The Dead Hand of History by Sally Spencer Read Free Book Online

that finishing mopping up your egg yolk might help you decide?’
    â€˜I thought it was probably a crank call, if I’m being entirely honest with you, Chief Inspector. After all, this is Whitebridge , isn’t it? That kind of thing simply doesn’t happen here.’
    Except that it apparently does – and on my first day on the job, Paniatowski thought.
    â€˜So if you considered it unlikely there was a story in it, what were you doing in the car park?’ she asked.
    â€˜Ah, that was because of the second call,’ Traynor explained.
    â€˜The second call?’
    â€˜About twenty minutes later, the feller rang me again. And this time he said that since I hadn’t gone down to the river bank already, there was no point in going now – because the bobbies had arrived, and they’d never let me through. Then he went on to say that probably the best place to get a lead on the story would be police headquarters.’
    â€˜How did he know you hadn’t already gone down to the river?’ Paniatowski wondered.
    Traynor smirked. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. If I’d gone down to the river, I couldn’t have answered the phone the second time he called.’
    Paniatowski sighed. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What made him suspect that you hadn’t gone, as he probably imagined any reporter who was worth his salt would have done?’
    â€˜The bastard was watching my house!’ Traynor said angrily. ‘He was watching my bloody house!’
    I take back what I said about you not being a complete fool, Paniatowski thought.
    â€˜And was he watching the houses of all the other reporters as well?’ she asked.
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜ None of the hacks went down to the river. All of them came here , just like you did.’
    â€˜He wasn’t watching my house at all – he was watching the river bank!’ Traynor said, finally catching on.
    â€˜He was watching the river bank,’ Paniatowski agreed.
    And it took some nerve to do that, she thought – not just dump the hand, but stay around to see what happened next.
    But why had he stayed around? Come to that, why had he left the hand there in the first place, and why had he phoned the reporters?
    Was it simply that he got a kick out of moving people around, like pieces on a chessboard?
    Or was it that he wanted to make sure the discovery of the hand made as big a splash as possible?
    Traynor was looking as if he was about to be sick.
    â€˜Is something the matter?’ Paniatowski asked.
    â€˜If . . . if I’d gone there when he told me to, I might have seen him,’ the reporter said.
    â€˜You might well,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘Still, look on the bright side.’
    â€˜What bright side?’
    â€˜At least you had a good breakfast.’
    The street that ran along the eastern end of the Pinchbeck Estate was called River View Road, which proved that while the planners who’d named it might have lacked originality, they had at least prided themselves on their accuracy.
    Positioning herself next to the red telephone box, halfway along the street, Paniatowski looked down at the river. While she could see the far bank clearly enough, her view of the near one was marred by the sharp slope – so that when the uniformed constables who were engaged in searching the bank bent down, they became completely invisible to her, and even when they were standing, she could only see them from the waist up.
    So it wasn’t a perfect view, by any means, she thought, but – as far as the killer was concerned – it had certainly been good enough for his purposes.
    She realized that it was the first time she had consciously used the word ‘killer’ to describe the man she was looking for.
    But why wouldn’t she think of him as a killer? Because what were the chances that the man who had cut the woman’s hand off would let