We Are the Hanged Man Read Online Free PDF

five minutes than Jericho would use in a lifetime.

7

    Accepting that he was locked into his television hell, Jericho managed to turn the idea off for the afternoon. It would happen when it would happen. It would happen when Sergeant Light came to collect him.
    Light was relatively new, and Jericho probably hadn't said more than a couple of words to her so far. Based on nothing more than walking past her in the office, however, he liked her, something that he had not communicated to anyone else. He knew that Dylan's pettiness would have extended as far as ensuring that some other officer was assigned the task if she'd known that Jericho was happy with Light.
    Not thinking about the television show allowed Jericho to push cases around his desk. There wasn't much doing. A serious assault from a few weeks previously on Wells High Street. Two drunks beating up another drunk. Jericho pondered if three was enough to call it a brawl, or whether the word brawl implied greater participation in terms of numbers. Sadly, none of them had died; they would all live to drink and fight again.
    There had been a few graffiti tags around the town. Not really his province, but he'd been in on the investigation, such as it was, because he was there, and people tended to defer to him. Complaints about a farmer off the Shepton Mallet road not letting walkers cross his field. One of the sergeants had asked Jericho to become involved just so that everyone knew how seriously the police were taking the matter. Reports of teenagers driving recklessly around the Westway carpark at 1.30 in the morning, trying to pitch their mates off the car bonnet. A window smashed at the bottom of Portway the previous Tuesday.
    It was quite common for Jericho to be used just so that people could see how seriously the police were taking matters. There certainly wasn't much work that warranted the attention of a Detective Chief Inspector, and rare were the jobs he'd been given since coming to the West Country that would have come his way in London when he was there.
    Still, people got beaten up, cars drove too quickly, houses were broken into, every now and again a victim would meet his killer.
    Haynes knocked and entered. Jericho was staring at a piece of paper. His expression was blank, but Haynes new that he defied appearances. That he would be taking everything in. The man plucked information form nowhere on a daily basis.
    Jericho looked up; Haynes stood in the doorway.
    'So, what's the plan?' asked Haynes.
    'Plan?'
    'Are you doing the show?'
    Jericho nodded.
    'Shit,' said Haynes. 'I really thought you might blow 'em off. You're going to be on TV. You'll be getting marriage proposals and endorsement deals from, I don't know, Smith & Wesson… Pepsi…. You could be the next Cheryl Cole.'
    'Do you have anything to tell me, or are you just in here to give me abuse?'
    Haynes laughed.
    'Nothing. Just checking it's all right for me to knock off for the day.'
    Jericho nodded and looked back at the report from the witness to the High Street beating. The spelling and the grammar were terrible, but Jericho knew it would have been written by a police officer and signed by the witness.
    'Any more thoughts on the Tarot card?' asked Haynes. 'You know, I'm saying that, but it's not as if I've had any.'
    Jericho shook his head again, spoke without looking up.
    'We'll wait and see. If nothing else comes in and nothing extraordinary appears to have happened, we can bin it.'
    'Maybe someone just wants you to view the world from a different perspective.'
    Jericho didn't immediately raise his eyes, although Haynes could tell he had stopped reading. Finally the eyebrow lifted, his eyes followed.
    'That would be someone who didn't know that I already do that every day.'
    Haynes smiled, made a small gesture with his hand and headed out of the door. Stopped, looked back in.
    'The Crown?'
    Jericho ignored him, Haynes turned away.
    *
    'They'll be talking about you again.'
    Jericho was sitting