Broken Lines by Jo Bannister Read Free Book Online Page A

knocked me down, he damn near killed Mrs Taylor – but he says it wasn’t him so we let him go. I mean, what possible reason could he have to lie?’
    Shapiro had been a police officer for longer than Donovan had been alive. He’d learned much about crime and criminals, and also about policemen. He remembered when a sergeant using that tone to a superintendent would have been told to clear his locker. Even today there weren’t many senior officers who’d put up with it, and those who knew Shapiro well enough to know that behind the slightly rumpled exterior dwelt a mind as sharp and clear as a cut-glass bell didn’t understand why he did.
    If they’d asked he’d have explained. Most detective sergeants were either on their way up the ladder or were good DCs for so long they’d earned the promotion even if they weren’t up to the job. Donovan was. On his record he should have made DI; but for various reasons, some of them his fault, others not, he wasn’t considered DI material. The police force hadn’t changed so much in thirty years that it encouraged people who challenged its basic precepts. Which meant that Donovan would stay a detective sergeant and stay in Castlemere; and long after Liz Graham had moved on and Shapiro himself was only a memory his experience in this town would be an asset to Queen’s Street CID. He was worth keeping on board for that, even if the line hadn’t been drawn that he was prepared to toe.
    On top of which there was the personal reason. Donovan had risked his life for this job, and he’d risked his job for Shapiro. A man didn’t forget that in a hurry.
    But though Shapiro allowed him some latitude, for the sake of the future and the past, his patience wasn’t limitless. ‘Of course that isn’t it,’ he snapped. ‘I haven’t put him on a plane to Rio: I’ll have him back in here as soon as I have enough to charge him. Finding the gun will do – no jury’ll believe he went on doing what he was told by a hijacker who’d thrown his gun away. No, if we find the gun we have him. He was the only one with reason to ditch it. This putative second person would have hung on to it as long as he could, so if he didn’t lose it at the scene of the accident he’s still got it.’
    â€˜He hasn’t still got it,’ insisted Donovan, because he doesn’t exist! There was only ever Mikey. I know, I never saw his face. But if you smell pig, and something pig-shaped runs you down and leaves trotter-prints up your cardigan, you don’t need to see the face to know it was a pig.
    â€˜It was Mikey’s size and Mikey’s shape, it was wearing Mikey’s coat and doing what Mikey does in the characteristically vicious way that Mikey does it. Then it burnt rubber in Mikey’s van, and when it crashed – away to buggery! – there was Mikey behind the wheel. It was all Mikey, there was no one else. He dumped the gun because he didn’t want to be caught with it on him. The rest of it, this other man, he made it up. If there’d been a gun in his ribs that’s the first thing he’d have said when I pulled him out the van. You would, wouldn’t you? – It wasn’t my fault, guv, it was the other feller made me do it. If there’d been another man, Mikey’d have said so.’
    â€˜Maybe he would,’ said Shapiro grimly. ‘Except—’
    It wasn’t often that Donovan failed to follow where his chief was leading. But he lost the trail this time. ‘Except what?’
    Shapiro glowered at him. ‘Except that he was never properly cautioned about the consequences of not doing so.’

Chapter Five
    The Taylors had a cottage on the Castlemere Canal a mile or so from Chevening village. Even with the directions she’d been given Liz had trouble finding it. She passed the farm lane twice before realizing it was the turning