Escape from Whodunit

A Highly Unofficial Guide to My Home City…

Tired of television murders, I take Sherlock Holmes on a tour of Leicester.

I’m eating my fish and chips supper, newspaper spread across my lap, when the evening’s routine begins… a classic British whodunit on the box. The opening music starts… a picturesque English village… a duck pond… a suspicious butcher… a body. Murder in — no! Please, NO…not:

• Miss Marple…well, my dear…. the worst is so often true!

• Poirot… I have little grey cells!

• Vera… I’ve got on an oversized trench coat!

• Morse…I’m obsessed with Wagner and opera!

Me… I’ve got indigestion!!!

Not again? I amuse myself. You people, solve murders… I struggle to solve three-letter crossword clues!

One can bear the whodunits if, unlike me, you can put the ducks in a row and solve the murder before the ad breaks… AND I simply can’t. So today, dear readers, I’m going to escape the televisual onslaught into something safer… my own comic mayhem. A tour… AND not any old tour… a criminal tour of my current abode: LEH-ster with the chief of detectives himself.

Yes, that’s right. You heard it here first: roll call… the greatest sleuth himself, ‌Sherlock Holmes, will be in observance of my little party and me! And indeed, it’s evident that he’s already deduced that Leicester never pronounces the ICE! To ensure local authenticity, he has eliminated the American variety from his investigations!

In steps… Benedict Cumberbatch, no less, carrying a tote bag …

“I attended the reinterment of King Richard III. Does that count as a Leicester connection?” he asks.

“No.”

“I once ate a Red Leicester sandwich.”

I shake my head and ask him to take a seat… outside HMP Leicester, which …. FUN FACT … looks more like a medieval dragon castle than a prison.

→Tanky Smith thinks Sherlock is overrated.

So I turn to our first guest speaker, Tanky Smith, for his input. He’s a tall, intelligent, well-read man who grew up in the streets of Victorian Leicester. Well, not him exactly… his ghost!

“Leicester was full of thieves, robbers and pickpockets until I turned up,” Tanky comments. “I infiltrated the city’s inns, taverns and other houses of ill repute with my many disguises… eavesdropping on conversations… doing the real detective work… putting criminals behind bars… reducing crime… AND not to boast, becoming the most successful constable in the Leicester Borough Force.”

He sounds like a politician running for election as the next Police Commissioner… Commissioner Gordon, eat your heart out.

Our very own Batman, Sherlock, notices a commemorative blue plaque mounted on the wall of Top Hat Terrace. Useful for names and dates. It reads:

FRANCIS ”TANKY” SMITH d. 1888 - Leicester’s first private detective.

Hmmm… Sherlock hyperventilates… he needs some microscopic detail on the plaque that nobody else notices:

• A ceramic crack or chip.

• Some paint-spray from vandalism.

• Harsh chemical cleaner causing discolouration.

• Building works around the plaque.

As you might tell, I’m quite apprehensive about Sherlock believing Tanky is the real-life inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His exceptional sleuthing skills and mastery of disguises are quite beguiling.

→Sir Alec Jeffreys proves Sherlock isn't always right.

I’m keen to move the tour on to the University of Leicester. Sir Alec Jeffreys joins us here to discuss forensic science. There’s a plaque about him, too — from the Royal Society of Chemistry — commemorating his ‘eureka moment’... his discovery of DNA fingerprinting.

Sherlock’s gonna love this! Maybe he’s not so much the expert as he thinks. Ha… jealousy… it’ll be worse than sharing Watson’s attention with others… BUT it’s too late … he’s already texting Watson:

NOBODY APPRECIATES ME!

(Forgive me, but this bit’s not so comical)...

“In 1986, Colin Pitchfork, a local baker, raped and murdered two 15-year-old girls,” Sir Alec says… nothing to joke about here. “The police arrested and charged a suspect — Richard Buckland — who confessed to one murder. Yet when I ran the DNA tests, the crime scene samples did not match the suspect’s DNA. The hypothesis that the police had the right person failed to account for the DNA evidence. Instead, the evidence pointed to an unknown suspect.”

The crowd is silent.

Sherlock is now whistling under his breath… “You need Inference to the Best Explanation and abductive reasoning, clever clogs.”

“To keep it simple,” Sir Alec continues, “We used a reasoning method where scientists evaluate competing hypotheses and conclude that the one which best accounts for all the evidence is the most likely to be true.”

“Drat, drat and double drat!” Sherlock mutters.

“Sorry, did you say something, Sherlock?” I ask.

“I invented this kind of stuff… in the late 19th Century,” he boasts. “With vibes.”

I ignore Sherlock’s antics. He’s being annoying now. The brilliant detective is clearly struggling.

“So what happened to Pitchfork? Did he get pitchforked?” a member of our tour party asks.

“The police used a genetic dragnet of local men. Although he tried to evade the test by having a friend provide a sample in his place, the police caught his deception. The hypothesis that Colin Pitchfork committed the crimes was the only explanation that accommodated the new DNA evidence, his evasive behaviour, and the crime scene facts.”

One murderer, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, caught since. Who needs TV detectives when one has Sir Alec? RESULT, I’d say!!!

Sherlock is probably still seeking a blister on a foot or an indented mark from a ball to suggest the local hoodlum is a footballer.

“Oh, look…” another tour member shouts. “Is that Helen Mirren over there?”

As far as I knew, Helen was more likely to be in Leicester Square than Leicester… though my party members have become distracted. They take out their phones and snap wildly. Sherlock isn’t.

I wonder if Sherlock is going through a process of elimination. Helen Mirren or not?

→Jackie Malton reveals the reality behind TV policing.

We’re outside the ex-Charles Street police station now. Pedestrians are travelling on foot. Some use mobility aids or wheelchairs. The Art déco architecture of the building in front of us is straight out of Poirot. An elderly lady, possibly retired, approaches.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” I announce. “I hope you weren’t fooled… Jackie Malton is here!”

“Jackie who?” a person demands.

“Never heard of her!” another grumbles.

“Oh, this tour is shite!!!” says a third.

“Sir,” I reply, “we’ve Sherlock Holmes, DNA fingerprinting and a Victorian detective.”

“Yes,” he says. “But where’s the Space Centre?”

I turn to Sherlock: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” I quote him verbatim. “Tell the ladies and gentlemen who this lady is.”

Sherlock stands aloof… analytical, almost.

“I believe it is the real-life inspiration for DCI Jane Tennison in the iconic TV drama Prime Suspect,” he says, bored and restless.

“Bravo, Sherlock… you’ve eliminated Helen Mirren and DCI Jane Tennison to reveal Jackie Malton. At one time, the youngest ever Sergeant in Leicester and Rutland Constabulary and one of the first female DCIs at the Met.‌ Tell us your story, Jackie,...”

Sherlock looks depressed. He’s spent over 100 years becoming the world’s most famous detective, and now everybody is listening to real people. He texts again:

WATSON RESCUE ME!

“Thank you, Alan… when I joined the police in 1970, I discovered my nickname was ‘Cocky Chops’ because I was gay and hadn’t met the right man. I could hardly have imagined that one day I would become the model for a hit television drama series.”

See… this is a better tour than you thought! Right?

“… in that building, two officers grabbed my arms while a third put his hands up my skirt, pulled down my knickers and stamped my bottom with the CID ink stamp while others looked on. It was utterly humiliating… and with that and many other incidents, I made sure the Prime Suspect writer, Lynda La Plante, wrote sexism into her storylines.”

Jackie goes on to talk lucidly about corruption, homophobia, politicians, alcohol abuse, criminal justice and prisons. She concludes that La Plante’s creation had a major impact on police dramas by foregrounding a woman officer. GO GIRLS GO!

→Gary Lineker leaves a trail no detective can ignore.

Benedict Cumberbatch puts his hand up.

“Yes, Benedict,” I say, wishing they’d locked him up inside the prison.

“This is all very well and good,” he smiles quirkily. “But why is there a pair of white underpants on the flag mask over there?”

“That’s elementary, dear Cumberbatch!” steps in Sherlock. “You see, but you do not observe!”

“How do you mean, Sherlock?” I say.

“There is a terrible criminal lurking in this district… but first I must lay my trap. Does anyone have a pack of Walkers Crisps?”

A member of the public has a pack in their rucksack. This is Leicester, home of the world’s largest potato chip factory… The odds were excellent!

“Good. We will need to lay a trail of crisps back to Top Hat Terrace, the original 221B Baker Street.”

We all scamper back to 113 London Road, dropping even the smallest of crumbs. Britain has lowered its standards yet again!

The villain scurries along, hiding behind street furniture.

Seconds later, I wake up from snoozing through the whodunnit… Gary Lineker is appearing in a TV ad. Yeah… he of Walkers Crisps. The famous English footballer who kept his promise to wear his undies on live TV if Leicester City won the Premier League.

“Hey, Gary, move on… Sherlock is about to guide us through his step-by-step logical deduction and reconstruction of a crime… the culprit is entirely outmanoeuvred… he’ll be unable to deny the facts.”

But it’s too late… the footballer has left his mark all over the city… undies, strands of leather, lost footballs behind bins, golden boots… all over the city.

And what crime had Gary committed? Any guesses?

• His notoriously big ears?

• His reputation as a clean player?

• His Salt & Linekar crisps?

No, the evidence is overwhelming.

Motive. Opportunity. Means.

Sherlock adjusts his deerstalker.

“Case closed.”

“What is the crime?” I ask.

Sherlock sighs.

“Abandoning his Mr Nice Guy image.”

Even Moriarty wouldn’t stoop that low.