A Reconstructed Corpse Read Online Free Page B

with Sam Noakes had prompted jokes and barracking. After her last remark one of the policeman shouted, ‘Well, you got to be a PI, haven’t you, Ted? Should have realised the golden rule – if you want to stay in the Met, keep on the right side of the right people . . . isn’t that right, Superintendent Roscoe . . .?’
    The superintendent looked up from his beer, whose level had gone down very little in the previous half-hour, and smiled. It was a complex smile. Within it were unease and caution, but also undeniably triumph.
    â€˜Hey, listen, listen!’ shouted one of the policemen and attention returned to what Bob Garston was saying.
    â€˜. . . and we on
Public Enemies
are always trying to find out more about crime on behalf of you, the audience. So we thought we’d hire our own private eye and put him on the Martin Earnshaw case. Are you game to take up the challenge, Ted?’
    â€˜If you’re prepared to pay my usual rates – plus expenses . . . you’re on, Bob.’ Faraday grinned. Clearly this part of the programme had been heavily set up.
    Bob Garston turned to the Detective Inspector. ‘And, on behalf of Scotland Yard, are you prepared to take up the challenge?’
    Sam Noakes also grinned. ‘Oh yes.’
    â€˜So we’ll keep up progress reports here on
Public Enemies
and see whether the real police, with all the resources at their disposal, can be beaten to the solution by the gifted amateur!’
    Ted Faraday again winced at the description and would probably have remonstrated, but Bob Garston had already turned to another camera and started reading his next link off the autocue.
    The last item on that week’s
Public Enemies
was another follow-up on the Martin Earnshaw disappearance. This, needless to say, featured the missing man’s wife, currently Britain’s favourite sufferer.
    Geoffrey Ramage may have been denied the set-dressing of a moody Charles Paris silhouette in the background, but the effect he came up with was still pretty theatrical. Chloe Earnshaw, dressed again in simple black, was shot against a blown-up black-and-white photograph of the Black Feathers. The overhead lighting bleached the colour out of her hair and skin, so that only the deep blueness of her eyes disturbed the monochrome. The light also sparkled off her unshed tears.
    What she said was the usual stuff. ‘There must be someone out there who knows something about where Martin is. I appeal to them – I beg them – to tell me where he is or what’s happened to him. Even if the news is bad, I want to know it. When I know, I can start to rebuild the rest of my life. Please, please, if anyone knows anything – the smallest, smallest thing about Martin . . . just pick up the phone.’
    And all over the country men thought unworthily, ‘I wouldn’t mind picking up the phone and asking for her number.’
    Charles had an unworthy thought too. There was no doubt that Chloe Earnshaw was one of those people whom, as the showbiz cliché has it, ‘the camera loves’. Charles Paris couldn’t help suspecting that the camera’s devotion was reciprocated.

Chapter Three
    DI SAM NOAKES had changed into a figure-hugging red dress after the programme. Its colour had been carefully selected to complement rather than scream at her hair. Out of uniform, she still looked good, but softer, less of the disciplinarian.
    Her appearance in the hospitality suite was greeted by a tide of catcalls and innuendo which washed off her unnoticed. The silent, heavy-drinking plain-clothes man turned towards her.
    â€˜Quite the television star now, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Police investigation meets game show, eh? What’ll it be next, Sam –
Blind Date
?’
    She looked at him coolly. ‘Well, if it was, I’m afraid I wouldn’t pick you, Greg.’ It was spoken lightly, but the words stung. Before he could