the one who identified Kelly and then chased him down and held onto him until I got there.”
“Yes, quite right too,” said the inspector, “and how is the little dog? Has he settled in to his new home with you? I understand Mrs Nichols let you keep him.”
“He’s fine sir, thank you. We get along just fine.”
As he left the tiny rural station that morning, Inspector Dave Lowry couldn’t help musing to himself about the strange and curious circumstances that often attach themselves to the solution of crime in the modern world, particularly in such small isolated communities as Barton Mere.
“Terriers and cherries,” he muttered to himself, “can’t talk, can’t say a word, yet between them they solved a murder.”
He drove back to headquarters where his report on the case concluded with a recommendation for promotion to sergeant for constable Beresford, and a request to his assistant to buy and send a month’s supply of dog food to the constable as a reward for Alf.
Andrew Kelly was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Millie Prentice, with a second life sentence being handed down for the murder of Catherine Newton, the woman he’d killed during the ill-fated bank raid all those years ago.
Emma Nichols returned to her home in Coldstream, where her career continues to blossom, and she keeps in regular contact with Tom Beresford. They hope to meet again soon one day, and Tom still has hopes that he and Emma may one day be more than friends.
As for Alf, he’s enjoying his new life with Tom who takes him to the cemetery every week, where they place flowers on Millie’s grave, and Alf somehow knows why he’s there, for he always wags his tail a couple of times in that special sad way he uses, as if he’s still waving goodbye to his friend. Then he and Tom go to the park where they play with his favourite ball for a while before going home. He’s very well fed, never ill or sick, and just to be on the safe side, Tom never, ever buys cherries!