Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes Read Online Free PDF Page A

flourish the paper was unfurled, and his face disappeared from view.
    There was a long, awkward silence broken by Riley. “We were set up a week ago,” the detective constable said, her tone clipped. “Technically we’re to deal with inter-jurisdictional overlap.”
    “I’m sorry, what’s that?” Ruth asked.
    “You know how the police is structured?” Mitchell growled. “Each city and town has its own police force. Three officers in a market town, more in a city, too many in Twynham. There’s the Secret Intelligence Service, who are misnamed for many reasons, but who are charged with investigating crimes against the state. The railways have their guards, the mines their provosts, the docks and border towns have the Marines, yes?”
    “Yes,” Ruth agreed.
    “Right, so if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have realised there is no overlap. This is a dead-end unit, cadet. Welcome to Purgatory. The eleventh circle to which Riley and I have been sent because we refuse to go away. If you insist on asking more questions, I’d suggest you start by asking yourself who you crossed to end up here.”
    Ruth opened her mouth. She closed it again.
    “If we’re keeping her,” Riley said, “can I use her for witness statements?”
    “Knock yourself out,” the sergeant mumbled. “Just do it quietly.”
    “Do you know how to write a report?” Riley asked.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Ruth said.
    “I’m not ma’am,” Riley said. “You call me detective when we’re in front of civilians, Riley when we’re not. You can have this desk.” She lifted a pile of files off a rickety chair and dumped them on an equally large pile on the desk.
    “Yesterday evening there was a fight at the docks,” Riley said. “Fifty-three sailors were involved. Go through the statements and find out who started it.”
    Ruth searched around for an intelligent question. The best she could come up with was, “If this was at the docks, and they were all sailors, doesn’t that make it the Navy’s jurisdiction?”
    “It should do,” Mitchell said. “Tell her why we got landed with the paperwork, Riley.”
    “Because,” the constable said, in a singsong sigh as if she was parroting something repeated to her many times, “a good police officer knows to pass off the paperwork any time they can.”
    “Yes,” Mitchell said, “but tell her why it got passed on to us.”
    Riley threw Mitchell a venomous look which, due to the newspaper, the sergeant completely failed to notice. “Because,” Riley said, this time as if the words were being dragged out of her. “I went to help the Marines break up the fight. It was at that point the captain of the SS Nile reported a cargo of oranges was being unloaded when the fight began. He claimed four crates had been lost over the side of the wharf.”
    “It’s the next part that’s most significant,” Mitchell said. It sounded like he was smiling. “Go on, tell her what you did.”
    “What anyone would do,” Riley said. “I jumped in to retrieve the crates.”
    “She jumped in,” Mitchell repeated. “Cadet, why did she do that?”
    The unexpected question caught Ruth stumbling for a reply. She thought quickly. “Um… because the laws of salvage mean those oranges would have been hers?”
    “See,” Riley said. “She gets it. Just like any normal person would.”
    “A normal person would think twice before jumping into the sea,” Mitchell said. “Tell the cadet what you found.”
    “Nothing,” Riley admitted. “There were no crates.”
    “Then the fight was a way of covering up the theft?” Ruth guessed.
    “Precisely,” Mitchell said. “And what does that tell us, cadet?”
    “Um… That sailors can’t be trusted?” Ruth said.
    “Not quite, and a good copper avoids such bald generalisations,” Mitchell said. “It tells us that the Marines were not complicit in the crime. If they’d been bribed, there would have been no need for the diversion. Honesty is a rare