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

interfering. In the academy they said it’s an easy way of making someone commit a crime so you have leverage over them.”
    “They taught you that, did they?” Mitchell asked. Again, Ruth felt she’d failed another unknown test.
    She grabbed ten paper evidence bags from the box, stuck them in the crime-kit, balanced the sign on top, and hauled the trolley to the door. It clattered into a desk and then the wall as she hurried outside. Mitchell and Riley were waiting patiently at the foot of the cabin’s ramp. The sergeant gave her a long, thoughtful stare.
    “Let’s go,” he said, setting a brisk pace as they left Police House and headed towards the train station. “Riley, what do we know?”
    “The note informs us that a body’s been found two miles north of Ringwood Junction,” Riley said. “It was spotted just after dawn by a guard on a goods train heading north. Word was telegraphed back when the train reached its next stop, and then passed along, up, and around, until it reached us.”
    Riley finished at about the same time as one of the trolley’s small wheels got caught in an old steel grating. Ruth heaved it back onto the road and then had to run a few paces to catch up.
    “Any thoughts, cadet?” Mitchell asked.
    “I suppose the obvious one is why are we involved. Is this something Serious Crimes is meant to handle?”
    “I told you before, Serious Crimes isn’t meant to handle anything,” Mitchell said. “We’re to sit in our cabin, file paperwork, and neither be seen nor heard.”
    “Then why are we going?” she asked.
    “Good question. Who signed the note, Riley?”
    “R.C.,” Riley said.
    “You know who that is?” Mitchell asked.
    “No, sir,” Ruth said.
    “That’s Rebecca Cavendish. Or the Railway Company as she likes to think of herself. She’s one of the original drivers who brought the engines down from the museums during the first few weeks after The Blackout. You know that story?”
    Ruth shook her head.
    “What did they teach you?” Mitchell muttered. “The old power stations were destroyed during The Blackout. What little oil there is in Britain was too deep for us to drill. The few solar panels and wind turbines that still worked were too large to be moved. But there’s coal. Rebecca, and people like her, kept old steam engines running for fun. If you can maintain a century-old locomotive, you can build a new one. They became the blueprints for our new engines, and for the coal-fired power stations. But the coal is in the north, in Wales, Scotland, and Northern England, and the food was here in the south. The roads were made impassable by millions of stalled cars, so the railways became our lifeline. We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for her, and some of us honour our debts. When she asks, we do, because there’s probably a reason why she sent for us.”
    “Oh.” Ruth tried to think of a polite way to frame her next question, but there really wasn’t one. “What I meant,” she said, “was why aren’t the railway police dealing with the crime.”
    “Probably because Rebecca thought Mister Mitchell could do with some fresh air,” Riley said.
    Mitchell gave a grunt halfway between agreement and annoyance as he nimbly sidestepped a delivery cart. Ruth managed to haul the trolley out of the way just before the horse lashed out with an angry hoof. The working day had long since begun, but the roads were far from empty. There were carts delivering to the market, messengers taking mail and telegrams to the homes and businesses in the centre of town, and labourers hurrying to construction sites.
    A woman wrestled a squeaking old-world pushchair out of the door of a greengrocer’s and threw the police officers a glare when they didn’t stop to help. Next to it was a bookstore with a sign out front reading ‘New stock from Hay now in.’ Beyond that was a clockmaker, the window full of mostly new timepieces, all of which told her that…
    “Sir, it’s been nine