Tainted Ground Read Online Free Page A

wouldn’t.’
    â€˜What about the shoplifting lady?’ Elspeth asked. I happen to know that this is one of her horrors; that she will leave a shop, her mind on other things, and completely forget to pay.
    â€˜I managed to persuade the manager not to prosecute.’
    â€˜Oh, well done!’ she cried.
    â€˜And the police surgeon?’ John ventured.
    â€˜Would you care for another dram?’ Patrick asked him solemnly.
    â€˜But as far as James goes …?’ I said to Patrick later when we were alone.
    â€˜Never the twain shall meet.’
    â€˜It’s really as bad as that?’
    â€˜This was only day one, mind.’
    â€˜But you actually get on very well with one another.’
    â€˜Socially and for most of the time, yes. I just wish the guy would give me a trial run. He ought to realize that I’m not the sort to start throwing my weight about.’
    â€˜What James actually said to me might not be quite the whole truth of it,’ I said. I had told Patrick about the phone call.
    â€˜How so?’
    â€˜James is probably worried about the kind of man you
can
be. When you’re cornered. When you’re
in extremis
. When a man has threatened or hurt me. You’ve killed and maimed, Patrick. With your bare hands, with your knife, with firearms. When you found James where he’d been left to die inside that old boiler and the men who had done it had followed you … James told me he’d never, ever, seen such filthy fighting tactics.’
    â€˜It was three against one.’
    â€˜Cheerfully,’ I said. ‘Cheerfully and with relish, according to James, you dealt out potentially crippling injuries.’
    His eyes never leaving my face Patrick said, ‘You’ve witnessed me—’ He broke off.
    â€˜I still have the odd nightmare,’ I disclosed. This was probably unfair of me as on that particular, different, occasion he had been fighting for his life following a period of ghastly maltreatment. And another time when he had broken a man’s neck. The sound had been akin to that made by snapping a stick of seaside rock between gloved hands. Orders then, though, orders.
    â€˜You’re too scary by half,’ I said. ‘For Bath, that is. And for someone like James who hasn’t quite got over almost dying.’
    â€˜This will fail, then, you think?’
    â€˜Not necessarily. I suggest you stay right out of his way. If your paths do cross, pretend he’s Elspeth. Treat him as you would her.’
    â€˜Buy him flowers, you mean?’
    â€˜Don’t be pig-stubborn!’ I bawled. ‘No, GENTLY!’
    Matters did not improve and as the week progressed Patrick’s lips became tighter and the look in his eyes more strained. Tactful enquiry elicited the information that extra awkwardness and difficulty was being created by Lynn Outhwaite having to act as go-between. For, obviously, as Carrick’s sergeant there was a need for her to be at his side when he left the station to deal with things directly. When this happened and she was required to break off from what she was doing in order to forward instructions and possibly information to someone working on another case it was Carrick himself who began to run out of patience.
    On the Friday morning the inevitable happened and the two men met face to face in a corridor. There was no shouting match, the resulting exchange of views being conducted in the privacy of Carrick’s office. Patrick assured me that he did not lose his temper, which I believed for I know him well enough to be aware of what it takes to make him lose control.
    â€˜So did you resolve
anything
?’ I asked.
    â€˜No, we were interrupted. Lynn called him out and they shot off all bells and whistles. I went back to doing a Health and Safety risk-assessment of the nick.’
    We discovered the reason for Carrick’s hasty departure later that evening from the local TV news.