Dead Right by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page A

she was happy as a pig in clover. And why not,thought Hatchley, who felt exactly the same way about Carol’s tit himself, not that he’d been getting much of that lately, either.
    But now April had suddenly turned into a raging monster and put paid to his sleep. He knew he looked like he’d been on the piss every morning he went into work—he could see the way they were all looking at him—but if truth be told, he hadn’t had a drink in weeks. A real drink in a pub, that was.
    He remembered some story, an old wives’ tale probably, about rubbing whisky on a teething baby’s gums to quieten it down. Well, Carol wouldn’t let him do that—she said she had enough on her plate with one boozer in the family—so he had rubbed it on his own gums, so to speak, or rather let it caress them briefly and gently on its way down to his stomach. Sometimes that helped him get a ten-minute nap between screaming sessions. But he never had more than two or three glasses a night. He hadn’t had a hangover in so long that not only had he almost forgotten what they felt like, he was actually beginning to miss them.
    So it was with both a sense of nostalgia and a feeling that he’d rather be anywhere else, especially asleep in bed, that Sergeant Hatchley entered The Jubilee that Sunday lunch-time.
    Contrary to rumours around the station, Hatchley didn’t know the landlord of every pub in Eastvale. Apart from The Queen’s Arms, the station’s local, he tended to avoid the pubs near the town centre, especially those on Market Street, which always seemed to be full of yobs. If there were trouble on a Saturday night, which there often was these days, you could bet it would be on York Road or Market Street.
    The Jubilee was also a chain pub: all fruit machines, theme nights, trivia and overpriced food. Overpriced ale, too. Rock bands played there on Friday and Saturday nights, and it had a reputation for getting some of the best up-and-coming bands in Yorkshire. Not that Hatchley gave a toss about rock music, being a brass-band man himself. The Jubilee was also reputed to be a fertile hunting ground for birds and drugs.
    On Sunday lunch-times, though, it became a family pub, and each family seemed to have about six children in tow. All of them screaming at once.
    Hatchley leaned over the bar and presented his warrant card to the barmaid as she pulled someone a pint.
    “Any trouble here Saturday night, love?” he asked.
    She jerked her head without looking up at him. “Better ask His Nibs over there. I weren’t working.”
    Hatchley edged down the bar and shoved his way through the drinkers standing there, getting a few dirty looks on the way. He finally caught the barman’s attention and asked for a word. “Can’t you see I’m rushed off my feet?” the man protested. “What is it you want?” Like everyone else behind the bar, he wore black trousers and a blue-and-white striped shirt with THE JUBILEE stitched across the left breast.
    When Hatchley showed his card, the man stopped protesting that he was too busy and called one of the other bar staff to stand in for him. Then he gestured Hatchley down to the far end of the bar, where it was quiet.
    “Sorry about that,” he said. “I hate bloody Sunday lunch-times, especially after working a Saturday night.” He scratched his thinning hair and a shower of dandruff fell on his shoulders. How bloody hygienic, Hatchley thought. “My name’s Ted, by the way.”
    “Aye well, Ted, lad,” Hatchley said slowly, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but we all have our crosses to bear. First off, was there any trouble in here on Saturday night?”
    “What do you mean, trouble?”
    “Fights, barneys, slanging matches, hair-pulling, that sort of thing.”
    Ted frowned. “Nowt out of the ordinary,” he said. “I mean, we were busy as buggery, so there was no way I could see what were going on everywhere at once, especially with the bloody racket that band were making.”
    “I appreciate