Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade Read Online Free PDF

though the Australian wild dogs could easily bring down a sheep. And a man? Particularly an old man, slow, weak, a little deaf, maybe? Yes, it was possible. But first, he must get back to the parsonage. That library of the vicar’s. There was some research to do. The vicar was bound to have a book on it.
    ‘My dear Inspector, charity may begin at home, but it is nearly’ – the Reverend checked his half-hunter – ‘two thirty. Contrary to popular belief, I do work on other days than the Sabbath, you know.’
    ‘Forgive me, sir. I have imposed on your hospitality too long.’ Lestrade snapped shut the last of several tomes. ‘But I think I have what I require.’
    ‘A solution to the death of Lamb?’
    ‘Perhaps.’ Lestrade raised a solemn hand to the start from Ashburton. ‘As you say, sir, it is late. And at the moment what I have is circumstantial and speculation. And even to say that at two-thirty in the morning is no mean achievement.’
    It had been a long time since Lestrade had seen a country sunrise. He was tired and cold and the bed at the inn had been far from comfortable. The abo was waiting for him as he turned the corner, crouching, sniffing the wind.
    ‘’Ello, boss.’ The same inane grin.
    Lestrade found himself staring at the bone which ran through the elongated fleshy part of his nose between the nostrils. ‘What we track?’
    ‘What?’ Lestrade came to. ‘Ah, yes. Can you find me a dingo?’
    The abo laughed, a short, sharp cackle, rather like the kookaburra Lestrade had been reading about in the vicar’s library the night before.
    ‘Dingo, boss. ’Ere? You crazy all right.’
    ‘Look at this.’ Lestrade produced the tuft of hair. ‘Dingo, Uku?’
    The abo looked, felt between his finger, smelt the strands. He looked puzzled. ‘No boss. No dingo.’ Then his face cracked into a wide grin. ‘No dingo, boss. Tammanwool.’
    ‘Tammanwool?’ Lestrade was back to his usual repetition.
    ‘You lucky, boss. I been Tamman. No abos there now. I seen tammanwool.’
    The conversation left Lestrade behind, which was exactly what the abo was about to do. ‘Can you find the tammanwool for me?’
    ‘Sure, boss. We go now,’ and he took to his heels, moving off at a low run down the road, Lestrade staggering in his wake. Probably, thought Lestrade, the wake of the long white cloud. Or was that somewhere else? The sun began to climb as the abo took to the moors, padding silently through the yellow fields of mustard around the village and up on to the greyness of the hills, splashed here and there with the white of the heather and the yellow and green of the gorse. Lestrade prided himself on being a fit man, but his temples and lungs felt as if they were going to burst. Always, the retreating figure of the abo ahead was like a needle in his flesh, forcing him on. God, thought Lestrade, the black bastard’s going all the way to Constantine. Four miles. God, he thought again, perhaps he’s going all the way to Australia? His shirt was hanging out in an undignified flapping at his waist. He had long since lost his bowler and his collar stood out at an angle from his neck. He hoped to God he didn’t meet anyone who knew he was an inspector of detectives from Scotland Yard, as his image would never recover.
    Then he realised the abo had stopped. He was crouching, like a coiled spring in the low, twisted trunks below Mawnan Church, where the vicar had seen his lion weeks earlier. The bastard wasn’t even out of breath and Lestrade was on his hands and knees, fighting to keep the pain out of his tortured lungs.
    ‘There, boss. Tammanwool hole.’ The abo pointed ahead, to an overgrown outcrop of Neolithic earthwork. Lestrade saw nothing but an overgrown outcrop of Neolithic earthwork, but the abo was adamant and Lestrade followed him through the undergrowth to a concealed opening. Even in the nostrils of a city copper, unused to country airs and wide now with the exertion of the run, could fail to