The Calling of the Grave Read Online Free PDF

Jean. If you're both free this weekend perhaps you'd
like to come over for Sunday lunch?'
        'We'll
look forward to it,' Wainwright said.
        Simms
turned to me as an afterthought. 'Anything you'd care to add, Dr Hunter?'
        I
looked at Wainwright. His expression was politely enquiring, but his eyes held
a predatory satisfaction. OK, if that's the way you want it. . .
        'No.'
        'Then
I'll leave you to it,' Simms said. 'We'll be making an early start in the
morning.'
    ----
        

Chapter 3
        
        I was
still fuming later that evening when I arrived at the pub I'd been booked into.
It was a few miles from Black Tor, a place called Oldwich I'd been told was
less than a twenty-minute drive away. Either the directions were overly
optimistic or I'd made a wrong turning somewhere, because it was three-quarters
of an hour before I saw the smattering of lights in the darkness ahead.
         About
time. It had been a long day and driving on the moor in the pitch blackness
wasn't my idea of fun. The memory of how I'd let Wainwright outmanoeuvre me
still burned. Given his reputation I should have known better. A misty drizzle
flecked the windscreen, refracting the glare from my headlights as I pulled
into the pub car park. A flaking sign hung outside, the words The
Trencherman's Arms faded almost to nothing.
        The
pub wasn't much to look at from the outside, a long, low building with peeling
whitewash and a sagging thatched roof. First impressions were borne out when I
pushed through the scuffed and creaking doors. An odour of stale beer
complemented the threadbare carpets and cheap horse brasses hanging on the
walls. The bar was empty, the fireplace unlit and cold. But I'd stayed in worse
places.
        Just.
        The
landlord was a sour-faced man in his fifties, painfully thin except for a
startling pot belly that looked as hard as a bowling ball. 'If you want food we
stop serving in twenty minutes,' he told me with poor grace, sliding a broken
key fob across the worn bar.
        The
room was about what I'd expected, none too clean but not bad enough to complain
about. The mattress squeaked when I set my bag on it, sagging under the weight.
I would have liked a shower, but I was hungry and the shared bathroom had only
a rust-stained bath.
        But
food and freshening up could wait. My mobile phone had a signal, which was a bonus.
I pulled the hard-backed chair next to the room's small radiator as I called
home.
        I
always tried to call at the same time, so that Alice could keep to something
like a routine. Kara worked three days a week at the hospital, but her hours
meant that she was able to pick our daughter up from school when I was away.
She was a radiologist, a fact that had been the source of many long discussions
between us when she'd become pregnant. We'd not planned on having children for
another few years, by which time I hoped to be getting enough police work to
supplement my university wage so Kara could stay at home and look after the
baby.
        Naturally,
things hadn't turned out quite as we'd planned. But neither of us regretted it.
Even though Kara didn't really need to work any more, I hadn't argued with her
decision to go back part- time when Alice started school. She enjoyed her job,
and the extra money didn't hurt. Besides, I could hardly object, given the
demands of my own career.
        'Perfect
timing,' Kara said when she picked up. 'There's a young lady here hoping you'd
call before she goes to bed.'
        I
smiled as she passed the phone over.
        'Daddy,
I did you a picture!'
        'That's
great! Is it another horse?'
        'No,
it's our house, except with yellow curtains because I liked them better. Mummy
says she does too.'
        I
felt some of my anger and frustration slough away as I listened to my
daughter's excited account. Eventually Kara sent her off to brush her teeth and
came back on the phone herself. I