The Judgement Book Read Online Free

for someone else.
    A young couple walked in, made for the bar. The pub was about half full, a few spaces left on its wooden benches and the odd smaller table. It was a local of the kind of which few were left now, untouched by the insatiable hunger of the big chains and genuinely battered from the passing years, not fitted out with the fashionably worn look which never came close to convincing.
    ‘I made a big decision last week,’ Dan said slowly, leaning back on the knotted bench. ‘Well, I say I, but I mean we.’ He paused again. ‘In future I may not be quite the bachelor, out-on-the-beer type that you’ve always known.’
    El looked surprised. ‘You’re not – getting married?’ He managed to make it sound like Dan had a terminal illness, and only days left. ‘Having – a baby?’
    Dan chuckled, couldn’t help himself. ‘No, it’s not quite that bad. Claire and I have decided to buy a house. We’re going to have a shot at living together.’
    The photographer rubbed his double chin. ‘Well – err – congratulations.’
    Dan wondered if he’d ever heard the words sound less sincere. Unusually for him, El seemed to notice his tactlessness and tried to make amends, although not altogether successfully.
    ‘Congratulations … I suppose.’
    The two men looked at each other. For once, El was silent.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Dan went on. ‘I’ll still be out for a few beers now and then, and we’ll keep working together. I won’t be one of these guys who disappears into a relationship and dumps his friends. I’ve lost too many mates like that. It’s pathetic.’
    El nodded. ‘Sure. I know that. I suppose I just didn’t ever see you settling down.’
    ‘I’m not sure I did myself. But anyway …’
    Dan’s mobile warbled, interrupting him. He fished it out from his jeans pocket, got a surprise. Adam’s name was flashing on the display. He and Dan had become close friends after the series of cases they’d worked on together, from the shotgun murder of the businessman Edward Bray, to the riddle of the Death Pictures, then last year the extraordinary days that led them to Dartmoor, and the horror of Evil Valley.
    Dan shivered, despite the bar’s warmth. He didn’t want to go back there. Working with the police on investigations had become a fascinating new world. It was only in that last inquiry that he’d learnt the savage reality of just how traumatic it could be.
    He knew the call was trouble before he answered it. Adam wasn’t a man to ring for a friendly chat.
    ‘I’ve got a big case breaking,’ the detective said quickly, sounding harassed. ‘In fact, it’s going to be huge. This is a quick tip-off to let you know, and because I get this feeling I’ll need your help – again. The media’s going to be all over it.’
    ‘Go on,’ said Dan, fumbling for a pen and piece of paper.
    ‘This didn’t come from me.’
    ‘As ever and always.’
    ‘Will Freedman, high-flying local MP.’
    ‘Uh huh,’ mumbled Dan, balancing the phone under his chin while he tried to write. He motioned to El to finish his pint. The photographer nodded and drained the glass.
    ‘He’s dead. Topped himself at his home.’
    ‘Suicide you say? That’s a decent story, but it’s not huge. It happens.’
    There was a pause. The mobile line hummed.
    ‘Yeah, but not when his death appears to be connected to a bizarre bomb hoax. And not when he seems to have been driven to it by a blackmailer who knows some dynamite sex scandal about him. And not when he leaves a note saying he pities the other prominent people whose sordid secrets are about to be revealed, courtesy of something called the Judgement Book.’
    Another pause, then Adam said huffily, ‘Now, does that sound like a story to you?’
    Dan was already out of his seat and heading for the door.

Chapter Two
    T HEY RAN OUT OF the pub and tried to hail a black cab. Two drove by, despite their frantic waving. One driver even gave them a cheery smile as he