Chapter 13
BLACKWATER HOUSE
IT WAS A TABLEAU FROZEN IN TIME.
Banks and Avram at the coach, Avram seated inside, handcuffed to the D of the door handle, the coach door half open-PC Banks standing alongside – Gimlet and Sinistrari stood at the top of the steps beneath the portico of the porch, handcuffed together, Sinistrari smirking as if to a private joke – Collingwood, after prising Gutteridge’s death-clenched fingers away from the bridle, standing in honour guard over the slain policeman, bitterly accusing himself for bringing a good man to his unnecessary death.
The pair of doves, having done whatever it was that doves do in their nest fly out again, cooing softly to each other. Percy and Maud? Collingwood thought, and then berated himself for the triviality of the notion in the fac
