3
Jan sat at her small cluttered desk in the Evening Courier's back office, talking on her office phone. She’d decided to have one more go at chasing Hemingway and began by approaching county forces, starting with the local one and working outwards. Her one-sided conversations went something like this:
"Jan Barnes, yes. B-A-R-N-E-S. Could I speak to Superintendent Hemingway please? ...I'm sorry? ...You've no one with that name? ...But you must. I spoke to him yesterday ...I don't get names wrong. It was Hemingway: H-E-M-I-N-G-W-A-Y. It's not a name you'd easily forget. ...Okay. Suit yourself."
No matter how persistent she was, she got nowhere. After ringing ten county forces, all with negative results, she gave up. She tried the Met, but was put through to someone called Smythe at Perso
