A Ghostly Shadow by H L Marsay

Author:H L Marsay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
ISBN: 9781954894600
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2021-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Across 4 (6 letters)

Is the food X-rated in this city of dreaming spires?

Shadow spent the rest of the afternoon in the incident room reading various reports that had come in from the public. There had been an incredible number of sightings of a highwayman around the city the night Nick Cooper had been killed. He’d been spotted in nightclubs, outside the Minster; one lady even claimed Dick Turpin had visited her in her bedroom at midnight and proposed marriage.

“They all come crawling out of the woodwork when there’s a murder investigation,” he muttered under his breath. By five thirty he’d had enough. Pulling his coat on, he waved to Jimmy who was once again talking on his telephone.

“Night, all!” he called to the remaining officers. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

*

He left the station and walked across St Helen’s Square and down Stonegate, dodging past an overexcited group of little girls dressed up as witches, who were running up and down with broomsticks between their legs and wands in their hands. Shadow turned into Petergate and headed towards Kings Square where he saw Bob the window cleaner exiting the bookie’s.

“Not long until the clocks change now, Bob.”

“Good, hopefully my luck will change too,” he replied tearing up a betting slip and dropping it into the nearby bin.

“Not backed any winners recently?”

“No, but at least I’m not the only one.” Bob nodded back towards the bookie’s. Matthew West was stomping out the door with a face like thunder.

“Not a happy punter,” observed Shadow.

“He never is,” said Bob. “I’ve never met anyone so unlucky. Nobody wants to stand next to him in there – they all think he’s jinxed. He never knows when to stop either. I don’t know where he gets his money from.”

Shadow quietly filed this information away in his brain.

“By the way, we found the leaflet thief. Thanks for the tip. His name’s Wallace Marshall.”

“You see, I was right. I told you he was a wally.” Bob chuckled, clearly pleased with his own joke. “And speaking of wallies, there’s another one.” He pointed to his nemesis the traffic warden on the other side of the street. “You won’t believe this; he gave me a ticket the other day and when I showed him my permit, he didn’t believe it was mine because it said Robert on it. I tried telling him, Bob is short for Robert – everyone knows that – but he wasn’t having any of it. What a muppet!”

Shadow nodded sympathetically as Bob stomped over to berate the traffic warden yet again.

*

He turned on to Shambles and almost crashed into the menacing figure of a plague doctor coming around the corner.

“For crying out loud!” he exclaimed.

“It’s only me, Chief Inspector,” said the plague doctor, lifting the sinister beaked mask to reveal Steve West. “Sorry if I startled you.”

“You’ve got a new costume I see,” replied Shadow, whose heart was still racing.

“Just trying out a few ideas. I got this one on loan. What do

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