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

notice the stench. Lestrade pulled back, almost gagging. The abo chuckled, seemingly revelling in it. ‘Tammanwool,’ he said, triumphantly.
    ‘Well, where is it?’
    ‘Not ’ere now, boss. Gone away. We find ’im,’ and he sprang to his feet. Lestrade caught the dark, sinewy arm.
    ‘Will it come back, the tammanwool?’
    ‘Oh, yes, boss. Tonight, late. ’E come back ’ere.’
    ‘Then we’ll wait.’ Lestrade was emphatic. ‘You go home now, Uku. Don’t tell anyone about our hunt this morning. Do you understand? Anyone.’ It couldn’t have sounded very authoritative, even though Lestrade was recovering his composure. A wreck of a man sprawled in the undergrowth hardly inspired confidence. But the abo had gone.
    Lestrade had gone alone. Ordinarily, he would have taken constables with him. Sergeant Winch would have been at his elbow. But the whole thing was too bizarre. Too untried. He was aware always of Nimrod Frost – ‘People haven’t forgotten the Ripper. Or the
Struwwelpeter
murders.’ Lestrade was McNaghten’s best man and somehow his whole career was on the line, hunting dingoes in the outback of Cornwall.
    So he was alone. The moon wasn’t there to help him tonight. Or at least, the clouds were hiding it, scudding, conspirator-like across the sky. Lestrade didn’t like dogs. Big ones, little ones, it didn’t matter. And here he was, crouching in the thickets below Mawnan Church, waiting to catch one. True to the speed of the Cornwall Constabulary, the Chief Constable had not yet responded to the urgent appeal for firearms sent by Lestrade. Fortunately, the inspector had been able to borrow a 12-bore from Farmer Pemberton and it was crooked in his arm now. Lestrade was never
very
happy with a gun this size. He had seen the result of too many careless loadings and he even carried the scars of a rogue shot on his own shoulder. He fumbled with the cartridges. One. Two. Click up the barrels. Now to wait.
    Behind him reared the blackness of the Mawnan earthwork, silent as the graves that lay beyond it. William Lamb was to be buried the next day. If Lestrade was lucky tonight, his killer might be buried before him. The owls were flying, hooting as they swooped over field and forest. Lestrade had seen one at dusk, an eerie white in a ghostly silence, winging its way over the heather in search of prey.
    Policemen – those who become detective inspectors anyway – have a sixth sense. Not that Lestrade felt at one with Nature. Yet it was
something
which made him turn, gun levelled. There had been no noise, no warning. Above him on the earthwork, an animal he had never seen before, and never would again. In the split second before he fired, he saw its teeth gleaming, its tongue hanging out, its eyes small and piggy in the fox-like head. His fingers squeezed on both triggers and the roar lit up the bushes. He fell backwards, unprepared for the recoil and rolled through the trees before struggling upright. Had he hit it? Was it coming for him? Could he outrun it? After this morning, out of the question. Could it climb trees? Could he? But the panic within him subsided. There was no movement, no sound. He fumbled in the leaves for the gun and reloaded. He must have killed it. Both barrels, at almost point-blank range. He must have killed it.
    He hadn’t.
    There was nothing on the crest of the earthwork but leaves and grass. Damn. Lestrade whirled round, now in this direction, now that. Nothing. For a long time, nothing. Then a crack. A twig snapping? Over there, down in the trees. The inspector crawled forward, his fingers sweating now on the trigger. Please don’t let me blow my foot off, he thought. The awful smell came to him again, and for the first time, a snuffling whine, then a snarl. There was a hiss above his head, then another. He crouched lower, trying to focus his sights on something ahead. But it was so dark. He couldn’t see anything.
    ‘Tammanwool, boss.’ A voice sounded behind him. It