Murder on Page One Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Well I hope you enjoy yourself.’
    ‘Might you go?’
    ‘Doubt it. Do you have many friends in London?’
    ‘Yes. I spent three years at school in Slough, and most of my contemporaries found jobs here. One of them is getting married, but I didn’t know him so well, and I have not been invited.’
    Flick did not comment. She had smooth skin and a good figure. Baggo wondered what she did at weekends. Whatever it was, she showed no interest in making him part of it.

6

    Osborne watched morosely as the clear fat that had dripped from his two pies congealed into a white, glacial skin on the plate. He stubbed out his cigarette in the middle and tried to make the butt stand upright in the greasy sludge. He had waited in the alcove at the back of the pub in Mile End Road for over an hour and there had been no sign of Weasel. The investigation was going nowhere, and Palfrey had been giving him grief. Peters was checking and re-checking ground already well-covered, while Fortune and Baggo spent their time reading Debut Dagger entries. Osborne knew he needed a break, and hoped one would come soon. Most of the villains he had caught had made stupid mistakes, and confessions had been more easily come by in the days before interviews were recorded. This killer, assuming it was one person, was almost certainly clever. Too clever, perhaps.
    Retirement couldn’t come quickly enough. Alone at his table, he closed his eyes and imagined easy days in Spain and a pension. Would he jeopardise that if he gave Fortune’s pert arse a playful slap on his last day? Not worth the risk, more’s the pity. He checked his watch, got up and left. The barman pointedly ignored him.
    Hunching his shoulders against a biting wind and sleety rain, he had nearly reached his car when he heard a familiar voice behind him: ‘Where do you think you’re going, Noelly? You’re going to like this.’
    * * *
    ‘That’s old-fashioned police work for you,’ Osborne gloated, as he wrote ‘Willie Johnson’ on the whiteboard. ‘No photo yet. But before Peters and I go to see him, just check to see if you’ve been completely wasting your time, Felicity.’
    Trying to conceal her annoyance, Flick went to her desk. Baggo made coffee then scanned the e-files Mrs Smith had sent.
    It took Flick nearly quarter of an hour to find what she was looking for. Osborne put his feet on the desk, opened a bag of doughnuts and embarked on one of his Thumper Binks stories. If Peters was bored, he hid it well. Baggo looked from narrator to audience and smiled.
    ‘Willie Johnson is on Stanhope’s list,’ Flick said, cutting across Osborne’s punch-line. ‘He’s also one of the Debut Dagger rejects. He entered in hard copy: paper, not e-mail, as you’d expect. Revenge is the theme of his book.’
    ‘Give us the short version,’ Osborne snapped.
    ‘Well the first part is set fifteen years ago. A CID sergeant goes to a murder scene and takes an ornamental box and smears it with blood. He plants it on the victim’s business partner. The rest of the book is in the present. The business partner is serving life. He admits the murder to impress the Parole Board. When he’s released he takes his revenge on the victim’s wife, the real murderer, and the corrupt policeman, who was sleeping with her. Not a bad story, really, but the writing’s terrible.’
    ‘Let’s have a gander.’ Osborne seized the sheets of paper and began to study them.
    ‘What did he give as his address, Sarge?’ Peters asked.
    Flick consulted Stanhope’s list. ‘1 Makepeace Road, Littlepool, near Harpenden.’ She smiled. ‘Of course there will be only one place on Makepeace Road: Littlepool Open Prison. Is there anything wrong? Sir?’
    Osborne’s face had fallen and lost some of its colour. He grimaced. He did not look like a detective who had just cracked a case.
    ‘You go and see him, Sergeant. Take Peters. And if he asks about me, don’t tell him anything. That devil’s supposed to be