The Vacant Casualty Read Online Free Page A

it’s the oldest trick in the book.’
    ‘Yes, but ironically it didn’t work. Everyone just pretended not to notice for two weeks . . .’
    ‘
Two weeks
?’ interjected the detective.
    ‘Well, yes,’ said the mayor, addressing the visitor directly. ‘They are rather used to this sort of thing, I’m afraid. And of course he was rendered speechless by pipe
smoke and whisky, back in the nineties . . .’
    ‘Which was when he was only in his eighties . . .’ muttered the major.
    ‘So in a way he was the old boy who didn’t cry wolf. Apparently he was horribly infected – they got him into the operating room and lopped the thing off, and luckily there were
still signs of life after the operation.’
    ‘In what, him or the penis?’
    ‘Moving on . . .’ said Lord Selvington. ‘If I could take us beyond scurrilous gossip, we have genuine issues to get to on these minutes, as we are all aware. Can we get through
the frivolous stuff so that we finish before
The Archers
comes on this evening?’
    Sam smiled to himself at this remark, but was startled out of it by Bradley whispering urgently into his ear: ‘Oh God, we’re not likely to actually miss
The Archers
, are
we?’
    ‘I think it’s unlikely,’ he whispered back. ‘I think he was being hyperbolic.’
    The detective was clearly panicked by this mysterious word, and, wanting to indicate that he knew what it meant, he grasped hold of the most vulgar misapprehension, jumped up in his seat and
uttered, ‘How rude!’ loud enough to attract disapproving tuts from half a dozen councillors.
    ‘I just meant he was being a bit over the top,’ whispered Sam, trying hard to keep his temper, and therefore the volume of his voice, under control. ‘If you miss it, you can
listen to the repeat tomorrow at two o’clock, for heaven’s sake. Or on Sunday. Or on bloody iPlayer. I won’t spoil the plot for you, I promise.’ Oh Christ, he thought. What
the crapping hell am I doing here?
    ‘Minute seven: the employment of split infinitives in the council minutes,’ said the chairman. ‘Now this really is a problem . . .’
    At this moment Sam, who had been alternately swearing and blaspheming under his breath for several minutes, began to wonder quite seriously what his life was coming to. As a freelance writer he
was not only unaccustomed to being stuck in a school-assembly situation like this where he was not allowed to move, or speak, or light a cigarette, but he was also comparatively unused to being up
at two in the afternoon. And so – contemplating that if he got into a filthy mood at the beginning of a meeting which might very well last longer than
Lawrence of Arabia
then he would
be in a terrible state by the end of it – he attempted to calm himself down with a cool appraisal of the members of the council.
    This was aided by a sheet of paper being thrust into his hand by a friendly lady councillor, who had taken pity on the newcomers and passed them a set of minutes each.
    Now, he thought, looking down the list. Who is who?
    ‘I’m
hungry
,’ whispered Bradley into his ear, with the spontaneous impatience of a child. ‘Do you think we’re allowed biscuits?’
    ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Sam said aloud, discovering after the fact (as happened to him too often) that he had involuntarily lost the temper he had been struggling to control. He
strode across the room and stole a plate of biscuits from in front of one of the men before returning and plonking it on Bradley’s knee. This produced the sudden and unexpected reaction of
someone beetling across to serve them both with a cup of tea – this person being the stark and expressionless old crone who had earlier let them in.
    The basic English cup of tea, Sam reflected as he took a grateful sip, was the one hot drink which was not drastically impaired by being made on a massive scale.
    Bradley picked up one of the biscuits and said, ‘Oh, Custard Creams. Wizard!’
    At once everyone in the