The Killing Season by Mark Pearson Read Free Book Online Page B

Her eyes remained as hard as the bark on a frozen tree.
    ‘That’s Superintendent Dean to you. And my day was going fine until a certain pain in the arse of an Irishman got in the woodpile.’
    ‘Something amiss?’ I asked innocently.
    ‘I just had a man in my police station accusing one of my officers of endangering his life and assaulting his mentally challenged colleague.’
    I shrugged. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’
    ‘That’s a bloody good question, Delaney!’
    She didn’t pronounce my name with any particular relish.
    ‘I am certain that if one of your men acted in a forceful way,’ I said, ‘he was perfectly justified. I know you run a very tidy ship up here, Susan. A very tidy ship.’
    ‘Don’t get funny, Delaney. Your brogue and your supposed Irish diddly bloody charm might have had the ladies in Paddington Green dropping their knickers, but you fuck around with me and I will come down on you like a ton of proverbial bricks. A veritable shitstorm!’
    ‘Do you kiss your mother with those lips?’ I asked, pretending to be shocked at her language. ‘And you’re mixing your metaphors there.’
    ‘Shut it, Delaney. And tell me what the hell you were doing assaulting a couple of law-abiding members of my community? And don’t try bullshitting me. Bill Collier gave me a perfectly good description of you. What makes you think you can get away with flashing a warrant card and pretending to be on the force?’
    ‘Technically, Susan, I
am
still on the force.’
    ‘Not my bloody force you’re not! And you’re on sabbatical, last I heard. From the Met. You want to take up policing again, rather than poncing about interfering with matters that don’t concern you, why don’t you sod off back to the big city and do it there?’
    ‘I only went to have a quiet chat with the man. It was his colleague who started it.’
    ‘Who started it! What are you? Twelve years old, for God’s sake?’
    ‘They defrauded an old lady out of a lot of money. They are not law-abiding citizens, they are a pair of shifty, sleazy, cowboy conmen.’
    ‘Then that is a civil matter. It is
not
a police matter and certainly not one where you can go round flashing a warrant card pretending to be part of my team.’
    ‘I never said I was part of your team.’
    ‘You implied it and that is as good in my eyes. Do it again I will have you in the nick so fast your head will spin. I don’t care if you’re a Met officer taking a gap year or not. This is my patch. Trust me,’ she said, with a cold smile. ‘Don’t be looking for any preferential treatment from me.’
    I flashed her a smile of my own. ‘You come all the way out here in person to tell me this, superintendent?’
    ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I have a meeting scheduled with the vicar up the road on parish-council business. Just consider yourself told.’
    She turned on her high heels and opened the door.
    ‘Yes, ma’am!’ I said with military crispness.
    She turned back to glare at me but settled for slamming the door behind her as a parting comment.
    I picked up my bottle of beer and finished what was left. ‘Still got it, Cowboy,’ I said to myself. ‘Still got it.’
    I looked around the trailer and then at the telephone on the desk. I thought about recording a new message saying, ‘This is Jack Delaney. At the tone leave your name and message. I’ll get back to you.’
    Instead, I looked at my watch, then out at the sky that was dark now. I placed my empty beer bottle into the waste-paper basket by my desk as a crack of lightning rang out like a rifle shot. A few seconds later and an angry rumble of thunder swept in from the coast, and a few seconds after that the heavens opened up and the rain hammering on the metal roof of the caravan became almost deafening once again. I shrugged into my overcoat, pulled on a baseball cap and braved the weather. I had to be brave, after all – it was in my job description.

12
     
    NIGHT-TIME IN THE city.
    Warm