Cold Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page B

colleagues coincide. Now, Mr Venn, we’re clear about this, aren’t we? We’ve always done all we can to provideTVInvicta with good local stories, and you’ve supported us in return. It would be nice to return to this – symbiotic – relationship, wouldn’t it?’ Not waiting for a reply, which could hardly be in the negative, she stood. ‘It’s a magnificent view, isn’t it?’
    He stood too, magnanimous in defeat. ‘I like the way they’re developing the city, I must say.’
    She patted back the conversational ball. ‘But it’s a pity that we’ve got no concert hall or proper theatre and that plans for a new library were axed.’
    ‘Imagine the City Fathers putting themselves up as contenders for European City of Culture indeed!’ he snorted. ‘Pathetic, wasn’t it, to think they could lift that sort of honour!’
    ‘I suppose you couldn’t do a bit of campaigning to improve facilities for music – I love the Cathedral, but not as a concert venue, and now we’ve got a link with the Philharmonia…’
     
    All sweetness and light to end the discussion, then. And he ushered her down the stairs in person.
    On impulse, she didn’t go straight back to the car but to Castle Street to one of her favourite shoe shops. Succumbing to one temptation, in the form of evening shoes that positively caressed the feet, she found herself ready for another, a proper breath of fresh air. It wouldn’t take much longer to walk back via the Dane John Mound, or at least in the grounds in which it stood. As a Roman burial ground, it wasn’t of any particular interest, as far as she knew, since it had been remodelled to suiteighteenth-century sensibilities. Now the area hosted occasional food and other fairs, and, even on a winter’s day, provided pleasant walking away from the crowds of shoppers. Today only a couple of pairs of pensioners were taking the air, trying pointedly to ignore the jeers and catcalls of a group of schoolkids.
    Cheek their elders, would they? She strode closer. They were mostly girls but a couple of lads were larking around on one of the benches. She’d rather not know what was so amusing them. But that was what she should, as a cop, be doing: she should be keeping an eye on kids of just that age – the younger teens. They might not all be happy-slappers but she for one treated the bye-laws with respect and expected others to as well – so if they were carving their initials or daubing the seats with magic markers, they’d hear a few words. Evidence? Better get some of that too before she waded in. She slowed to a halt some fifty yards short of them. If they took any notice all they’d see was a lady of a certain age making a phone call. What they might not notice was that she was using a pretty up- to-date , and certainly desirable, bit of mobile technology and also photographing their activities. There’d be a dozen or so, maybe fifteen.
    She could always delete the results later.
    They’d clocked her. Delete, hell! Despite their youth, they exuded menace. She sent the images to Mark’s phone, and switched on her police radio, calling in urgently. There was no time for any more.Like starlings, they wheeled and swooped. In seconds she was surrounded, and she couldn’t imagine it was to admire the carrier with her new shoes. The very situation when you want both hands free and she’d got this encumbrance! Plus a damned handbag.
    She left the radio open. The switchboard would be able to locate her and pick up what was going on.
    Which was, for the moment, just a confrontation. Perhaps her height fazed them. Or the fact she looked more like a headmistress than they’d expected, and some residual respect still operated.
    Meanwhile, they must not see fear in her face. Or shock, if they hit her. That was the idea, wasn’t it? And what should she do if she were attacked? Grab the would-be assailant? Good publicity that would be. She could see the headlines now:
Top Cop floors City Tot.
Maybe