PRIEST WALKS

A detective's claim that police were close to an arrest in the gruesome Armchair Murder Case was today met with scepticism in many quarters. The man leading the inquiry insisted "that good detective work was largely a process of elimination." Detective Inspector Llewdow therefore concluded that the fact that his team had interviewed and released so many suspects must mean they were close to identifying their killer. "Of course," he added, "we are not at liberty to divulge any further information at this delicate stage of the investigation."

Llewdow did discuss another suspect just released. "He was reputedly a man of the cloth, but we know very little else about him," admitted the detective. "A fairly

detailed witness statement implied that he had been trailing the victim for some time. We wanted to talk to him to find out what he knew."

Again it was left to unofficial sources to fill in the gaps with unsubstantiated rumours. "The man had been arrested in a previous incident involving the deceased, and police believed that he may have been a long-time stalker who was getting on the victim's wick. The dead man confronted his follower and a fight ensued during which the victim received a fatal blow from a priestly accessory."

Police had expected the priest to come clean after being arrested. But instead of receiving a confession, they were forced to release him after some apparently incriminating notes came into the authorities' possession.

Elimination: see Page 2 >>