Dark Briggate Blues Read Online Free Page B

had curbed her excesses.
    ‘She has a juvenile record, too,’ Collins said. ‘That’s sealed. It’ll cost you more.’
    Markham shook his head. It would only be more wild behaviour, a confirmation of what he already knew.
    Collins slurped his tea and tossed a sixpence on the table.
    ‘Too much to do. You know where to find me.’
    Markham paid the bill and walked back to the office. The information was nothing useful. Hart’s arrest had probably come when he was celebrating being demobbed. There was nothing unusual there. One of thousands, probably.
    ***
    He parked on Byron Street a little before five. When the blonde appeared, marching purposefully down the street, he followed on foot then took the same bus out to Meanwood.
    He was behind her when she alighted, crossing over the road and vanishing down Bentley Grove. Markham was just in time to see a door open and close. He waited five minutes then walked quickly down the block, noting the house number from the corner of his eye.
    It was a working-class street, neat terraces with net curtains and clean windows. There was a shop on the corner, the type of place where they’d have chapter and verse on every person in the neighbourhood. Inside, there was a bare board floor and all the basics, jars and tins, displayed on wooden shelves. A handwritten note saying ‘no credit given’ was pinned to the wall. Behind the counter a woman in a nylon overall stared at him.
    ‘Ten Craven As, please,’ he asked, taking a ten-shilling note from his wallet.
    She waited a moment before she handed them over.
    ‘Don’t get much passing trade.’
    ‘I had to deliver a message,’ he lied. ‘But there was no one at home.’
    ‘Which one?’ Her ears pricked at the possibility of gossip.
    ‘Fifteen.’
    ‘Aye, well.’ She shook her head. ‘You’ll never find Arthur Willis home before seven. Allus stops for a drink on the way back from work. And that Annie, she’s out till all hours. Her fancy man drops her off on the corner in his big car and she thinks no one will notice.’ She snorted. ‘Little madam.’
    ‘I’ll just go back later,’ he said.
    ‘I’d do that if I were you, luv,’ she advised as she gave him a handful of copper and silver.
    The bus into town took a long time to arrive. He strolled along Regent Street, back to his car. Then he saw the ambulance and police outside Hart Ford, and Detective Sergeant Baker glancing up and catching sight of him.
    And everything changed.

CHAPTER FOUR
    The houses in Alwoodley were expensive, but they were as much alike as any terrace street. Every one had its carefully-tended front garden hidden behind a privet hedge, and borders of rose bushes and bright perennials beginning to wilt with the approach of autumn. He stopped outside number three, listening to the Anglia’s engine tick as it cooled. An empty Wolseley Six was parked down the street.
    Markham walked down the drive, soles scuffing along the gravel, knocked on the door, waited and knocked once more. Finally he heard the sound of feet clicking sharply over the floor and the handle turned to show a middle-aged woman wearing a light brown overcoat, with a scarf over her hairdo and a handbag clutched in her fingers.
    ‘Yes?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m looking for Mrs Hart.’
    ‘She’s not here, luv.’ The woman had a thirty-a-day voice and lines so deep they seemed to cut her face into sections. Her gaze turned suspicious. ‘Who are you, anyway?’
    He considered lying. But there was nothing wrong with the truth.
    ‘She employed me for a job. I just heard about her husband.’
    ‘Murdered in cold blood.’ She shook her head. ‘He was a lovely man, too. He was at home a few times when I come to clean. Always had a good word. I hope they hang the bugger as did it.’
    ‘I’m sure they will,’ he assured her. As long as it wasn’t him. ‘Where’s Mrs Hart?’
    ‘Her father come for her not half an hour since. Coppers had her half the night asking their