The Hanging Tree Extract A Rafferty and Llewellyn Crime Novel

It was 10 p m and Inspector Rafferty was thankful to be going home. The week
before Christmas was not the best time of year from a policeman's point of view; Essex, in common with the other densely populated southern counties, had too many criminals with shopping lists of luxury items and a matching reluctant to pay for them. The combination had made his day long and tiring. So he was inclined to snap when Constable Smales burst into his office, crashed the door back against the wall and melodramatically exclaimed, 'It's gone, sir. Vanished. Lilley says-'

'Can't you open a door without smashing it off its hinges, man? Rafferty demanded. 'What's the matter with you?'

'I thought you'd have heard by now, sir.' Smales's fallen crest was now on the rise again and he came forward excitedly. 'A body was reported hanging in Dedman Wood. Only, as I said, when Lilley got there it had vanished, so-'

Rafferty was dismissive. 'Is that all?' Smales's schoolboy enthusiasm for corpses killed his small stock of common sense and Rafferty made a mental note to put the young constable down for a few more post-mortems as a cure for the condition. 'Hardly reason to take the paint off my wall. It's another hoax, man. Have you forgotten it's the school holidays? Last week it was armed robberies - this week it's corpses. With a bit of luck, by next week the bored local teenagers will be tormenting the fire brigade instead of us.'

Smales flushed but continued doggedly. 'It wasn't a kid that reported it, sir. It was a woman. According to Beard, a posh-sounding woman. Very adamant, she was. And she was there waiting for Lilley. Said she almost burned his ears off when he finally got to the scene. And another thing, Lilley said there were definite indications that a body HAD been hanging where she said.'

Rafferty, still keen to get home and put his feet up, wasn't easily moved from his opinion that the call had been a hoax. The world was full of attention-seekers who had forgotten to take their medication; a posh voice and a bossy manner didn't make his conclusion any less likely. Still, he reminded himself, callers intent on wasting police time didn't usually hang around for the police to arrive.