Mavis and Maud, always take an afternoon constitutional along the front. We eavesdrop on a few occasions:

Mavis. I can't tell you Maud how pleased I was with myself yesterday. I finished the Telegraph crossword all but one clue.

Maud. Oh, Mavis, you're always nearly finishing the crossword, what was it this time.

Mavis. It was 26 across, the last clue. 'A rude noise stuck in traffic (9,3).'

Maud And the answer?

Mavis Well, at first, I thought it had to be something like 'Thundering off' but that didn't fit the letters I had. Eventually I gave up and waited for today's answer.

Mavis And it turned out to be 'Raspberry Jam'! The same scene, a few days later:

Maud Mavis, you'll never guess what happened to me yesterday.

Mavis Some man made advances to you on the bandstand!

Maud Idiot! I was involved in an accident right outside Sainsbury's. I was just walking up Terminus Road when I saw a car hit a bus head on and then shoot across the road and up onto the pavement. When I got up to the car I saw it had knocked down a woman and she was lying flat on the pavement with blood all over her blouse.

Mavis Oh Maud, how ghastly for you. Was she all right?

Maud Well, of course I rushed to help but I didn't like to lift her or anything in case she'd broken any bones. Anyway, just as I was wondering what to do she started to get up. The moment she was up and saw the blood all down her front she began wiping it off with her handkerchief.

Mavis The poor woman. Did you offer to take her to hospital?

Maud Of course I did, well at least I offered to call an ambulance but she said that she was a bit shaken but fine - however, her shopping bag had dropped when she was knocked over and a jar had obviously broken and the contents spilled out over her.

Mavis So what was it?

Maud It was then that I realised it couldn't have been blood so I picked up the jar and it turned out to be Raspberry Jam. A week or two later:

Maud What a pity Mavis you weren't at Henry and Julia's dinner last night.

Mavis Oh, Maud, I hardly know them. Anyway Wednesday is my night to play bridge at the Fosters. But you obviously had a good time?

Maud Yes, indeed, Julia's such a wonderful cook so we had a delicious meal and, after that, Henry made us play party games.

Mavis What! Pass the parcel and musical chairs?

Maud Silly. No we played charades.

Mavis That was fun. Did you guess the word?

Maud Well it was in three parts. Henry started off by acting as if he was smoothing a bit of wood or something with some sort of tool. For the second part, Julia sat in front of a mirror pretending to try on a hat and then for the third part, William - you remember William and Sonia, don't you? You met them at my house last New Year's Eve - anyway, William stood in the doorway with his hands stroking the sides and, finally, Sonia sat at a table and started to do something that looked as if she was spreading something on bread.

Mavis So what was the word?

Maud At first I thought it was something like Planet Space (plane, hat and space) but I couldn't see what eating has to do with it.

Mavis Oh, it couldn't be that. Anyway, the programme was called Planet Earth. So what was it?

Maud Well after a few more guesses we gave up and it turned out to be Rasp-Beret-Jamb.

Chris Halstead and I had got there within two minutes of the body being found, first on the scene. We'd been at St Mary's Church, a regular port of call of his, he'd explained; handy for reducing fear of crime, it had also yielded several good quality pieces of info that had kept Sgt Forbes happy, and in turn kept the borough inspector off his back. Chris had been outside, chatting to Revd. Styles; I had been in the church meeting hall, doing my bit for reassurance policing by playing Scrabble, badly, with two ladies from the congregation.

"No, pet, you must be able to do better than that," Millicent, the elder of the two, had gently scolded me, as I unloaded the Z and two Os to form the word ZOOS and net a score of thirteen. "Must be able to...look, here, if you put it here..." Millicent had briskly gathered up the three tiles I'd put down and replaced them adjacent to an exposed E. "Now, OOZE. See? One, two, twelve, thirteen, and it's a double word score. Twenty-six! See? Much better!"

This could've gone on indefinitely, and I had been almost grateful when Chris dashed in through the rear door, uttered a guarded "Sus. death" at me and, without stopping, left the hall via the front entrance. Hurriedly I made my apologies to my two playmates, grabbed my hat and radio, and set off after him.

I had caught up with him as I rounded the swimming pool, where he had stopped and was in the early stages of calming down a clearly distressed dog-walker - the unfortunate member of the public who had made the discovery, I guessed. Here the undergrowth was at its thickest, but efforts at concealment had not been thorough - assuming it had not been moved in the meantime, the corpse's leg was plainly sticking out from a dense mix of grasses, thistle and tansy.

It hadn't been long before Dennis joined us. A pathologist of some 20 years' standing, he was known for not being nearly as funny as he thought he was, his favourite conversational tic being "You have much to learn, Grasshopper" in what he chucklingly believed to be a perfect Master Po impression, but wasn't. As he'd never met me before, and I was 21, he wasn't likely to hold back on this particular element of his comedic repertoire.

"Lovely day for it!"

Chris, who had met Dennis before and didn't care for him one bit, had been keen to keep the conversation as basic as possible.

"Anything for us to preserve or bag?"

"No weapon, if that's what you're asking. Whatever did this" - Dennis had gestured down at the slit throat and multiple head injuries of the victim - "is either long gone or somewhere in there." He had shifted his finger up and sideways towards the undergrowth. "That is, if he was killed here in the first place."

"Any reason to think not?" I asked.

Dennis looked me up and down as if disappointed that, being a raw, new, female recruit, I had not yet fainted, thrown up or otherwise embarrassed myself at our grisly find.

"Ah, you have much to learn, Grasshopper. First rule of crime scene: never assume nothing. Don't they teach you anything at Hendon any more?"

I had opened my mouth to tell him that the three-week PCSO initiation course was actually held at Camberley, then, deciding it wasn't worth the bother, promptly shut it again.

"You start ruling things out," Dennis had continued, "you narrow down your options. Good for the killer. Bad for the public. Worse still for you." He had jabbed a finger at me. "I wouldn't put my shirt on it, any more than I'd put it on him, poor sod, huh huh. But my best guess? Fractures to the skull, or air embolism to the throat wound. Ah!" Dennis had turned as a man I didn't know in a turquoise tie and crisp patterned shirt strode up to us. "DS Babbington, we meet again, but this time things are very different, yes?!"

Chris and I had rolled our eyes at each other, then got on with some practicalities, helping to erect a tent and protecting the scene until SOCO arrived. I had been on the street three weeks at this point, possibly a little early for a proby to encounter a murder victim - or Dennis - but you had to make a start somewhere. And in fact, Dennis was right. When the pathology report came back, DS Babbington was taken by surprise. Expecting the results to show "air embolism" or "skull fracture", his eyes flicked to the box marked "Cause of death", and it turned out to be "raspberry jam".

Monologue on a train.

Can't get that last clue - "Bare JP's marry. Very sweet! (9,3)"

Can't get my mind off this bloody interview. Hope we're not going to be held up. Will I get a taxi? This train's so stuffy.

I wish that girl would stop telling her friend, somewhere in the Arctic circle by the way she's shouting, all about her date last night. I don't want to know what "he turned round and said".

Why, oh why did I agree to this interview?

"Bare JP's marry. Very sweet! (9,3)" I see two paunchy JP's going up the Registry Office steps, hand-in-hand - naked. Two old blokes with crinkly bottoms. No! No! I refuse to think about it! I'll probably kick myself tomorrow when I see the solution. Think about something else: the fields are very blousy this time of year and the jackdaws seem to have had a good season. That farmhouse looks so peaceful. I envy them inside, probably listening to The Archers and having tea and toast. Better than this polystyrene coffee.

Which station are we coming into? That announcer has a very trained voice. Must be an actor. "Calling at .." oh yes Strawberry Hill. Next stop Kingston. The interview - at Kingston. What if I get the job? I haven't taught for twenty years. I'm out of date. How did I let myself be persuaded to apply? Strawberries, Wimbledon, Martina Navratilova, Henmania... What is wrong with my brain today? All over the place. .

Strawberry is sweet. Rings a bell. Bell, school, interview. I'm going round in circles. I'm in a jam. Jam? Jam!

"Bare JP's marry. Very sweet! (9,3)" something jam. An anagram. So, finally! It's turned out to be raspberry jam.

VISITORS

It was dark when the two elderly ladies came down the hillside towards the police barrier, a makeshift line of plastic tape strung across the gateless entrance to the upper fields. A near full moon shone hazily just below the tree-topes of the lower forest; the barbed spears of pine black and perfectly defined against the misty luminescence.

Behind the barrier the majority of the villagers, and a few strangers, gazed up beyond the two shadowy figures, beyond the narrow band of trees halfway up Broad Peak, to the bright patches of light moving back and forth over the summit of the high and steep hill.

Helicopters moved in near silence, their sounds almost lost to the distance, their bright spot-lights beaming down to illuminate the epicentre of activity.

The spectators could see a strange orangy-purple glow emanating from the ground below the helicopters; a strange brightness with no discernable source. Everything up there on the hilltop seemed bathed in an eerie and unnatural glow.

"Oo, look," said Myrtle in an unusually enthusiastic tone, "we have an audience!"

"We have indeed," replied Ethel, "I must compose my statement." Myrtle tut-tutted at her companions presumed arrogance.

Myrtle was a quiet and gentle soul, big-boned, with sturdy legs, a rower's shoulders and a round and ruddy face often sliced with a motherly smile.

In contrast, Ethel barely reached the level of Myrtle's shoulders, and yet she possessed a wiry strength, a pioneer's doggedness sufficient to convince some that she would live forever! And despite her mature years, Ethel's mind was as incisive as it had ever been. She was annoyingly opinionated. Annoying to some, that is, because she was invariably right in her summations and analyses. If science was her passion, talking about it was her obsession. She read the New-Scientist avidly and extrapolated on the facts and speculations with flights of informed fantasy.

For Ethel, this happening upon Broad Peak was manna from heaven, or at least a gift from a distant star!

In a previous life Myrtle had, with good grace and natural instinct, produced six children, attracting in some circles the affectionate title of 'Fert'le Myrtle'. Ethel, on the other hand, used to be known, during her professional working life, as Ethel the Kettle, since she was always 'a whistling' and 'a steaming' with latent energy. It was easy to imagine her vaporous musings condensing into droplets of pure wisdom; her outpourings were often extreme, controversial, but usually correct, or at least correct in substance.

As the two approached the barrier, the growing crowd began shouting questions. "Did you reach the top?" "What did you see?" Even, "Is it something from outer space?"

The two ladies paused to composed themselves, and then Ethel stepped forward and stood as she thought an explorer might stand when returning to base camp with an extraordinary tale to tell! This was her moment!

She spotted a gingery looking youth back in the crowd and pointed with one bony finger, "Hey, Jimmy, I hear you work for the Morning Bugle now, a trainee reporter no less; come to the barrier and I will give you an exclusive interview." Despite her natural brashness, Ethel was a soft-hearted soul keen to help anyone succeed in this difficult life.

The villagers obligingly parted to let Jimmy to the barrier. Unfortunately the gawky looking youth could only manage an incomprehensible stutter.

"Have you got your pencil and pad ready?" asked Ethel as she composed herself. The lad nodded. "Then take this down and perhaps they can get tomorrow's edition out before afternoon tea!"

The distant sound of helicopters could still be heard, whirring and clattering in the night sky, their concentrated beams of light mysteriously unable to penetrate the luminous glow.

"It's best to start at the beginning," said Ethel in her formal and instructive voice. "It was like this, Myrtle and I were out for our late evening stroll when we saw this strange glowing thing in the sky. The light from it was both diffused and yet compacted into an incandescent ball, if that is not a contradiction in terms. We watched it descend over Jake's Mountain at a steady and constant velocity, as though it were free from the influence of gravity. It made no attempt to reduce speed as it struck the top of Broad Peak. There was no impact noise, no explosive fireworks, only a transformation of the light from a primary source to a secondary source as it presumably buried itself into the ground."

Ethel quickly dismissed a few hasty questions from the crowd, treating them as rude interruptions, and continued to speak directly to the stultified and immobile reporter from the Morning Bugle. "Myrtle and I decided to climb up, by way of Bear Creek and the forest path, to thoroughly investigate this intriguing phenomenon. We realised that the climb would take us over two hours, but the exercise and a close encounter, we decided, would do us both the world of good".

Myrtle shrugged her shoulders in a typical gesture, but said nothing. Her time to steady and correct Ethel would come, or so she thought.

"As we emerged from the upper tree-line", said Ethel, "about half-way up the hill, we saw the first of the helicopters arrive at the scene, their white beams of light dancing around the ominous glow. At first they hovered at a reasonable height as though afraid to get too close. Then larger, twin-rotor helicopters arrived, carrying large payloads on suspended wires."

Ethel paused briefly to enjoy the undivided attention she was now receiving from the crowd. And still poor Jimmy had written nothing on his notepad. Before anyone could interrupt, Ethel continued with her monologue.

"Later, as we approached the impact site, we saw a whole encampment of tents a short distance down the northern flank of the hill. We avoided this and headed towards the hypnotic glow. The impact site was not so much a crater as the inversion of a piece of land occupying an area about the size of a football pitch. The grass and scrubland remained intact, as though some sub-atomic force had sucked the hill-top from convex to concave."

"At the centre of this basin sat an egg-shaped object about thirty feet long. It rested on its side and glowed through a hazy aurora I took to be some form of energy field; perhaps generated by an inductive electromagnetic force."

Myrtle briefly rolled her large brown eyes to the sky, and tut-tutted again.

Undaunted, Ethel raised her voice an octave to enhance the drama of her account. "I noticed that the rounder end of the object was flat and formed a disc about six feet in diameter. The surface of this disc, although glassy in texture, presented, beneath its surface, a swirling image of condensing and evaporating cloud. Suddenly this disc slid downwards, as though an invisible knife had sliced a portion of the object no thicker than two or three feet!"

At this point Myrtle came alongside Ethel and addressed the crowd for the first time. "Six men dressed in aluminium foil surrounded us and gave stern orders for us to accompany them to the mess tent." Her timely interruption was designed to prevent Ethel from describing an unbelievable incident only she, Ethel, saw.

But the laws of pressure and equalisation prevailed and Ethel veritably exploded with the words, "And I swear I saw another of these tin-men approach the disc to touch it. He stretched out his arm, cautiously, his fingers straight and separated. But instead of encountering a hard surface, his fingers, then his hand, then his arm, simply sank into the swirling cloud and disappeared. After that, and because we were walking away from the crater, the slope of the hillside prevented me from seeing anything else."

Between them, the two indomitable characters described how they had been escorted into the temporary mess, a large, square tent filled with trestle-tables, benches and a side-table supporting large vacuum flasks filled with coffee. As instructed, they helped themselves to the stale-smelling beverage and waited to be interviewed.

"Occasionally," said Ethel in the sure knowledge that she had won the verbal battle, "serious looking officials, probably astrophysicists and biologists and technicians experienced in dealing extraterrestrial life, visited our tent to take a break."

But stoical Myrtle managed to add, "Actually we had no idea who these people were. We overheard snippets of conversation that made no sense, no sense at all."

"It made perfect sense," contradicted Ethel. "They said the spaceship came from Alpha-Centauri, four point four light-years away! And they found blood inside the vessel!"

In response to this revelation, a county-press reporter, complete with young assistant photographer, pushed forward, deflecting the tape with his body. Ethel, quick to respond to an opportunity, instinctively fussed her grey hair.

Myrtle retaliated with feminine agility and manoeuvred herself into a commanding position between Ethel and the county-press reporter. She held out her hand as though to stop traffic.

"Wait my man," she commanded, "we heard one of the officials say the name, Alpha-Centauri; that is all. And on a separate occasion one of these officials whispered to his companion something about a bloody mystery. Forgive my dear companion but her imagination is as wild as a rutting unicorn!" She proudly remembered the phrase from a nineteen fifties film.

Curiously, and this was the strength of their relationship, Ethel acquiesced with a wry smile, and declared the interview over. "You mean that a rutting beast is bound to be wild if it only has one horn!" she said to her companion.

Myrtle, having turned to face Ethel, burst into laughter. "Is that what it means? It has only taken fifty years for the penny to drop!"

Ethel chuckled at first, but found it impossible to control a combination of hiccups and laughter as infectious as it was genuine. They embraced in the mutual sharing of their good humour, ducked under the police tape and pushed through the bemused crowd like irresponsible teenagers.

As they neared the village, and when their uncontrollable laughter had subsided into a pleasant fugato of giggles, Myrtle said, "Do you know, when I worked in the City I used to hear snippets of conversation all the time!"

"Did you now," replied Ethel, her pace now a relaxed and gentle stroll in the dawn light.

"Oh yes," mused the larger of the two ladies, "once I overheard a young man say to his female companion, "and it turned out to be raspberry jam!"

Derek put down his trumpet and asked, "What do you think of that?"

"Far out, Man, "whispered Clive. "It were great."

"It was certainly the best piece of improvised Jazz I've heard in a long time," agreed Clare, "but I don't understand why you made that vulgar noise in the middle."

"It sort of went with the mood," said Derek.

Clive nodded his approval and murmured, "Cool."

"Well, I think it spoils it and should be taken out."

Derek studied the three members of his trio carefully. Clare, the clarinetist, was the most recent addition and had classical training but he had known the drummer, Clive, since childhood. "It stays in," he said. After all this was a democracy.

The remainder of the rehearsal centred on what the piece should be called and it turned out to be Raspberry Jam.

"...And it turned out to be Raspberry Jam"

Monologue on a train.

VISITORS