Dark Briggate Blues Read Online Free

called Freddie Hart?’
    ‘Course.’ He gave a small chuckle. ‘Freddie. He was always a bit of a bastard.’ There was no hint of slurring, every word clearly enunciated. Whatever horrors the drink smothered, it didn’t affect his speech.
    ‘What about his wife?’
    ‘Joanna?’ Harding snorted dismissively. ‘Everyone had Jo. Well, everyone but Freddie. I think that’s why he married her, to show he could go one better than the rest of us.’ He turned the glass upside down and stared pointedly. Markham passed over his own whisky. ‘Why are you interested in that pair, Dan?’
    ‘Just a passing curiosity,’ he said. ‘So what made Freddie Hart a bastard?’
    ‘His father wangled him a billet in the Service Corps and he was quite happy to sit on his arse while the rest of us were out there fighting.’ He knew that Harding had been amongst the first troops into the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and since then he’d spent his time trying to erase the sights from his head. ‘Feathered the nest a little, that’s what I heard. And then his father set him up with that Ford place. A licence to print money.’
    ‘Wealthy family?’
    ‘Buckets of the stuff. Grandfather made his money with something or other, bought up a chunk of the North Riding and settled back to become lord of the manor. All very feudal. That’s the way Freddie was brought up. My brother was at school with him. Said he was a shit even then. A sneak.’
    ‘What about Joanna?’
    ‘Harrogate,’ Harding said simply, as if that explained everything. Markham waited. ‘Joanna Wilson – that was her maiden name. Mad for everything in trousers when she was younger. A real looker back then, too.’ He turned. ‘Have you seen her?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘She’s still quite the thing. But her family’s skint. They’re squeaking by these days, from what I hear. Sold off everything they can.’
    ‘So she has nothing of her own?’
    ‘Only the notches on the bedpost.’ Harding smiled and showed a row of brown, rotted teeth. ‘Nothing that’ll buy you a cup of tea and a sandwich.’ He downed the drink in a gulp.
    ‘Look after yourself, Brian.’ Markham stood.
    ‘I always do, Dan. A few glasses is just what the doctor ordered.’

CHAPTER THREE
    On Sunday lunchtime he was back at the Harewood Arms. The car park was filled with Morgans and MGs, their tops down to enjoy the September sun. He left the Anglia around the corner and out of sight. There wasn’t a single face he knew in the pub. That was good: it meant he could listen. With luck he’d overhear something about Freddie Hart.
    He leant against the bar, surveying the crowd and cocking an ear to the conversation. Horses, wives, motor cars. His thoughts had drifted away when a hand clapped him on the shoulder and he turned with a start.
    ‘Hello, old chap. I didn’t expect to see you here.’ Hart stood there, a guileless smile on his face, his wife at his side.
    ‘Oh you know, it’s a lovely day,’ Markham said with a shrug. ‘I just fancied a run out.’ It sounded a likely lie.
    ‘Any more thoughts about that car?’ Hart asked.
    He shook his head. ‘A bit rich for me, I think.’
    ‘Ah well.’ He shrugged. ‘You won’t have met my wife.’ He put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. ‘This is Joanna. Darling, this is Mr—’
    ‘Markham. Dan Markham.’
    ‘He was looking at a Zodiac yesterday.’
    ‘Very pleased to meet you,’ she said, shaking his hand as if she’d never seen him before and was barely interested now.

    ‘We’re meeting a crowd,’ Hart said and gestured to a group in the corner. ‘Why don’t you join us? They’re great fun.’
    ‘Thanks, but no.’ He held up the half-empty pint glass. ‘I’m going as soon as I’ve finished this.’
    Hart shrugged, ordering a pint of bitter and a gin and tonic from the barman. Joanna kept her face bland.
    ‘What do you do, Mr Markham?’ she said.
    ‘I’m an enquiry agent.’
    ‘Really?’ Her