A Darker God Read Online Free PDF Page A

brothers in the house and the Jubilee Court thugs out on the street, I had to learn to handle myself in a barney. And I
have
killed a man. Just the one.”
    The constable timed his pause and, on catching the lift of Percy’s black eyebrows, he added: “It’s on the record, sir. In the line of duty. A peterman cracking his last safe. No blood spilled. His mates had all legged it and left him on his tod to carry the can. I chased him to his death, you could say. Daft old bugger should never have run! I gave due warning in the correct way. Loud and clear. Dropped dead of a seizure. Apoplexy, my old ma calls it. Croaked as I put the cuffs on him. Never quite been easy about that …”
    Percy’s eyes narrowed in interest. “Remind me, Harry—you’re not married, are you?”
    The constable showed no surprise at being asked the personal question. That was Montacute for you—took an interest in his men, encouraged them to speak out and actually listened when they spoke. Remembered to ask after the wife andkids and the granny, getting their names right and all. His men would follow him anywhere, and “follow” was the operative word—however fast your feet, you’d always find the chief inspector a few strides ahead.
    “Married? Me? Naw! Never taken the plunge, sir. Though I’ve had my offers. What about you, sir?”
    “Lord, no!” A shout of laughter where most officers would have called him to attention for overfamiliarity. “Not even an offer! Still footloose and fancy-free. Right, then, Constable … That’s good. And that’ll be all for the moment.”
    As the door closed, Percy made another note and his thoughts slipped back to Athens.
    What did he know of Athens? Plenty about the ancient city in its glory days, but about the modern capital—nothing. End of the world. A sleepy, one-donkey town where not much of note had happened since Alexander of Macedon’s rough, tough highland regiments had laid claim to Greece. He’d admired Edward Lear’s watercolours and that was as close as he’d come to an interest. A gleaming, austerely beautiful temple poised on a high outcrop of rock and a froth of red-roofed, white-walled houses below was as much as he could recall.
    Percy loosened his collar. It was warm enough here in London; God knew what the temperature was in Greece. Greece! He’d had enough of Greece for a lifetime. The dust and the flies of Salonika were still there somewhere, lodged at the back of his throat and in his belly, never to be entirely scrubbed or swallowed away. Percy had tried to object that he didn’t speak the language. But the Assistant Commissioner sitting smugly in front of him with his records open was not deceived. He’d pointed out Percy’s degree in the Classics. Arsehole didn’t even realise that modern Greek was not the same animal at all. If Percy had gone on protesting he’d no doubt have told him to just shout loudly at the natives like everyone else. But hadn’t the Chief Inspector shown a wartime facility for languages?the Assistant Commissioner had enquired mildly. Bulgarian? Serbo-Croat? And—what was the language they spoke up there in Salonika, where he’d been based for two years … could Montacute recall? Demotic Greek? Ah, yes, that would be it-demotic Greek.
    “Mainly Spanish and Turkish,” Percy had objected.
    “How very cosmopolitan!” The bland smile again. “Well, there you are, then—you’ll be bound to be speaking the lingo fluently in a month or two, Montacute. And plenty of time to get to grips with it. Your secondment is to be for a minimum of a year. Or however long it might take …”
    Warning bells had sounded in Percy’s head on hearing that smoothly spoken phrase, slipped in with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. And what was all that nonsense about his war record? Mutinously, Percy had clammed up when the Assistant Commissioner had tried to draw him out, disguising his truculence as the becoming modesty of a tongue-tied