Trial by Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

had paused and grinned. 'Admit it, Helen. You really like it for the arguments.'
    Òh, I do,' Helen sighed. 'You know I do. I can't resist listening to other people's arguments.
    Especially loud, public, silly, insulting marital arguments.'
    `You're well placed here, then, darling,' said Bailey with his smile. 'Seventh heaven for a nose like yours.'
    Àctually, ' she had said, 'I'm happy most places with you.'
    He remembered the conversation with amusement as he skirted the hotel gardens, finally crossing the field at one side and climbing a fence to reach the front of the building by way of the road in preference to ill-mannered intrusion via the back wilderness of garden.
    Bailey was always courteous. His politeness was the coldest and warmest feature of his public face, giving him entry to numerous social pockets where courtesy could not be defined, let alone expressed. 'Always polite, Mr Bailey,' one streetwalker informant had stated. 'Always knows when you're in the bath.' Knew also when to accept obvious lies without comment to save face or save pain, and when not to intrude even as a friend, although in their bizarre fashion, Mr and Mrs Featherstone, licensees of The Crown Hotel and owners of same, would have welcomed him as such.
    Our man of taste, Mr Bailey the copper. Anyone who arrived at their doors, withstood the insults and the rows, the dizzying decor, the recitation of plans for improvement and instant riches, as well as the experimental nourishment, became in their eyes a man of taste.
    Bailey was aware he had reached this class, equated their definition of his taste in this respect alongside stamina and helpless curiosity, carried as always his own immunities.
    Regarding him as a friend, insofar as the Featherstone family had friends, was no guarantee of politeness. As Bailey approached the entrance to the bar, door unlocked as both a sign of proprietorial carelessness by the owners and indifference to local burglars, he sensed beyond the pane the sound of an argument. Ten a.m., the Featherstones fighting, all well with the world. Revised licensing hours allowing longer opening hours made no difference to the trading manners of the establishment, but then the laws had made no difference before.
    If the bar had been open in the a. m. s and p.m.s of life, the local uniformed police had used their well-known discretion to ignore the fact, saving the same laws to restrain only those pubs that caused trouble. There were no drugs or underage drinkers in The Crown, while the only fighting on the premises was conducted between the licensees. Even the authorities had neglected the place.
    In the huge, potentially elegant bar-room, Mrs Banks, cleaning lady, sat in a corner smoking a cigarette and drinking the half of Guinness she had poured for herself, weary from flicking her damp duster. She let herself in at eight, stopped her indifferent labours when the Featherstone family emerged from their pits. 'Can't stand the noise, dear,' she said to Bailey, shuffling into her coat, draining the glass, which she was not going to wash, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. 'They're in there,' as if any announcement were needed.
    Òh, shut up, Harold, for chrissake. Feed your big face and shut up. Let me get on with this cooking.'
    `Cooking! You call that cooking? You couldn't get a job feeding pigs.'
    `What about you, then? Call this filthy stuff coffee? I wouldn't give it to the bloody cat.' A crescendo, followed by Harold's voice.
    `Fuck off back to the smoke, then, why don't you?' Not screamed, but loud enough, calm enough to penetrate the deafest ears, shortened by Bailey's presence. 'Oh, it's you, Mr Bailey.
    Didn't mean you. I meant her.'
    `Shut up, Harold. Shut up.' Very loud, louder than Harold's casual, vicious invitation.
    Bernadette Featherstone, shriller in voice but quicker to recover, forced a smile so fleeting a blink would have missed its presence. 'Yes, it's Mr West,' she said. 'Superintendent