Murder by Milk Bottle by Lynne Truss

Author:Lynne Truss
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526609809
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Hardcastle didn’t think much of Brighton so far. The fish and chips were double the price of the ones at home in Redcar, and the portion size was laughable. But the main thing was that everywhere was so hot and crowded: the piers were rammed with people; the beach a sea of bodies. Outside restaurants that smelled invitingly of beef gravy there were queues of sunburned people in their holiday clothes standing four abreast! In the end he turned inland, following a sign to the Pavilion, the site of Monday’s meeting. He was curious to see it. But once there he met crowds again – albeit with an unusual free-range dairy-herd focus that, in all fairness, he couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

Lurking outside the Pavilion – next to a sign that read ‘Barber of the Year Contest Bank Holiday Monday, entrance 7/6’ – was a boy of about seventeen. He had evidently just arrived, and was offering leaflets to anyone who would take them while shouting, ‘Ruddy sham! Boycott the contest! Ruddy sham!’ This was Rodolfo’s fiery son Carlo. And as things turned out, it was an unfortunate meeting. If Hardcastle was an armed psychopath with an infinitesimally short fuse, Carlo was a brazen young delinquent who never backed down under threat.

‘What’s this rubbish, lad?’ said Hardcastle gruffly, taking Carlo by the ear. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

‘Get off!’ Carlo shook himself free. ‘This fake barbering contest on Monday, mate. It’s a ruddy sham, and I’m not standing for it.’ He raised his voice again. ‘Boycott the contest! Ruddy sham!’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘It smells, that’s why. There’s something fishy going on here, and I want everyone to know.’

Now, any other man in this situation might have considered adopting a placatory tone and offering a ten-bob note, but not Hardcastle, even though the boy couldn’t possibly know the true reason behind the bogus barbering extravaganza.

‘Give me those leaflets. Now! Hand them over. And shut up.’

He made a move to grab Carlo’s ear again, but the boy dodged. ‘No. Get off.’ But before he could shout ‘Ruddy sham!’ again, Hardcastle pulled out a gun and stuck it in his ribs.

Carlo froze. ‘What are you doing? Is that thing real? Help! Help!’

‘What’s happening here?’ said a passer-by.

‘Help!’ repeated Carlo.

‘Hand them over!’ Hardcastle repeated. ‘Now!’

‘Is that a gun?’ yelped somebody.

It was at just this moment that Susan Turner innocently arrived in the Pavilion Gardens, obliged to divert there on account of the crowds on North Street. She dutifully carried the packet of photographs, which she had scrupulously not examined, perhaps because Inspector Steine had just insulted her by calling her nosy, but we will never know for sure. It didn’t matter much, anyway, that she hadn’t take a peek. She certainly wouldn’t have recognised Mrs Groynes in them, consorting with the most dangerous criminal in England, and greeting him as an old friend. She wouldn’t have known that by delivering these pictures to Constable Twitten, she would be placing in his hands

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