There's only one night of the year when it's normal for children to go around in gangs and be rowdy It all fits. It was Hallowe'en."Braid had a look round the scene of the murder, then asked Comfort a curious question."Comfort, you must have seen Charlie Spond's show?""Yes, sir"."Were there by chance any very small people on it?""Matter of fact, there were, sir He used to have a small gang of garden gnomes Midgets, they clearly were, but all dressed up as gnomes. They went over to Mr Spond's after that.""Would you recognise any of them again?" said Braid."Hardly," said Mrs Thribbs "They all wore masks And cloaks. "It's not illegal to be a gardening expert, surely?""No, but we strongly believe that he was mixed up in a multi-million pound illegal peat extraction racket He had made a lot of enemies That's why he kept himself to himself. Maybe they have caught up with him.""You think Greenpeace gunned him down?"Comfort smiled."This is the house here, sir."It was a Cotswold cottage facing across a small garden on to the street There were two doors, a posh door and a kitchen door. According to Mrs Thribbs, who lived across the road, he never used the posh door He hardly had any visitors, either She couldn't remember having seen any last night at all. Apart from the kids, of course."Kids?""It was Hallowe'en last night We had a bunch of kids down the street tricking or treating I gave them some marshmallows.
In addition, five personnel from the UK Fire Service are working in Muzaffarabad We have sent a couple of minibuses from Islamabad. The Government has also despatched tents, tarpaulins, sleeping mats, blankets, jerry cans and 3,150 Halal rations and water. More from Andreas Whittam Smith. Another complete crime story today. Yes, time for Inspector Keith Braid - the Sixty Second Sleuth - to take on another baffling murder and yet again solve it in one minute flat.
So fasten your seat belts for the odd tale entitled "Mind That Pumpkin" * It was the first of November. A constant flutter of leaves spiralled down from the trees as Inspector Braid and Sergeant Comfort walked along the high street of the little village of Courtenay Pine."He kept himself very much to himself," said Comfort."Who did?" said Braid, who had been enjoying the crisp autumn air and had not really been listening."Charlie Spond The dead man. Found this morning just inside his kitchen door with a bullet through his head, and no sign of a weapon.""Who found him?""Cleaning lady arrived at nine o'clock and found him sprawled all over the kitchen floor in a pool of blood Most unlike him, she said He was normally so tidy and careful Didn't smoke, didn't drink. He hardly needed a cleaning lady, he was that tidy.""I sometimes think the main function of a cleaning lady in these little villages is to find the corpse and report it to the police," mused Braid. "What do we know about Spond?""Well, sir," said Comfort, "everyone but you knows that till he retired he was the most popular gardening expert on TV We've been keeping an eye on him.""Why?" said Braid. The response by the British Government to the Pakistan earthquake is shamefully weak Here is the sum total of what it has done Some £13m has been pledged towards the relief effort.