Striking Murder by AJ Wright

Author:AJ Wright [A. J. Wright]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749019396
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2015-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

‘Not like his lordship to get his bloody hands dirty,’ said Constable Jaggery as he walked alongside Sergeant Brennan.

True, he wasn’t in the best of moods, and it had seemed to him that the chief constable accompanying Micky Brennan on a murder investigation was an insult both to himself and to the sergeant. Besides, his search for the one-eyed man had so far proved fruitless, and he had been forced to endure the worst of responses from uppish reception clerks and pugnacious landlords:

Eye, eye, Captain!

You can rely on me, pal – I’ll keep an eye out for ’im!

Never turn a blind eye to the truth, Constable. That’s my motto.

What compounded his surliness was the unwelcome invitation to resume his working relationship with Brennan by making the long trek back up to Scholes when he had half an hour before his shift ended, and already the late afternoon gloom was bringing with it a sharp lowering of temperature. It would be a bloody cold night. Ding-Dong Bloody Bell hadn’t insisted on accompanying his sergeant this time, had he? The bastard.

‘Captain Bell is a conscientious officer and I will hear no more mutinous observations on his desire to seek out the truth. Is that clear, Constable?’

But Brennan tempered his admonition with a mischievous wink.

At last they stood outside number 7, Scholefield Lane. The home of the Haggerty family. The curtains were drawn, but they could see shadows moving beyond the flimsy fabric. A few seconds after Brennan’s imperious knock, the front door opened and a young boy of around ten years old swung the door fully open, then just as swiftly moved to close it again as his eyes registered the uniform of Constable Jaggery. It was the latter’s boot that prevented the door from closing.

‘Mam!’ the boy yelled. ‘Mam!’

Bridie Haggerty appeared at the doorway, took one glimpse at the uniform and reversed her son’s attempts at exclusion by slowly opening the door. ‘Stand there much longer,’ she said with a throw of her head in the general direction of the street, ‘an’ they’ll have enough to natter about for a week. In with youse.’

Brennan saw the signs all around the room: beside the front door, a tiny bowl hanging from the wall by a nail containing holy water; the small statue of the Blessed Virgin on the mantelpiece, and a crucifix at the foot of the stairs. Even the mahogany longcase clock standing in the far corner of the room had a set of rosary beads hanging from the small round door handle. He noticed the way the clock’s polished surface gleamed far brighter than anything else in the room, and its glass panels had a sparkle that was missing on other, far cheaper ornaments. On a small table beside the clock, a red votive light was flickering. A feeble fire was burning in the grate – lumps of coal supplemented by jagged slivers of wood that occasionally gave off sparks and a belch of smoke that filled the room.

The

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.