Wages of Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

were. An effective combination.’ The Chief Superintendent tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘That was recognized by the powers that be. Without me, you’d never have made Chief Inspector, you know.’
    â€˜I’m well aware exactly how much my promotion owed to you, sir.’
    Tucker glared at him, but Peach’s countenance was impassive, his eyes firmly fixed on the wall behind his chief’s head. Tucker had planned this as a lordly offer, but it seemed to be turning into a plea from him. He said rather desperately, ‘Well, I think the time has come for you to resume your duties in CID, Peach. I shall be making arrangements for you to do so.’
    â€˜Beg pardon, sir, but shouldn’t you discuss my future career path with me, at the end of my year in uniform?’
    â€˜I – I suppose I should, if we played things by the letter of the law. But you were never one for playing things strictly by the book and—’
    â€˜Stickler for it now, sir. Perhaps it’s the result of a year in uniform. Perhaps that’s why I decided that my future path lay in Traffic Policing. Quite consoling, the book seems, sometimes. Like the rules of golf, sir. They always say you can use them to your advantage, if you know them well enough, don’t they?’ Peach smiled innocently into the increasingly reddening face beyond the desk.
    Tucker did not want to get on to the subject of golf, where he had never got beyond the tyro status in many years of effort and Peach had reached a single-figure handicap five years after giving up cricket. ‘Look here, Peach, we need you here. And you must surely realize that CID is your natural métier.’
    â€˜Need me, sir?’
    â€˜We need your experience. Your insights. Your natural talent as a thief-taker.’ Tucker tried not to speak through clenched teeth. He had intended to patronize his man and admit him back into CID as a great personal favour; he could scarcely believe that he was now saying these things.
    Percy beamed at him with a delight which was almost that of a child. ‘Wonderful to hear you say these things about me, sir, needless to say. I believe your judgement is a little clouded by your natural affection for me, but I’m very touched, all the same.’ He spent a couple of seconds trying hard to look very touched. ‘But it’s not quite as simple as you suggest, unfortunately. It is hardly modest for me to relay it, but the Chief Superintendent in Traffic has been saying equally complimentary things, you see. I’d more or less decided that my future lay there.’ Even if he had actually decided that he would be out of Traffic like shit off a shovel during the very first minute after his year in uniform was concluded, there was no need for Tommy Bloody Tucker to know that.
    Tucker said feebly, ‘You’ll have more or less a free hand here. The arrangement you always liked in the old days.’
    The system which suited you, whereby you didn’t dirty your hands but took all the credit, you mean, Thomas B. Tucker. Percy Peach pursed his lips, shook his head sadly over the brilliant career he was giving up in Traffic, and said doubtfully, ‘I suppose I’d have to take DS Blake back as my sergeant?’ Percy, who had just spent a night of bliss in bed with the delectable Lucy Blake, had no intention of working with anyone else, but he might as well have her imposed upon him as a burden.
    Tucker was prepared to concede anything now to get his man. ‘Not if you don’t want to have her. I know how put out you were when I had to allocate you a female detective sergeant in the first place. I’m sure that we could arrange for you to have someone else assigned to you if that is—’
    â€˜Wouldn’t be fair, sir, that. Politically incorrect, it would be, nowadays, for me to discard a female officer who has always been entirely