Dusty Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

near the centre of a run-down East Lancashire town. She then focused in to provide a graphic word-picture of the floodlit arena at the scene of this crime, emphasizing the diligent work of Jack Chadwick’s team, dwelling on the number of pictures the official photographer was taking and the number of possible clues being bagged from the debris. She made excellent bricks from very little straw, her mind on a more national job with BBC or ITV and greater things ahead.
    There was much local interest in her report, of course. An old corpse and thoughts of mischief long buried were bound to arouse curiosity in Brunton itself, especially when many of the older listeners could play the game of pinpointing the exact place where this body had been discovered.
    One man, especially, listened to every word of the young reporter’s coverage with rapt attention. He caught the first news of the discovery on the Tuesday lunch-time bulletin, then listened again to the evening coverage, eager to see if anything had yet been added to the bald facts.
    He stared at the radio for a few moments after the announcer had switched to the sports news, willing the uncaring box to give him further facts, to tell him exactly how much those policemen and civilians at the site had discovered; what the police were thinking at this moment; how many resources they proposed to devote to this old crime with the scents gone cold.
    He learned none of this, of course, and he found that his feverish speculation disturbed him far more than the known facts. He could not settle in the house. Normally he liked being alone, enjoyed his privacy and having to answer to no one, but tonight he wished he had company. It would have distracted him, forced him to think of other things and deal with other issues.
    He was surprised when he looked at his watch and found that it was still only ten past eight. He went out into the cool night. The clouds were lifting and he could see the stars. There would be a frost tonight. He felt as if the elements were conspiring against him, that he would much rather have had it cloudy. He could not quite say why that was.
    He drove into the town, stopped to buy a copy of the
Evening Telegraph
at the brightly lit Pakistani one-stop shop on the main road. He put the light on in his car and read the front-page coverage of the body found in the area of what had once been Balaclava Street. They had pinned the name down for locals, as the radio reporter had not been able to do. It wasn’t the street he had expected, but it was the next one to it, one he had walked along many times.
    The very sight of that once-familiar name in print made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
    But other than that, the paper had nothing to add to what he had already learned from the radio. He should have expected that, of course: they must have gone to press well before the evening radio report was compiled. But he felt he had to explore every source, to rake together whatever scraps he could to feed his hunger for facts about what they had actually found at the place.
    He read the newsprint painstakingly again, looking carefully at the pictures of the piles of rubble. They were given perspective only by the single factory chimney in the background, included in each shot by a photographer anxious for anything to give depth and interest to this drab and featureless scene. The man turned as he was bidden to page four for the conclusion of the material, and found only an official statement from a Superintendent Tucker that enquiries were proceeding and that this death was being treated as suspicious until it could be proved otherwise.
    The car was getting cold and the windows had misted up. He must have been sitting there longer than he thought, reading and re-reading the evening paper. He felt suddenly that he must not draw attention to himself. He switched off the internal light, directed the fan on to the windscreen, waited impatiently as it cleared