THE FARMING MURDER a gripping crime mystery full of twists by ROY LEWIS

Author:ROY LEWIS [LEWIS, ROY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books classic crime and mystery
Published: 2019-07-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Freddie Jenkins was a big man, square-set in his body, muscles turning to fat, sandy hair now thinning badly at his temples but his eyes still lively and twinkling, and his wide mouth as ready to smile as ever. Eric Ward had known him for twenty years, ever since he had joined the Northumbria Force, and he rated Freddie more highly than some of the hierarchy. Freddie Jenkins was now a Superintendent in the Criminal Investigation Department, but he had had the ability to go higher. Somehow, chances had seemed to pass him by and lesser men had been promoted. It might have been due to a certain lack of respect for authority he occasionally displayed; it might have been the result of some of the methods he employed from time to time — a thick ear instead of a charge sheet, a physical warning instead of a prosecution. He had been a tearaway as a young man; he had mellowed now, and had developed a comfortable paunch.

Eric said so.

Freddie Jenkins patted it complacently. ‘It’s the sedentary life,’ he explained, beaming. ‘I tell you, Eric, they got some real whizz-kids in CID now, and the old hands like me, well, we can just sit back most of the time, like. Except every now and then.’

‘You were always too damned nosy to take a back seat,’ Eric chided him.

‘Aye, well, maybe you’re right.’ Superintendent Jenkins grinned. ‘That’s why I’m here, I suppose.’

‘I thought it was unlikely to be a friendly call.’

‘Oh, that as well. Always nice to see old friends who’ve fallen into the easy life. Nice office, pretty secretary, good salary.’

‘And a healthy curiosity,’ Eric said, ‘as to why a busy super should take the trouble to call in.’

Freddie Jenkins scratched his bulbous nose. ‘You said I was always a bit ... inquisitive. You’ll remember I was also a bit, shall we say, intuitive?’

‘A Welsh trait, you used to say. Hunches. So what have you come to see me about?’

Jenkins smiled. ‘Don’t you offer any kind of hospitality around here?’

‘I can arrange coffee.’

‘If you’ve nothing better ...’ After Eric had asked Philippa to bring in some coffee he went on, ‘The hunch is that a certain hit-and-run the other evening isn’t quite ... right. The boys are inclined to write it off as just that — a drunk, late at night, hitting a pedestrian. But me, I’m not so sure.’

‘You’re talking about Jack Saxby?’

‘I am.’

‘Why the hunch?’

Freddie Jenkins considered for a moment. ‘Time of night. About two-thirty in the morning. What was he doing near Pudding Chare? And he was hit fair and square, you know — no glancing blow. Crushed skull, pelvic damage, the lot. Never stood a chance. And no sign of the car.’

‘That’s to be expected,’ Eric said, ‘though you’ll have checked the garages.’

‘Throughout the region. But I got a feelin’ about this one, and it leaves me uneasy.’

‘And you think I can help in some way.’

Freddie Jenkins stared directly at Eric. ‘He was a client of yours.

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