High-Wired Read Online Free

to whether she would be capable of doing so.
    ‘No problem. Lead me to it,’ she replied enthusiastically, and Olivia smiled as she realised that her colleague was beginning to relax under the benign influence of the wine, and certainly could handle going through her part on the old Joanna. They stood in front of the instrument with a copy of the jig on the hanging music stand, and made a good fist of playing it through at a fair lick, Olivia taking the top part, Lauren the lower one.
    ‘I don’t think I can go that fast on the flute,’ admitted Lauren.
    ‘Me neither,’ replied her boss, with a heartfelt sigh of relief. ‘What part do you want to play on the flute?’
    ‘Can I take the lower part? Only I’ve noticed a couple of high Ds in the top part, and I can’t blow them yet.’
    ‘Well, I can just about manage that. How are you in the middle register?’
    ‘A bit shaky. I don’t really seem to have the confidence.’
    ‘Well, I’ll open another bottle of wine, and we’ll extract such Dutch courage as we can from that.’
    Lauren had brought her flute in with her, opened the case and began to fit it together. ‘I’ll just get mine,’ her hostess said, and went into another room, coming out with her instrument already put together. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I can’t always be bothered to put it away when I’ve finished with it.’
    ‘I wouldn’t dare leave mine out. That interfering, nosy au pair would no doubt have a go at playing it, and she’d probably break it, then deny all knowledge of what had happened.’
    ‘Here’s to making sweet music together,’ said Olivia, handing her sergeant another full glass, and they toasted each other and music in general, before both taking a goodly swallow. Music stands had appeared from nowhere, and as they settled down, the DI announced, ‘It’s in 6/8 time. I come in first, so it’s me after five, then you join in.’
    They played through the piece very slowly, inaccurately, and with lots of minuscule breaks for swearing. ‘The only time I use bad language is when I’m sight-reading music,’ confessed Lauren, and Olivia knew exactly what she meant.
    After a couple more attempts, trying to increase the tempo each time, they were both helpless with laughter, and Olivia refilled their glasses. ‘And now for the best bit: I set my little sound-activated tape recorder on the table, so we can listen to ourselves from a more critical position.’
    ‘You’ve what?’
    ‘You’ll find it funny. I used to do this with an old schoolfriend with piano duets, and we used to laugh until we cried when we heard what we were actually like. Keep an open mind.’
    When the front door opened later to admit Hal, they were both helpless with mirth, and didn’t even notice his arrival until he spoke.
    ‘What’s tickling you two ladies’ funny bones?’
    Lauren reacted with shock, whipping round her head to look at the large black man who filled the small doorway from the hall. ‘Who …?’ she cried, only to be cut off by her inspector.
    ‘Hello, Hal. This is Lauren, my DS. We were just sight-reading a flute duet, and I recorded our efforts. We’ve just listened to the tape and it was hilarious.’
    ‘Can I have a listen, too?’
    ‘Course you can,’ replied his wife, and played the recording for a second time.
    Hal was suitably amused, and was finally formally introduced to Lauren. ‘Hal’s a musician,’ Olivia explained, thinking this might go part of the way to explaining why he was in a brightly coloured shirt covered in images of parrots.
    ‘What do you play?’ asked Lauren, still confused.
    ‘The steel drums. I’m originally from Barbados. I used to be a teacher, but I took early retirement and now I just do what I love best, which is playing in steel bands all over this part of the coast.’
    Lauren was thunderstruck. She’d never imagined such an interesting and exotic husband for her outwardly conventional boss: no suited businessman for the