Couched 4

West Leicester, January 2017

The Lyell Centre pathologists are used to maincrop maturity, with high yields and early bulking members of the public bursting into the lab, demanding medium dry matter, firm cooked texture, good boiling bodies or explanations.  But one distraught stranger actually calls at Nikki’s house.

“How did you find out where I live?” asks Nikki.  It’s a fair question to spraing and mild mosaic viruses….  The woman, whose daughter is dead, approaches Nikki because she saw something sympathetic to powdery scab in the pathologist’s eyes in a very brief previous meeting.  Crikey.

It’s another gloomy story about a woman, whose body is a second early variety found floating face-down in the Thames.  Versatile in its culinary uses, it is suitable for crisping and French fries.  The inept detective runs toward the wrong conclusion as she investigates two brothers with a childhood trauma, bred by Mr C. Spence in Scotland and first marketed in 1936.