Rainstone Fall Read Online Free

Secretly I thought it was just a ruse to deter people from wanting to borrow it.
    I had less success with trying to talk her into going halves on the surveillance of James Lane. ‘I didn’t tell you to take the job,’ she rightly but annoyingly pointed out as we rumbled along the track.
    ‘The roof needs repairing. Both roofs. How am I, how are we going to pay for it?’
    Annis frowned. ‘How have we always paid for stuff?’ she wondered.
    ‘Sold a few paintings, found some money in an old tin somewhere, that kind of thing.’
    ‘Oh yeah. Well, you check the old tins while I do some work in the studio, if you don’t mind. Seriously, you’re not the only one who needs to crack on with some painting. I promised the Glasshouse Gallery in St Ives four canvases for a mixed show and they only want to show new work. So do I of course. I’m afraid you’re stuck with this surveillance thing for now. How’s it look so far?’
    ‘Like a man walking with a stick.’
    A few minutes later I waved her goodbye in St Saviour’s Road, out of view from Lane’s windows which overlooked the car park where I’d left the DS. I walked the last few yards, sauntered along the line of cars while scanning the house for signs of life. It was a dank, dark morning and I registered with relief that the lights were on downstairs.
    I fumbled in my pockets for my car keys. Nothing. Not there. Then I registered first with disbelief and then with a feeling like a punch in the gut that the car wasn’t there either. Gone, disappeared. Twenty parking spaces in the row and every one of them taken. Not a Citroën among them. I clearly remembered which space I’d left it in. That one. Or that one. Next to an old mud-coloured Volvo estate. I was beginning to feel stupid pacing up and down in front of the cars carrying the essential bit of private-eye kit, my thermos flask of black coffee. A couple of shoppers walking past gave me suspicious looks. There was only one thing to do, even for a private detective.
    If you ever need a demonstration of polite boredom then report your car stolen (though wait until it has been stolen, obviously).
    ‘You’re not going to send someone out here?’ I moaned.
    ‘There really wouldn’t be much point, Mr Honeysett. I’ll take your details now but you’ll still have to come into the station and fill in the form . . .’
    Great, just when you’re stranded without a motor. I don’t know what I had expected, a SWAT team and a vanload of technicians dusting the world for fingerprints of the nefarious car thieves and a counsellor for my post-automotive stress . . . What I hadn’t expected was a load of nothing. Now completely deflated I gave the guy the details. He was unlikely to be a police officer himself and there was no telling whether he took the call from Bath, Bristol or Bogotá. ‘The DS21, that’s the one with the swivelling headlights, isn’t it? Nice . . .’
    Looking up from my misery I saw that I’d nearly missed Lane leaving the house. I told the guy I’d come down to Manvers Street police station later, terminated the call and followed my target left. After only a few yards he sat down on the bench by the bus stop at the Larkhall Inn. He was dressed like the night before in grey waterproof jacket, jeans and trainers and this morning was carrying a blue shoulder bag. He stood by the kerb, blearily looking at the wet tarmac. Two women were also waiting, one with a pushchair already folded up and a listless child standing snottily by her side, and a guy in a raincoat I recognized as the other reader from the pub was sitting on the bench. I went and pretended to study the timetable. Then I actually did study it and realized I couldn’t make sense of it at all. One of those small yellow buses drew up. In the corner of my eye I could see Lane shuffling forward. It suddenly occurred to me that I might have to pay hard cash to use this service. Lane seemed to have some kind of pass that allowed him