Dead Ground in Between Read Online Free Page A

watched.
    “Ten pounds all told. Well, ten pounds, two shillings, and ten pence. Mrs. Cooper gave us a shilling tip, she was so pleased with that big buck we sold her.”
    Tim peered at the money. “What we going to do with it all?”
    “I’ve been thinking,” answered Sam. “I know I said we could save it to start our own business, but I’ve changed my mind.”
    Tim frowned. “Not again.”
    Sam began to gather the notes together. “We’ll buy a car first. How can we be proper businessmen without a car? Now would be a very good time to buy us a car. There’s dozens of them these days sitting up on blocks getting rusty. People would be more than happy for us to take them off their hands. Some poor widow, for instance, whose old man has kicked the bucket, and she don’t know what to do with that darned old Bentley sitting in the garage.” He raised his voice into a falsetto. “ ‘Of course you nice boys can have it.’ ” He knuckled his forehead ingratiatingly. “ ‘Thank you, missus. There’s an awful lot wrong with it but I’ll give you a fair price.’ ‘Oh I know you will. You have such an honest face.’ ”
    “Bollocks,” snorted Tim. “Nobody’s going to do that. It’ll cost a lot more than ten quid.”
    “We’ll get it.”
    “We won’t get permission to drive.”
    Sam returned the money to the chamber pot and shoved it back under the bed.
    “Leave it to me. There are ways.”
    Tim laughed. “And you knows all of them, don’t you?”
    Sam punched his pal on the arm, not too gently. “Good thing for you I do. You’d be as good as an unweaned calf without its teat if it weren’t for me. Now come on. We can’t stay out too long, we’ve got to be in court at ten o’clock.”
    Tim swung his feet out of bed and tentatively stood up. “Ow.”
    “Don’t be such a baby. It’s sprained, not amputated.”
    Tim hobbled over to the chair where he’d piled his clothes the night before and, shivering, started to get dressed.
    “Shite. I hope we don’t get a fine. You should have kept your temper, Sam.”
    “It was that bleeding pansy of a constable that got my goat. He could have looked the other way. We weren’t doing nothing.”
    Tim grimaced. “I suppose you might say that. If you discount what we’d got hidden in our baskets.”
    “Good thing the stupid ponce didn’t think to look. He was just too excited at writing down my naughty words.”
    Tim pulled his heavy jersey over his head, muffling his voice. “You’re a misery this morning, Sam. What’s the matter? Her husband come home early, did he?”
    “None of your business,” snapped Sam.
    Tim emerged from the jersey. “Pardon me for asking. I’m your pal, don’t forget.” He dragged his boots out from underneath the chair and gingerly pushed his right foot into one, wincing as he did. He stood up. “Right, I’m ready.”
    —
    The wind pounced on them as soon as they stepped out the door.
    It was pitch-dark. It could have been the middle of the night. Sometimes when they went out on mornings like this, Sam fantasized that the world had stopped turning and there would never be daylight again. Perpetual darkness. Wickedthings happened in the darkness. That’s when animals killed their prey.
    “Blimey, it’s a bloody gale,” said Tim.
    There was a large rabbit warren in the copse that ran from the crest of the rise along the north perimeter of the Cartwright farm. Tim and Sam had been there before but, according to Tim, rabbits reproduced at such a rate that there was an almost endless supply for the picking.
    “It’s good to keep them culled. Makes the survivors healthy and stronger,” he said solemnly. “It’s a rule of nature.”
    Sam snorted. “If it’s a rule of nature, it should apply to people as well, but I can’t say I’ve noticed. Healthy men are being killed off by the hundreds, and them that’s left don’t seem stronger. The opposite. They’s all old and decrepit.”
    Tim thought for