A Little Learning Read Online Free PDF

claimed they were in now, come to think of it. It had taken Paul a good two hours to calm Gary down, to work out the best tale they could tell and rehearse it. It wasn’t a good tale, but it was the best he had been able to do, in those dire circumstances, with old Claptrap Carter lying dead and Gary Pilkington screaming in his ear.
    He repeated that story now, carefully and doggedly. ‘We’d been drinking and talking, on into the night, until we’d lost all track of the time. Students do that. It was Gary who suddenly realized that it was two o’clock in the morning. And yet neither of us felt like going to bed. So I suggested that we went out for a stroll around the site, because it was a beautiful moonlit night, cold and clear, and we thought the air would clear our heads.’
    Paul, who had concentrated on the leather of the big desk as he strove to deliver the tale as they had agreed it, looked up nervously at Peach, wanting to be interrupted, feeling that the long silence from the other side of the desk made his words all the time less convincing. He received only another kind of smile from Peach, with the mouth slightly open and an inspectorial tongue caressing the startlingly white teeth. DI Peach looked like a Dobermann awaiting permission to attack a bone.
    Paul dragged his eyes away from that round, expectant face and resumed his account. ‘We were walking past the Director’s Residence when we thought we saw a light inside — almost as if someone was moving about in there, with a torch. I think now that it must have been a trick of the moonlight reflecting on the double glazing. But at the time we thought we’d better investigate.’
    DS Blake said quietly, ‘You didn’t think of going and raising the alarm at that stage, Mr Barnes?’
    Bloody hell, thought Paul. He’d enough dealing with the Dobermann, without the female joining in with her questions. And raising the alarm is exactly what Panicky Pilkington would have done, of course, if they had really seen a light in the place. He said stubbornly, ‘Maybe we should have done that. But our first thought was that we might catch someone in there.’
    Peach beamed delightedly. ‘Brave lads these, aren’t they, DS Blake? The type that made Britain great, hidden away on our doorstep in our local university! Bloody stupid too, of course.’
    Paul tried hard to ignore him, to complete the story they had agreed. ‘We couldn’t get in at the front of the house, but when we went round the back, we found that a window had been forced. So I climbed through and let Gary in by the back door. You — well, I think you know the rest. We didn’t find anyone inside there, but we did find the body of Dr Carter.’
    ‘And that’s it?’
    ‘Yes. I’ve told your officers all of it before.’
    Peach shook his head sadly. ‘Yes. Indeed you have. I just wanted to check that that was still it, you see. Because I don’t think it sounds very convincing. What do you think, DS Blake?’
    ‘About as convincing as a student pantomime, I’d say, sir. Bit better rehearsed, perhaps.’
    She was training up nicely, was Lucy Blake, thought Percy Peach. He couldn’t believe he’d resisted the move when that fool of a superintendent, Tommy Bloody Tucker, had allocated her to him as his DS.
    Paul Barnes glared his disappointment at this vision of loveliness he had been relying upon for sympathy. He hadn’t reckoned on Beauty siding with the Beast. Obviously, what people said was right: you couldn’t trust the police, however beguiling the guise in which they came to you. He said sullenly, ‘Well, that’s how it was.’
    Peach shook his head slowly, seemingly more in sorrow than in anger. He stood up. ‘If you say so, sunshine. Better have a word with your partner in crime now, hadn’t we? Perhaps the history student will recall the recent past more effectively than the drama student.’ As the slight figure with the sharp, handsome features shuffled out, he called after