The Price of Butcher's Meat Read Online Free PDF

generally knackered cops.
    Alcatraz, we call it, ’cos the only way out is in a box.
    What I did say, all grumpy, was, “Were it Cap that put you up to this then?”
    She grabbed hold of a bedpan and said, “That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Andy Dalziel. And if you let out so much as a hint to Cap what I’ve been talking to you about, I’ll stick this thing so far up your behind, they’ll need a tow truck to haul it out! You just lie here and think about what I’ve said.”
    “Yes, miss,” I said meekly. “Tha knows, lass, Pete Pascoe’s a very lucky man.”
    “You think so?” she said, looking a bit embarrassed.
    “Aye,” I said. “It’s not every husband’s got a big strapping wife he can send up on the roof if ever a tile comes off in a high wind.”
    She laughed out loud. That’s one of the things I like about Ellie Pascoe. No girlish giggles there. She enjoys a real good laugh.
    “You old sod,” she said. “I’m off now. I’ve got my own life too. Peter sends his love. Says to tell you that he’s got things running so smooth down at the Factory that he can’t understand how they ever managed with you. Take care now.”
    She bent over me and kissed me. Bright, brave, and bonny. Pete Pascoe really was a lucky man.
    And she’s got lovely knockers.
    Any road, I did think about what she’d said and a couple of days later when I were talking to Cap, I said I were thinking of going to the Cedars.
    She said, “But you hate that place. You once went to visit someone there and you said it was like a temperance hotel without the wild parties.”

    2 4
    R E G I N A L D H I L L
    That’s the trouble with words, they come back to haunt you.
    “Mebbe that’s what I need now,” I lied. “Couple of weeks peace and quiet and a breath of sea air. Me mind’s made up.”
    I should have known, men make up their minds like they make up their beds—if there’s a woman around she’ll pull all the bedding off and start again.
    Next time she came she had a bunch of brochures.
    She said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Andy, and I reckon you’re right about the sea air. But I don’t think the Cedars is the place for you. You’d be surrounded by other cops there with nothing to do but talk about crooks and cases and getting back on the job. No, this is the place for you. The Avalon.”
    “You mean that Yankee clinic place?” I said, glancing at the brochures.
    “The Avalon Foundation is originally American, yes, but it’s been so successful it now has clinics worldwide. There’s one in Australia, one in Switzerland . . .”
    “I’m not going to Switzerland,” I said. “All them cuckoo clocks, I’d never sleep.”
    “Of course you’re not. You are going to the one in Sandytown, where as well as the clinic and its attendant nursing home, there’s an old house that’s been converted into a convalescent home. My old headmistress, Kitty Bagnold, you may recall, is seeing out her days in the nursing home. I visit her from time to time, so it will be very con venient for me to have both my broken eggs in one basket.”
    That were the clincher, of course, her managing to make it sound like I’d be doing her a favor by coming here. I asked who’d be paying.
    She said my insurance would cover most of it and in any case hadn’t I always said that if you ended up with life left over at the end of your money, the state would take care of you, but if you ended up with money left over at the end of your life, you were an idiot!
    There’s them bloody haunting words again!
    Any road, I blustered a bit for the show of things but soon caved in.

    T H E P R I C E O F B U T C H E R ’ S M E AT 2 5
    When I told Ellie Pascoe I thought she’d have been dead chuffed, but she seemed right disappointed I weren’t going to the Cedars. Even when I assured her I wouldn’t let Cap be out of pocket here, she still didn’t seem too pleased.
    Women, eh? You can fuck ’em but you can’t