Wading Into Murder Read Online Free

umbrella. “Harder,” she ordered when there was no response. William abandoned his ear and pounded two-fisted. Laura kicked. Their prolonged battering – ably abetted by the child’s howls – eventually produced a man wearing the uniform of a ticket attendant. He looked astonished, and furious.
    “What are you doing in there?” he demanded. “No one is permitted in the Baths. Out – right away!”
    “Nonsense,” Lady Longtree replied scathingly. “There was a baby to be rescued.
    “Not the sort I like to deal with,” she added sotto voce to Laura and William as she swept past the indignant guard. “Perhaps we can find someone more congenial outside.”
    They must make an odd sight, Laura thought as they emerged into the crowded square: two figures dripping black water, one carrying a screaming baby that smelled like a latrine, and a third very imposing figure, despite its small size, leaning on an umbrella, which seemed to function as a walking stick as well as a battering ram and boat.
    “I can take the child to the police station and explain the situation,” Laura offered. “Maybe they will even have a diaper. I am sure they’ll be able to find the mother without much difficulty from flight records.”
    “A nappy, they are called here,” Lady Longtree told her gently. “And yes, that seems an excellent idea. This place is quite confusing just now.”
    “It certainly is,” Laura agreed. She saw no sign of the burned car, but the square was covered with barriers and tape that said police line do not cross, in endless lines. The policemen guarding them looked harassed and anxious. No doubt they wondered why anyone would stand as close as possible to the barriers when another bomb might go off at any moment.
    More to the point, there might not be anyone at the police station. They were all here. Lady Longtree confirmed the thought.
    “We will do better to find help here instead,” she declared. “The policeman over there is a detective inspector, I believe, and he might be interested in this case. He has a good face at any rate.”
    Screwing up her courage, Laura approached him. He met her halfway, looking furious despite the pleasant face. “The Baths are closed,” he told her. “May I ask who you are and why you were in there?”
    Laura decided to go on the offensive. “I wonder if you could help me,” she countered. “I went into the Baths before the closure was announced, and found this baby left on the rocks on the lower level. I would like to see that it is returned to its mother.”
    The policeman stared at her, taken aback. “You found a baby in the Baths? Are you quite sure?”
    “Of course I am,” Laura answered crossly over the infant’s cries. “I would not say so otherwise.”
    The policeman snatched the child from Laura’s arms and probed its wrappings with careful fingers. She watched, appalled. He was searching for a bomb.        
    Satisfied that there were no hard objects wrapped around the baby, the detective thrust it back at Laura. Inexplicably, it had stopped screaming but the smell was worse than ever.
    He wrote her name and the place where she was staying in a little notebook and then signaled to a young policewoman standing nearby. She trotted over obediently.
    “This is Sergeant Prescott, my assistant,” he told Laura. “If you will go with her, she will give you all the help you need.”
    Sergeant Prescott gave him a sour look, possibly wondering why she was being saddled with the smelly baby detail instead of the more interesting bomb search, but she did as she was told.
     “We have some emergency supplies at the station – food and nappies and so on,” she told Laura without much enthusiasm. “Once we have the baby fixed up I can take your statement. Perhaps a towel and something hot to drink for you.” She didn’t offer to take the baby, which had resumed its howls.
    Someone pointed a camera at Laura and clicked. A mental image of the picture