Great North Road Read Online Free
buildings opened up to a broad road junction where the landmark Tyne Bridge cut across the water high above. The big splash of spotlights illuminating its arched iron structure was almost lost in the swirl of snow, producing a weird crescent-shaped smear of luminosity hanging weightlessly in the air overhead. Sid steered carefully past the broad stone support pillar and headed down the deserted Quayside road.
“This is taking the piss a bit, isn’t it?” Ian asked as they drove past the glass-and-pillar façade of the Court of Justice. “This close and all?”
“Suspicious doesn’t mean deliberate,” Sid reminded him. “And this is a bad night.” He jabbed a finger at the dark river on the other side of the car. “You fall in there tonight, you die. Fast.”
They took the right-hand fork after the government building. This stretch of pedestrianized road hadn’t seen a snowplow since the middle of the afternoon. Radar showed the snow on the ground was now over ten centimeters thick, with a solid sheet of ice below that. Sid reduced their speed to a crawl. Up ahead, the twin arches of the Millennium Bridge curved across the river with the elegance of a swan’s neck—the recently refurbished pearl-white surface of the upper arch glowing dimly under the shifting rainbow lights that illuminated it. Strobes on the roof of two patrol cars and a coroner’s van flickered through the snow. Sid pulled in behind them.
It was the silence that surprised him when he stepped out of the car. Even with a waterside pub not forty meters farther along Quayside, there was no sound apart from the murmurs of the three agency constables waiting by the promenade rails, looking down at the police boat below. It was maneuvering up to the Quayside wall at the end of the bridge’s glass-boxed wharf, which housed the axial pivot and its hydraulics that rotated the entire structure for bigger ships to pass underneath. Another constable was interviewing a young couple in a patrol car.
Sid waited until his bodymesh had quested into the ringlink—which the waiting constables had already established—and checked the log was working. A two-oh-five wasn’t something you played loose with. His e-i identified and labeled them, along with the duty coroner’s examiner who was just getting out of his van.
“So what have we got?” he asked.
The one whose Sid’s e-i tagged as Constable Saltz caught a pannier thrown up by the boat crew. “Clubbers walking across the bridge saw something snagged on the guides out there,” he said. “Thought it looked like a body, so they called it in right away. They’re just kids, nothing suspicious with them.”
Sid went over to the railings. He’d walked along Quayside’s promenade a hundred times. It was a mix of old and new buildings that lined the waterfront, all soaked with money to produce the kind of grace and aura of wealth not seen in northern England since the Victorian era two centuries before. The river here wasn’t something the city council would allow to decay; it was the heart of the town, the showpiece that reflected the status of being Europe’s fifth wealthiest (per capita) city, with its iconic bridges and curved-glass, century-old cultural centerpiece, the Sage.
Tonight Sid couldn’t even see the Gateshead bank opposite where the Sage building dominated the Tyne. All he could make out on the black water of the river was the police boat. On the other side of the boat, just visible in the middle of the water, were two sets of pillars, which supported the deep channel guides: like rails lying flat on the water, they made sure large boats passed directly under the center of the Millennium Bridge’s arches when they were cranked up to their highest position.
“Where was the body snagged?” Sid asked.
“This side,” Constable Mardine said. She gave the two detectives a grim smile. “The tide’s going out, so no telling how far it drifted downriver first.”
Saltz finished
“This is taking the piss a bit, isn’t it?” Ian asked as they drove past the glass-and-pillar façade of the Court of Justice. “This close and all?”
“Suspicious doesn’t mean deliberate,” Sid reminded him. “And this is a bad night.” He jabbed a finger at the dark river on the other side of the car. “You fall in there tonight, you die. Fast.”
They took the right-hand fork after the government building. This stretch of pedestrianized road hadn’t seen a snowplow since the middle of the afternoon. Radar showed the snow on the ground was now over ten centimeters thick, with a solid sheet of ice below that. Sid reduced their speed to a crawl. Up ahead, the twin arches of the Millennium Bridge curved across the river with the elegance of a swan’s neck—the recently refurbished pearl-white surface of the upper arch glowing dimly under the shifting rainbow lights that illuminated it. Strobes on the roof of two patrol cars and a coroner’s van flickered through the snow. Sid pulled in behind them.
It was the silence that surprised him when he stepped out of the car. Even with a waterside pub not forty meters farther along Quayside, there was no sound apart from the murmurs of the three agency constables waiting by the promenade rails, looking down at the police boat below. It was maneuvering up to the Quayside wall at the end of the bridge’s glass-boxed wharf, which housed the axial pivot and its hydraulics that rotated the entire structure for bigger ships to pass underneath. Another constable was interviewing a young couple in a patrol car.
Sid waited until his bodymesh had quested into the ringlink—which the waiting constables had already established—and checked the log was working. A two-oh-five wasn’t something you played loose with. His e-i identified and labeled them, along with the duty coroner’s examiner who was just getting out of his van.
“So what have we got?” he asked.
The one whose Sid’s e-i tagged as Constable Saltz caught a pannier thrown up by the boat crew. “Clubbers walking across the bridge saw something snagged on the guides out there,” he said. “Thought it looked like a body, so they called it in right away. They’re just kids, nothing suspicious with them.”
Sid went over to the railings. He’d walked along Quayside’s promenade a hundred times. It was a mix of old and new buildings that lined the waterfront, all soaked with money to produce the kind of grace and aura of wealth not seen in northern England since the Victorian era two centuries before. The river here wasn’t something the city council would allow to decay; it was the heart of the town, the showpiece that reflected the status of being Europe’s fifth wealthiest (per capita) city, with its iconic bridges and curved-glass, century-old cultural centerpiece, the Sage.
Tonight Sid couldn’t even see the Gateshead bank opposite where the Sage building dominated the Tyne. All he could make out on the black water of the river was the police boat. On the other side of the boat, just visible in the middle of the water, were two sets of pillars, which supported the deep channel guides: like rails lying flat on the water, they made sure large boats passed directly under the center of the Millennium Bridge’s arches when they were cranked up to their highest position.
“Where was the body snagged?” Sid asked.
“This side,” Constable Mardine said. She gave the two detectives a grim smile. “The tide’s going out, so no telling how far it drifted downriver first.”
Saltz finished
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