The Hand of God Read Online Free PDF

just waiting for you, Frank.’ Leaning against the sink, Callender folded his arms. ‘And it’s not like Mrs Scanlon’s going anywhere, is it?’
    Scudder tilted his head, as if trying to make eye contact with the deceased. ‘Terrible business.’
    ‘That’s for sure. Have they fished the husband out of the canal yet?’
    ‘They were doing that when I left,’ Scudder explained. ‘I thought I’d better get up here straight away.’
    ‘Makes sense,’ Callender agreed.
    ‘We don’t really have the manpower to deal with two crime scenes at once. Then again, we don’t normally get this kind of thing in Berkshire.’ He shot Callender a look. ‘It’s not the big bad city, after all.’
    ‘We didn’t normally get this kind of thing in Mile End either,’ the inspector observed, without rancour. He was used to being pigeonholed as the big city cop; the Met policeman in exile. It came with the territory. He and his wife had left London eighteen months previously. After the best part of twenty years of putting up with her husband working the mean streets of the East End, Carole Callender pined for the quiet life. The inspector just wanted
a
quiet life. Although perhaps not as quiet as the one he had had up until 4 p.m. this afternoon. Unpleasant though they were, these deaths were the first interesting thing Callender had come across since he had walked through the front doors of Newbury police station to start the long, slow,
boring
descent into retirement.
    Be careful what you wish for
, he admonished himself as he watched Scudder’s glasses resume their southward migration down his nose.
    ‘No, I suppose not.’ Scudder straightened himself up and retrieved his bag. ‘And the nearest thing we had to a local celebrity, too.’
    ‘Who? Mrs Scanlon?’
    ‘No, the husband. Hugh Scanlon. He was a famous journalist.’
    Callender thought about it for a moment. ‘The name doesn’t ring any bells.’
    ‘This would be in the sixties. He was retired now, or largely retired. He still produced the odd book, I think. Spies were his thing. The Cold War. Reds under the bed, and all that.’
    ‘Like John le Carré?’ Callender asked.
    ‘No, no. Like I said, he was a journalist. He was an expert on traitors in the security services, people like . . . whodyamacallit . . . Philby and Maclean.’
    ‘Maybe a spy killed him,’ Callender quipped, already bored with the conversation.
    ‘I don’t know about that. It looks like the old fella had been drinking heavily. We found a thermos flask with whisky in it by the side of the canal. Looks like he’d drunk most of it.’
    Callender frowned. ‘So he could have just fallen in and drowned?’
    ‘I would have said that was most likely.’ Scudder readjusted his specs again, gesturing at Marjorie Scanlon with his chin as he did so. ‘If it wasn’t for her.’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘Unless he had an accident and she found him, then ran home and topped herself out of grief.’
    ‘It doesn’t seem very likely,’ Callender mused.
    Scudder stared at the woman, as if he was expecting her to offer up an explanation of what had happened. ‘You don’t think,’ he said finally, ‘. . . we couldn’t be talking about
foul play
, could we?’
    ‘That, Frank,’ Callender smiled, ‘is what I am looking for you to enlighten me on.’
    Sitting in the otherwise empty first-class compartment of the 4.47 to Paddington, Martin Palmer rested his head against the cool glass of the window as he contemplated another productive day. After attending to the Scanlons, he had enjoyed a most agreeable pork pie, washed down by a pint of Berkshire Traditional Pale Ale, in a pub called the Red Lion overlooking the village green. It was a modest repast but enough to keep him going until he got home and his mother placed his dinner before him.
    After ambling back to the train station, he had been dismayed to discover that there would be a wait of more than an hour for the next train back into town.