We woke this morning to a pulsation of blue outside our bedroom window; curtain-tweaking nosiness revealed two young policemen peering into the letterflap of the house opposite. More and more cars arrived – one seemed to be a CID vehicle; its driver, having donned a coverall of white plastic plus “marigold” gloves, fitted a variety of keys until the door swung open and, stepping around a shadow in the hallway, he let all three of them in.\u00a0 Clearly something had happened to old Peter, our “close” neighbour.\u00a0 Two policemen began knocking on nearby doors;\u00a0 we were all asked when we had last seen Peter and under what circumstances. Later, thanks to another more informed neighbour, we learned, more or less, what may have happened.\u00a0 We knew that Peter had been diagnosed two months ago with kidney disease; also that a car-ambulance had been calling for him three times a week to take him off to Shrewsbury for six hour dialysis sessions. We guessed how much he hated the drastic changes to his life which the shock of his new condition had brought with it – no more all day fishing sessions, having to limit himself to a pint of fluid a day instead of the multi-pint drinking sessions in the pub which featured trad jazz (he had been a jazz trumpeter himself), no more looking after the chickens up in his steep back garden or making pots of Seville marmalade to sell or give away from his front doorstep… and then those\u00a0 dialysis sessions which left him looking (and probaby feeling) terrible.\u00a0 But what had finally happened to old Peter?\u00a0 No-one knows for certain; but some say that he went up the Cartway for a long and glorious jazz and booze evening last Friday – two days before he was found dead in his hallway this morning.\u00a0 Who’d blame him?\u00a0 Not me.\u00a0 Though not a ” close” neighbour, Peter always impressed us by his good humour, his old-soldierly bearing, his determination “not to be a bother”, and, finally, his air of decisiveness.<\/p>\n
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