In the novel The Clocks, Constable Pierce is a young policeman at the Crowdean police station. After the inquest into the discovery of the body of an unknown man at No. 19 Wilbraham Crescent, Edna Brent had approached him, looking very perplexed. She asked to speak to Inspector Hardcastle. Pierce observed that the inspector was busy with the Chief Constable and told Edna that she could come to the station later. He asked if there was anything important and she walked away saying that it didn't matter except that she couldn't see "how what she had said could have been true..."
Edna was later found strangled in a phone box at Wilbraham Crescent. Pierce reported the earlier incident to Hardcastle. Pierce was apologetic about not having asked Edna to wait but at least he remembered what Edna had said to him and repeated it fairly accurately. He did not noticed anyone in particular who might have overheard what Edna had said to him.