Hail and Farewell (The Lakeland Murders) Read Online Free
Author: J. J. Salkeld
no, I’ll be working.’
‘Shame. It’s the one chance we all get to duff up a copper, and they can’t bloody touch you for it.’
‘But I’d be on the same side as you.’
This time it was Gambles who smiled.
‘You think that would make any difference, eh, Keith?’
Good Friday, 18th April
DC Iredale sat at his desk and watched the CCTV of the crowd building up on the Cloffocks, lining the metalled path alongside the beck. It was quarter past six, so the ball would be thrown up in fifteen minutes. But other than the two ‘goals’ themselves, one down on the docks and the other right up in the town, that was the only fixed point in the game. There was no limit to the number of players on each side, and apart from the use of a vehicle to transport the ball being discouraged there were no rules, and no boundaries. You could go where you wanted with the ball, and if you could smuggle it away in the dark then all the better. He wondered if any of the players ever brought a fake ball with them, to substitute for the real one. But that was a copper’s thinking, or at least a cheat’s, he told himself.
Iredale had always liked the idea of Uppies and Downies, even if the thought of actually playing the game held no appeal. He’d rather be on his own, walking or running on the fells. He scanned the faces on the screen to see if he could pick up either the DI or the DS among the crowd, but he couldn’t. They’d just be two more bullet-headed men waiting for the fun to begin. He watched until the ball was thrown up into the air, from the middle of the little stream over Cloffocks Beck, and that was the last he saw of it. Because a huge scrum formed around it, wheeling slowly and occasionally ejecting players from the side.
He went and made a brew, then chatted to a WPC who he liked and who he was almost sure liked him back. When he glanced back at the screen twenty minutes later the scrum seemed to have moved no more than a few feet, and he watched as it collapsed under its own weight. Then the players stood up and helped the others to their feet. It was almost chivalrous, and that made him smile. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d even thought of that word. ‘Chivalrous’ he said out loud, as if he was trying to remember how to pronounce it.
For the next two hours, until darkness fell from Debenhams down to the docks, Iredale worked in the silent office, filling in form after form, often with the same information but in a slightly different order. He made a few phone calls, to organisations and bodies that the Super insisted on calling ‘partners’, but these were the kind of partners who kept office hours. So in each case Iredale left a brief voicemail message, and went back to work.
At snap time Iredale decided to walk down across the Cloffocks to Tesco to buy a sandwich, and he stopped and looked over at the game, which was now in the Council car park. He reckoned that it had moved no more than thirty yards in three hours, so he wasn’t surprised to see that the crowd of onlookers had thinned out. And when he walked back past again, after he’d been to the shop, the game still hadn’t moved.
He spent the rest of his break looking online at bits for his mountain bike, and then he went back to work. The phone hadn’t rung once all shift, and he was almost sorry. Iredale filed the last of his forms for the night, drew a line through another item on his ‘to do’ list, and called up the CCTV from the Cloffocks. Straight away he knew that was something was wrong. It had to be. The scrum had dispersed, and people were milling about the car park. And then he saw the ambos, four of them, and a couple of marked cars too. Bumps and bruises in the game weren’t uncommon, he knew that, but this didn’t look right at all. So Iredale grabbed his radio and his high-vis jacket and ran for the door.
He kept running until he reached the foot bridge where the game
‘Shame. It’s the one chance we all get to duff up a copper, and they can’t bloody touch you for it.’
‘But I’d be on the same side as you.’
This time it was Gambles who smiled.
‘You think that would make any difference, eh, Keith?’
Good Friday, 18th April
DC Iredale sat at his desk and watched the CCTV of the crowd building up on the Cloffocks, lining the metalled path alongside the beck. It was quarter past six, so the ball would be thrown up in fifteen minutes. But other than the two ‘goals’ themselves, one down on the docks and the other right up in the town, that was the only fixed point in the game. There was no limit to the number of players on each side, and apart from the use of a vehicle to transport the ball being discouraged there were no rules, and no boundaries. You could go where you wanted with the ball, and if you could smuggle it away in the dark then all the better. He wondered if any of the players ever brought a fake ball with them, to substitute for the real one. But that was a copper’s thinking, or at least a cheat’s, he told himself.
Iredale had always liked the idea of Uppies and Downies, even if the thought of actually playing the game held no appeal. He’d rather be on his own, walking or running on the fells. He scanned the faces on the screen to see if he could pick up either the DI or the DS among the crowd, but he couldn’t. They’d just be two more bullet-headed men waiting for the fun to begin. He watched until the ball was thrown up into the air, from the middle of the little stream over Cloffocks Beck, and that was the last he saw of it. Because a huge scrum formed around it, wheeling slowly and occasionally ejecting players from the side.
He went and made a brew, then chatted to a WPC who he liked and who he was almost sure liked him back. When he glanced back at the screen twenty minutes later the scrum seemed to have moved no more than a few feet, and he watched as it collapsed under its own weight. Then the players stood up and helped the others to their feet. It was almost chivalrous, and that made him smile. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d even thought of that word. ‘Chivalrous’ he said out loud, as if he was trying to remember how to pronounce it.
For the next two hours, until darkness fell from Debenhams down to the docks, Iredale worked in the silent office, filling in form after form, often with the same information but in a slightly different order. He made a few phone calls, to organisations and bodies that the Super insisted on calling ‘partners’, but these were the kind of partners who kept office hours. So in each case Iredale left a brief voicemail message, and went back to work.
At snap time Iredale decided to walk down across the Cloffocks to Tesco to buy a sandwich, and he stopped and looked over at the game, which was now in the Council car park. He reckoned that it had moved no more than thirty yards in three hours, so he wasn’t surprised to see that the crowd of onlookers had thinned out. And when he walked back past again, after he’d been to the shop, the game still hadn’t moved.
He spent the rest of his break looking online at bits for his mountain bike, and then he went back to work. The phone hadn’t rung once all shift, and he was almost sorry. Iredale filed the last of his forms for the night, drew a line through another item on his ‘to do’ list, and called up the CCTV from the Cloffocks. Straight away he knew that was something was wrong. It had to be. The scrum had dispersed, and people were milling about the car park. And then he saw the ambos, four of them, and a couple of marked cars too. Bumps and bruises in the game weren’t uncommon, he knew that, but this didn’t look right at all. So Iredale grabbed his radio and his high-vis jacket and ran for the door.
He kept running until he reached the foot bridge where the game
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