A Killing Resurrected Read Online Free Page A

sorting through ancient files, when he could have been out there at the Westhill Golf and Country Club, talking to members about the petty thievery going on out there. He’d been looking forward to that, but Paget had sent Molly Forsythe out there instead, and he was stuck with this lot.
    He opened the first file.
    Jack Rogers had led the investigation. A bit rough around the edges, was Jack – a bit
too
rough at times for some of the top brass, which may have had something to do with the inspector’s early retirement – but he got results. Usually, that was, but not in this case. Without evidence, without witnesses, and without so much as a whisper from the usually reliable sources on the street, even Rogers had found himself stumped.
    Paget seemed to think that this new information might lead to some sort of breakthrough, but Tregalles had his doubts. Thirteen years was a long time, and judging by his own recollection of events compared to what he had just read, it showed just how unreliable one’s memory could be.
    The first robbery had taken place on Tuesday, January 2nd, when four men, wearing dark clothing and ski masks, burst into the living quarters of the Rose and Crown in Beggars Lane, one of the oldest and certainly one of the most popular pubs in Broadminster. The landlord, a man named Thomas Grady, and his eighteen-year-old daughter, Sharon, were in the kitchen at the rear of the premises, counting and recording the takings from the previous evening, when the men entered by the unlocked back door. Grady, sitting with his back to the door, had told Rogers that the men were inside before he’d had a chance to turn round. In fact, he said, it was the sound of crockery, swept from the Welsh dresser beside the door, smashing on the tiled floor that first alerted him. He said he’d started to his feet, but they slammed him back into his chair and slapped tape over his mouth, while a third man pulled Sharon out of her chair and taped her mouth, then continued to hold her.
    And it had all taken place without a word being uttered.
    Grady said one of the men behind him had slid a metal bar beneath his chin and gripped it on both sides, forcing his head back against the top of his chair, half choking him, and he had the bruises to prove it. The man who appeared to be the leader took a white card from his pocket and held it up for Grady to see. The words on it were printed in bold capitals. They read:
    DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND NO ONE WILL BE
HURT
OPEN THE SAFE
    When Grady had shaken his head, his statement said, the man behind him shoved his head down on the table, then slammed the bar down so hard beside it that he’d felt it brush his hair. ‘Then they all started doing it,’ he said, ‘smashing those bars down like they was beating a drum. They hit the table so hard that the tray from the till flew off the table, and coins and notes were scattered all over the floor. You only have to look at what they did to the table to see what I mean. I don’t mind telling you, I was so shit scared I gave them the combination. God knows I didn’t want to. We had the takings right from the Friday night through New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and I’m sure those bastards knew that.’
    â€˜You say you gave them the combination. Who opened the safe?’
    â€˜I did. He made me do it.’
    â€˜Did he
tell
you to do it?’
    â€˜I
told
you, they never spoke, not once,’ Grady said, and went on to say that one of the men had hauled him out of his chair and led him to the safe. ‘They had gloves on, leather ones, and the bloke beside me kept smacking the iron bar in the palm of his hand like he was beating a drum. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, because I had a bloody good idea about what would happen if I refused to cooperate.’
    Using hand signals, the leader had made Grady take the cash from the safe and put it in a cloth bag,