How the Dead Live (Factory 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

what you draw your bleeding wages for. I imagine it’s some old barracks where they grind out electric light by hand. I was born in Hackney, how should I bloody know?’
    ‘Mind your ulcer,’ I said. ‘Who reported her missing anyway? The husband?’
    ‘No, that’s the point,’ he said. ‘I tell you she was reported missing directly to the Chief Constable, not the local police, the local police knew about it but did nothing.’
    ‘Doesn’t seem much point their having any local law down there at all,’ I said. ‘Amazing.’
    ‘I know you’re easily amazed,’ said Bowman. ‘I’m just telling you what we’ve got.’
    ‘OK,’ I said, ‘and did the local people finally get pushed into moving on it?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Bowman, ‘it says here they finally went up in January, here it is, the fifteenth, 1985.’
    ‘And did they find anything? Do anything?’
    ‘Well of course they fucking didn’t!’ Bowman yelled. ‘Otherwise no one would have needed to send for you, would they, you stupid man?’
    ‘You radiate police charm, Charlie,’ I said. ‘You’re what tourists adore about Britain’s wonderful coppers. Pull your skirts down a bit, though; your knobbly knees are showing.’
    ‘I might be going to report this conversation, Sergeant.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, ‘you never do.’
    He said with calm ferocity: ‘I’m going to try to keep my temperwith you, it’s an order from your Deputy Commander.’
    ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I’ve had it as well. I don’t know how we’re going to manage it quite but let’s have a good try, dear, shall we, and see if we can make the marriage work. Meantime, let’s stick to this file. This local trainband, did they get a warrant out to search the Mardy place?’
    ‘Seems not. And don’t ask me why not!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not the officer on this case, I’m just handing it over to you.’
    ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but you can read, can’t you, and you’ve got the file right side up on your side of the desk.’
    ‘All right,’ he grumbled, bending over it, ‘all the police down there have sent back is a load of official waffle ending up with no grounds for suspicion.’
    ‘Sounds funny them saying that,’ I said, ‘when here’s this woman been missing six months – everyone from the Chief Constable downwards seems agreed on that bit.’
    ‘Look,’ said Bowman nastily, ‘I’m tired of this conversation. Why don’t you forget about your fucking great brain and get your feet into your high-heeled boots? Get down there – do it now.’ He threw the file across at me and said: ‘Catch it, it’s all yours.’
    It seemed as reasonable an order as you could ever get from him so I stood up and he said: ‘Check with an Inspector Kedward when you arrive and mind your bloody manners.’
    I said nothing but picked up the file and went down into the freezing street. I boarded a bus going up to the West End; I didn’t feel like going back to Earlsfield. I would buy a razor and a packet of blades at this country place. At Oxford Circus I let myself be jostled by office-leavers making in a flood for the underground in the teeth of a murderous east wind, having watched them sunk in their newspaper or paperback, frozen, exhausted in the world that meant the end of their day. I dropped off the bus in a traffic jam at a fast food; it was called the Lazy Jay. I went in and ordered a hamburger without the roll and plenty of sauce; a black girl served me.
    ‘How you like it cooked, man?’
    ‘Now if you like,’ I said, ‘I’m in a hurry.’
    I paid, and a bit poorer, walked north from Oxford Street to a pub with drunks and cab-drivers sitting at raw plastic tables off Cleveland Street; it was called the Yorkshire Grey. Big black women with net bags filled with spices and ladies’ fingers complained or laughed fatly in a man’s ears – skinny white women examined the bar for likely punters and, finding none, settled for what wandered in and out