Flying Too High by Kerry Greenwood

Author:Kerry Greenwood
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: mystery, Historical, cookie429, Adult, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9781590582374
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 1990-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see the horsemen coming?

Bluebeard, Charles Perrault

It was time for Phryne to call in the debts that were owed her after the affair of the Cocaine Blues. Thus she found herself in an office the size of a cupboard sitting opposite Detective-inspector Robinson. He looked quite pleased to see her—‘Call me Jack, Miss Fisher, everyone does’—and offered her a cup of tea. Phryne had tasted police-station tea before, but accepted it anyway.

‘Well, Miss Fisher, what have you been up to? My colleague, Benton, has been quite terse about you.’

‘Oh, has he? Is the man stupid, or just very, very stubborn?’

‘I wouldn’t call him stupid. He’s a good detective. He just has theories, that’s all. And when he has a theory nothing will turn him off it. They even call him “Theory” around here. He’s not a bad chap, though we don’t see eye-to-eye about a lot of things, one of them being you. I told him to take you seriously or risk public embarrassment, but he wouldn’t listen. If you want a really biased opinion of old Theory, ask WPC Jones. He told her he didn’t approve of women in the police force when she went to get her Gallantry Medal from the Chief Commissioner.’

‘Gallantry Medal? I must congratulate her. What for?’

‘She was acting as bait for a rapist. We didn’t know that he had a knife—dirty, great cane-cutter. He got Jones down and was about to cut her throat when she rolled out from under him, stepped on his wrist and threw the weapon away; then she dropped on his chest, handcuffed his hands and feet together, and told him what she thought of him. Poor bloke. He was begging us to take him to a nice safe cell by the time the patrol caught up. A lovely job and he was lucky that she is a restrained lady, or she might have cut his balls off which was what she was threatening to do. Jones has not liked Theory Benton since. You can’t blame her. He’s an irritating man. Still if you come up with overwhelming evidence I’m sure that you’ll give him a chance to make a manly confession, before you drop him into the soup.’

‘Of course, but I don’t think it will do the slightest good.’

Phryne sipped her tea, and placed the cup back on the desk. She produced the kidnap note in a larger envelope.

‘Is this what you want me to do?’ asked the detective-inspector resignedly. ‘I didn’t really think you had come just to see me and to drink police-station tea.’

‘Good, because I haven’t. When we were mutually involved in that cocaine affair, you were telling me that you could sometimes get fingerprints off paper. Could you have a go with this? And tell me whether they are on record?’

‘I expect that I could. What’s the paper?’

‘A ransom note. Another thing. A big black car, probably a Bentley, and I have most of the licence number. Can you tell me who owns it?’

‘How much of the number?’

‘The first two digits and the two letters.

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