When the Devil Drives Read Online Free PDF

Street Hill near London Bridge, built to commemorate the Great Fire in the time of the second King Charles. It was, sadly, a magnet for suicides. Beyond the fact that we were looking for a girl and a girl had died, there seemed nothing to connect it with our investigations. I felt a tug on my coat, and there was Tabby behind me.
    â€˜Are you going to ask him if she had fair hair?’
    Somebody saved me the trouble by asking what the girl looked like. The man had to admit he didn’t know. It turned out that he hadn’t been there in person, but had talked to a man who had been. I walked out to the street, Tabby following me.
    â€˜One of the things you’ll learn is not to jump to conclusions,’ I said. ‘There’s no reason at all to think it’s our Miss Tilbury.’
    â€˜But we’re going to make sure all the same, aren’t we?’
    With her knowledge of London, she’d immediately registered the fact that we’d turned eastwards into a side street towards St Paul’s instead of back to our omnibus stop.
    â€˜Another thing you learn is not to rely on everything you hear,’ I said.
    â€˜If she’d decided to do away with herself, she wouldn’t wait a whole week to do it, would she?’
    â€˜Probably not.’
    And yet the patterns of suicide were strange. My missing person searches meant that I had to look for the small paragraphs in newspapers that recorded these lonely deaths. Some people did it simply and threw themselves in the muddy waters of the Thames. Others chose most elaborate ways, as if planning some scene on stage. I didn’t talk about this to Tabby. We walked quickly past St Paul’s and into Cannon Street. After a while the bright bronze flames at the top of the Monument came into view.
    â€˜I never been up there,’ Tabby said. ‘Sixpence they charge you. Is it true you can see the sea from the top?’
    â€˜No.’
    Forty or so people were queuing at the railings round the bottom of the monument, waiting for admission under the disapproving eye of a City police constable. I told Tabby to wait and went up to him.
    â€˜Is it true a girl jumped off the Monument last night?’
    He gave me an unfriendly look and nodded towards the queue. ‘Can’t you tell? Blinking ghouls.’
    Normally, on a cloudy day in October, people would not be queuing to climb the three hundred or so stairs to the top.
    â€˜I don’t want to go up there,’ I said. ‘Only, I’m trying to find out if anybody has identified her yet.’
    He looked a little less unfriendly. ‘You lost somebody, then?’
    â€˜An acquaintance of mine has been missing from home for a week. A young lady of nineteen years old, with fair hair, average height or a little below.’
    He thought about it for a while. ‘Doesn’t sound like her. From what I could see, she was a bit above the average tall. Right sort of age, though, give or take a year or two.’
    â€˜You saw her, then?’
    He nodded. ‘Didn’t see her coming down, but I was there soon after they found her. I’ve been on this beat just under two years and this is the third one. They should have better railings or some nets at the top to stop people. The coroner keeps telling them, but do they do anything?’
    â€˜What colour was her hair?’
    â€˜Hard to tell. There was a lot of blood, but apart from that her hair was wet and that makes it look darker. Still, I’d reckon brown, not fair.’
    â€˜Her hair was wet?’
    â€˜Soaking wet.’
    In spite of the clouds, it hadn’t rained last night or this morning.
    â€˜How would her hair be wet?’
    He shrugged. ‘Funny things they do. Maybe she thought she’d wash her hair first.’
    While we were talking, another half dozen people had joined the queue. The constable looked at them as if he wanted to spit, only police regulations wouldn’t allow