Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online

push hard for as long as he can hoping you’ll pull up lame if you’re stretched.’
    ‘What’s your plan, then?’
    ‘No plan, Charlie. Forget Chadwick. Simply find a pace that’s comfortable and stick to it. If you fall behind, don’t try to raise a gallop. Keep your stride.’
    Darrell stood up.
    ‘I’m a sight sharper now, Sam. You’re a bloody wonder. Let’s get started, then.’
    He marched out to the starting-line, shouted to the lap-scorers that he was ready to go, and set off on his second long stint.
    Erskine Chadwick was on the track a few seconds later, the time that he had taken to groom his hair and moustache. He began at a run, stretching those stiff, lank legs into a vast stride which, coupled with the supe-rior expression on his face, suggested nothing so much as a runaway camel.

CHAPTER
5
    THE TRACKS NOW CRUNCHED under a dozen marching pairs of feet. Billy Reid, three hours in credit, looked ready to collapse at any moment. From time to time his eyes turned forlornly towards the hut where his brother contin-ued to sleep.
    ‘Didn’t like to disturb him, young’un,’ had said the old pedestrian who shared the hut. ‘I’d go over there and wake him if I was you. I never saw a man sleepin’ more peaceful. I feel a lot better meself. Uncommon comfy, them pallets.’ Feargus O’Flaherty had other comments to make about the sleeping arrangements as he toured the track with Williams and Chalk. By comparison with his newest experi-ence, his brushes with banshees paled into insignificance.
    ‘And there, as I live and breathe, was the spectre of death come to claim me for Purgatory. The smell it brought with it was all around me, stifling me. Holy Mother of God, how I prayed! And when I opened my eyes there was Death her-self, in the form of a woman, stealing up on me.’
    ‘Was that when you ’it the roof, Feargus?’
    ‘It was. I think that was how I saved my soul. I jumped up like an avenging angel, with a great shout of defiance, and she fled.’
    ‘Did you chase after ’er?’
    ‘I did not.’
    ‘Was she a shapely woman?’ Williams inquired. ‘I think I might surrender my ’oly soul when she visits me.’
    ‘God forgive you, Williams!’ O’Flaherty snarled at the Half-breed. ‘The man who jokes of death risks his own sal-vation.’
    Duly chastened, Williams altered his approach:
    ‘What did your little room-mate do while this was going on?’
    ‘Double-Barrel? I saw nothing of him.’
    ‘ ’Iding under ’is bloody bed, I reckon.’
    ‘Not at all. He didn’t come in to the hut for rest or sleep. So far as I can tell he was out here blistering his little feet all the while.’
    The three pedestrians regarded Mostyn-Smith, whose steady march continued, with some interest. Unlike Reid, the other invader of the small hours, he showed little sign of fatigue. The stride was as easy and precise as it had been hours before. While others were sleeping he had lapped the track twenty-eight times.
    On the inner circuit, unexpected things were happening. Charles Darrell was a revitalised force, cantering through his laps at a faster rate than anyone else in the race. His blis-tered foot might not have existed. Even Sam Monk, the advocate of uninhibited running, stood with a towel waving Darrell down, appealing to him to ease the pace. But with a sweep of his hand the runner blazened defiance. It was not clear whether his exuberant display was calculated to upset Chadwick’s poise, but this it undoubtedly did. Whatever form he assumed Darrell’s running would take, Chadwick had not expected to surrender the initiative. His decision of the previous day to break into a run had proved a useful tactic. It gave him psychological mastery. And the sight of Darrell hobbling to his tent that night convinced Chadwick that he could dictate events in future. Darrell would be con-tent to leave the thinking, the planning, the pacemaking to him; the poor fellow was committed by his weakened state to