An Awkward Lie Read Online Free

injury, sir. In the war, for instance. And self-inflicted, as often as not. Do it cleverly enough, and enemy action can’t be excluded. Takes a man right out of the line for good.’
    ‘I see.’ Bobby was depressed by this professional rapport with human ignobility. He also wondered whether Bloody Nauze’s mutilation had been of this order. It was queer to think of a man pointing at you a finger whose non-existence was the consequence of his own cowardice and desperation.
    For some moments they walked in silence. Another couple of golfers had joined the march. Bobby wondered with irritation why they couldn’t go and start their game, rather than pad along like this in the stupid expectation of sensation. He further realized that he was himself now disliking the whole affair very much. Not that it didn’t have one bright spot. Within a couple of minutes now, he was going to see the girl again.
    ‘Can you tell me, Mr Appleby, for just how long you were in this vicinity before coming on the body?’
    ‘Not more than ten minutes, I’d say. I drove up, got my clubs out of the car, walked to the first tee, got my drive well down the fairway, and landed my second in the bunker. And there the body was.’
    ‘You didn’t hear anything that might have been a shot? Or sounds of a quarrel, or a cry for help?’
    ‘I didn’t hear anything like any of these. As a matter of fact, I’m fairly sure the chap had been dead for some hours. I noticed–’
    ‘Then it would be rather surprising, wouldn’t it, if his murderers were only just making off, after enjoying a leisured roadside breakfast?’
    ‘I never said–’ Bobby checked himself. He remembered his father saying that Howard was a very sound man. And there was no point in getting annoyed. ‘You’ll judge for yourself,’ he said. ‘For here we are.’
    They had rounded the spinney, and it was somehow with an effect of dramatic suddenness that the broad yellow bunker gaped before them. And Sergeant Howard’s expectation of a reception committee was decidedly unfulfilled. There were no motorists. There was no girl. And there was no corpse. As in all the other bunkers on the course at this hour, the sand showed as neatly raked. Yet this one was not wholly like the others. For in the middle of it there still lay Bobby’s ball. Sergeant Howard looked at it for a moment in silence – and so, for that matter, did the constable and the little group of goggling golfers. And then Howard spoke.
    ‘Mr Appleby,’ he said dispassionately, ‘you seem to be in rather an awkward lie.’
     

2
     
    ‘Awkward for the boy.’ Colonel Pride spoke sympathetically. When a friend’s son gets into a scrape, it is best to say little – but to say that little with decent warmth. Tommy Pride, however, was obliged to say a good deal. For he was the Chief Constable of the County, and when it was John Appleby’s boy who was in question he couldn’t do other than make the matter very much his own. And there was more to it than Appleby’s being a distinguished colleague, now retired. The boy’s mother was one of Colonel Pride’s oldest friends. He and Judith Raven had been given their first ponies within a week of each other. He had been right in the van of hopeful escorts in Judith’s first season. After that, of course, she had faded out of the only sort of society that Tommy Pride knew. It was predictable, no doubt, since through some generations the Ravens had tended to take up one or another activity of the long-haired sort. And after that – for the Ravens were freakish and unpredictable too – she had married her policeman. Fortunately John Appleby, in addition to being uncommonly able at his job, had proved to be a very decent chap. And so too with the boy, Bobby. Rugger Blue, capped for England, looked you straight in the eye. A true-to-form Raven as well, however. Had written a book for which Colonel Pride had dutifully paid thirty shillings. Totally incomprehensible,