Rainstone Fall Read Online Free Page A

to ride for free. I got on whilst hunting around for change in my pockets. Nothing. I didn’t think they’d accept plastic so kept furtling about and eventually located something promising deep in the lining of my leather jacket. I apologized to the driver while I stood, thermos between my knees, one of my arms halfway down a torn jacket pocket, clawing for the money. At last I managed to close my hand on the coins and pulled them out: two shillings.
    ‘Excuse me,’ I said feebly to no one in particular and got off the bus which pulled eagerly away with Lane on board.
    Shillings ? Just how old was this leather jacket? This was getting ridiculous. I unscrewed the top of the vacuum flask and took a draught of hot black coffee. It cheered me up just long enough to find the post office and use their cash machine to furnish myself with some readies. When I got outside the heavens opened again and I got soaked before I’d even decided what to do next. I hadn’t been without my own transport for more than fifteen minutes and I was already heartily sick of it. If I ever caught up with who had taken the DS I’d happily throttle them. I was sorely tempted to call for a cab but taking taxis everywhere wasn’t going to help pay the roofers so I padded along in the rain to the next bus stop near the surprisingly large church and hopped on the first one that came along. It ground up and rattled down hills and seemed to be going in circles without really getting anywhere but it was dry and it beat standing in the rain, though only just.
    ‘The DS21, that’s the one with the swivelling headlights, isn’t it?’ asked Sergeant Hayes, looking over the completed form. I’d finally made it to Manvers Street police station.
    ‘It is.’ It was. The DS had four headlights, two of which turned left and right as you turned the wheel, lighting your way around sharp bends.
    ‘Probably joyriders, Honeysett. If you’re lucky then they didn’t set fire to it at the end of the night.’ He flashed me a grin that bared his white but uneven teeth.
    ‘I didn’t think joyriders would be interested in a thirty-year-old left-hand drive. And why are we calling them joyriders? They’re damn car thieves and I don’t feel any joy.’
    ‘The joy’s all theirs. Until we catch up with them, that is. We’re allowed to ram them now to stop them, like the Americans. They call it the PIT manoeuvre,’ he said cheerfully.
    ‘ Ram them ? I don’t want you to ram them , it’s a classic car!’ I protested.
    ‘I’ve seen your car, it’s a tatty old heap, Honeysett, and I’m sure the MOT on it is dodgy. If we do find it we’ll make sure it’s roadworthy before returning it to you.’
    That’s the problem if you’re on grunting terms with the Old Bill, they start taking liberties. My relationship with Avon and Somerset’s finest had always been a little strained. Hardly surprising since our interests often overlapped uncomfortably. But unlike many other private investigators I wasn’t an ex-police officer and so hadn’t got a lot of friends on the inside on whom I could rely to feed me information or avert their eyes when necessary.
    Just then a door opened to the left of us and an all too familiar figure barrelled into the office: Detective Superintendent Michael Needham. I had to fight the urge to duck. The Superintendent didn’t approve of Aqua Investigations since he rightly suspected that we sometimes fell off the tightrope of legality he himself seemed to walk so effortlessly. In one respect it was more than a suspicion: he had always known that I owned an unlicensed WWII revolver, a Webley .38, and had spent years patting me down trying to catch me carrying it. Then a few months ago it had been fired in a typically messy episode of Aqua business and had promptly been confiscated, together with all our personal effects.
    Needham dumped a file in someone’s in-tray and was safely on his way out again when kind Sergeant Hayes called: