Spend Game Read Online Free PDF

mine. I unkeyed it easily and stepped inside the place. I waved Margaret up but she wouldn’t come,which was a pity. Women have this instinctive ability to judge if anybody’s been in lately, if anything’s out of place. I’d have to manage on my own.
    Apart from a small Continental clock with a rare platform escapement (you can still pick them up for less than a day’s wages) there wasn’t an antique in the place. And it hadn’t been done over, either. Neat, fairly clean; signs that some resident obsessional woman came in to dissect the joint every morning. There was a note from a daily help explaining something complicated about the groceries and wanting a weighty decision on the fish delivery next Thursday. I read it for background, but got nowhere.
    I must have been in there an hour. Margaret was on tenterhooks all this time, and hooted her horn several despairing times. Nothing. I re-set the alarm and swarmed my inelegant way down the windmill’s running struts to ground level.
    ‘Ta, doowerlink,’ I told her. She was mad at me for taking the risk, but drove us back to the side road where I’d seen Leckie done in last night. We went in silence, me staring politely at the countryside and Margaret changing gears noisily to show me how mad she was at me.
    There was no sign of Leckie’s motor. One ugly set of tyre burns marked the camber. A horrible whitish scar showed vividly on the elm trunk. Two bobbies measured and mapped. I told Margaret to stop, and wound the window down. We were the only vehicle except for a police car blinking its blue light for nothing, as usual.
    ‘Good morning,’ I called. ‘Can I help?’
    ‘What are you doing here, Lovejoy?’
    Oh, hell. I’d not seen Maslow, lurking behind the car. Burly, aggressive, and being all geriatric macho with a pipe and overcoat.
    ‘No, Maslow.’ I stayed pleasant. ‘Let’s begin again. What are
you
doing here?’
    ‘Leckie had an accident.’ He peered in at Margaret and walked round to memorize her number. I seized my opportunity, quickly got out and went over to the ditch. A photographer clicked away in the undergrowth. I was beside him in a flash, trampling about among the white tapes laid carefully along the ditch bottom. He yelped and tried to push me off.
    ‘Keep back there . . .’ A bobby flapped his arms hopelessly.
    I tut-tutted and trampled a bit more before climbing out. Maslow was glowering. He does it really well.
    ‘You stupid burke, Lovejoy. We’re photographing the footprints.’
    ‘Where is Leckie?’ I asked innocently.
    ‘It was last night. Leckie’s dead.’ He paused, glanced shrewdly at the ditch. I saw it coming. ‘Where were you –’
    ‘Don’t be daft, Maslow,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t sound like a proper detective in a million years.’ He’s head of our local CID. ‘I’ve alibis even –’ I smirked – ‘even for breakfast.’
    He glanced towards Margaret as she got out of the car.
    ‘You aren’t very surprised to hear the news.’
    ‘I’m more than that. I’m astonished. Why is the head goon doing spadework for a routine crash?’
    He smiled, bleak. Margaret had joined us nervously.
    ‘I know you, Lovejoy, you bastard,’ he said, all ice. ‘You’re always bother, and I don’t like it, lad. I havemore trouble with you than all the antiques dealers in the kingdom. Tell me what you know.’
    I thought a bit. ‘No,’ I answered calmly. He eyed me.
    ‘Then you’re in trouble, Lovejoy. And I’m nasty.’
    ‘I know.’ I paused. ‘Oh. One thing, Maslow. You must make a real effort to find the baddies. Otherwise . . .’
    ‘Yes, Lovejoy?’ Quiet and dangerous. The constables were suddenly still, listening.
    ‘Otherwise, keep out of my frigging road,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘While I do it for you.’
    ‘One day, lad, one day.’
    ‘Don’t fret,’ I told Margaret loudly. ‘He’s all talk.’ She made a shaky start, but that didn’t stop me squeezing my eyes at Maslow in coy