Death of a God by S. T. Haymon Read Free Book Online Page B

‘The wonder is he ever stayed put in the first place. One side’s all right, but the other! Those cords round the wrists and feet, and that belt fastened round upright and waist together – if anything of a wind had blown up during the night he’d have come down like Humpty Dumpty, bringing the cross with him. Picture cord, is it, or what? We’ll see. My guess is the belt’s the fellow’s own.’ With a disdain that, in other circumstances, would have made Jurnet’s mouth twitch at the corners: ‘It looks the kind of flashy rubbish a pop singer might wear.’
    The detective, who had been studying with a kind of paralysed attention the thin line of pink-tinged ooze which, originating at the back of the dead man’s head, had meandered a turgid way across throat and chest to deposit a terminal moraine just above the elaborate silver belt which had earned the Superintendent’s disapproval, said, ‘I never noticed him wearing it last night, though he could have had it on underneath his sweater, I suppose, and not showing.’
    The other, as Jurnet had known he would, made no attempt to hide either his astonishment or the dark suspicions that went with it. ‘Don’t tell me you were at that concert!’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Unplumbed depths,’ commented the Superintendent with a dourness that for a moment made the other wonder if his superior officer weren’t himself a Second Coming freak. ‘From all I hear of the demand for tickets, I can only hope you didn’t queue for yours in police time.’
    â€˜No, sir,’ Jurnet returned neutrally, determined to provide the bastard with no further information, nor any explanation he wasn’t entitled to. But then, immediately, because, bloody hell, there it was again, that inescapable compulsion to tell the bugger everything he ever wanted to know, more than he wanted to know: ‘Somebody passed on a couple they weren’t using.’
    â€˜Somebody must’ve wanted to get into your good books –’ the tone was brazenly sceptical – ‘considering what they were fetching on the black market.’
    â€˜Not me, sir. My fiancée –’
    â€˜Hm!’ The Superintendent said no more, Miriam being the one subject between them upon which it was silently understood that a strict communication blackout prevailed. Jurnet, for his part, squirmed in inward mortification. Fiancée – of all the wimpish words! Yet what could he have used instead? My life, my love, my live-in torment? He’d like to see the Superintendent’s face if he had.
    The Superintendent squinted up at the sky, daring it to be day before he was ready for it; then, turning to Jack Ellers, commanded peremptorily: ‘Sergeant, let the men know they’ve got another two minutes, not a second longer, to get that body on its way to the mortuary, or we’re going to find ourselves with an audience bigger than they had at the Middlemass last night. As to that cross he’s hanging on, I don’t care how hard the frost is, I’ll give them another five minutes to get it out of the ground and on its way. Pinner must have taken enough pictures to fill an album. From here on we’ll have to make do with those.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’ The little Welshman set off on his errand, happy to have something specific to do.
    â€˜And make sure those screens go up at once,’ the Superintendent called after. ‘Such as they are. Round Thompsett’s stall as well. I’m assuming that by now that waxwork of Jesus is safely with Forensic, or if it isn’t, I want to know why.’ To Jurnet, with a friendliness as unexpected as it was welcome, and as chancy to put your trust in: ‘I’ll leave it to you, Ben, to pick out some PCs you reckon impervious to the charms of the grief-maddened maidens who, I suppose, will be converging on the spot in their millions