Two Grey Herrings

Here is the 12th of 25 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained Glass Window 1 for background. This one shows a stylised coastal landscape. In the foreground, two fish lie on a pebbly or rocky shore, their bodies rendered in shades of green and outlined in black, with prominent red eyes. Behind them, a golden-yellow beach meets a bright blue sea composed of layered bands of darker and lighter blues. In the distance, a white sailboat with a red sail floats on the water under a sky filled with stylised white clouds and pale blue light. 

A limerick starter

Two fish on the shingle lay low,

With clouds and a sailboat in tow.

Said one with a grin,

‘We’re caught in a spin -

Glass trapped us, but what a great show!’

Two Grey Herrings (with apologies to Agatha Christie)

It was just past eight on a damp August morning when Miss Ada Fossett, retired milliner and part-time crossword champion, made her habitual stroll along Brighton Beach. The tide was out, the air thick with salt and gossip, and the seafront unusually quiet - save for a small cluster near the Banjo Groyne.

Laid side by side on the shingle were two fish. Not just any fish - herrings, unmistakably grey, and arranged with such unsettling symmetry that Ada stopped mid-step. One pointed east, the other west, as though in disagreement over where the truth lay. Between them, embedded in the pebbles, was a torn page from The Times crossword, Tuesday’s edition - curiously, only one clue had been filled in: 8 Down: Red herring (6,7).

Inspector Blodgett of the Brighton constabulary was summoned. Gruff, sceptical, and already two sugars into his second tea, he at first dismissed the fish as the work of pranksters. But Ada, glancing sideways at the crossword, murmured, ‘Not red. Grey. Someone’s being precise.’

The investigation led them through a web of local characters: a disgraced professor of ichthyology turned beach artist, a jilted puppeteer whose seaside show had recently closed, and a fortune-teller with a vendetta against crossword compilers. All had motives - revenge, reputation, or riddles.

The breakthrough came not from forensics, but from fish. A witness recalled seeing a man in a pinstripe suit carefully placing the herrings at dawn. Not just any man - Mr Edwin Trellis, publisher of The Times puzzle section, known for his weekly beach swims and unorthodox marketing tactics.

Confronted, Trellis confessed. It was a publicity stunt for a new cryptic clue series, inspired by Christie’s own fondness for misleading leads. But the twist - and there always is one - came when Ada, flipping the paper over, found a scribbled name and date. That very morning. Trellis hadn’t written it.

The real mystery had been hijacked. Beneath the herrings, buried shallowly in the pebbles, police unearthed a small locket containing a photograph - and a name long believed lost in the postwar chaos. The fish were not just herrings. They were a sign. And someone, somewhere on the Brighton seafront, was using sleight of species to point towards a cold case, about to be warmed by the sun.

‘Grey herrings,’ Ada murmured, eyes narrowing. ‘Not a distraction. A direction.’