Last Detective by Thomas Leslie

Author:Thomas, Leslie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937384814
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 2013-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

Passengers left the train at every station and few boarded to take their places. When the adjoining seats became vacant Boot, enjoying himself, rolled his eyes suggestively and Davies grumpily followed him to them. Eventually there remained only a mothy-looking woman near them and two men, both wearing England rosettes as big as their faces, who sat at the extreme end of the carriage, on opposite seats, contemplating each other in antagonistic silence.

Davies frowned at the passing stations and then at the map. The train was under the Thames and heading for home at the Elephant and Castle. Boot was clamped in silence, taking a newspaper out of his pocket and reading it minutely. Davies sat uncomfortably. The mothy woman stood up and gathered her spreadeagled belongings to her, eventually, and got from the train. Now there only remained the two men and they were at the far end. ‘All right,’ sighed Boot, folding away his paper. ‘What’s it all about?’

‘I hope you enjoyed your fun,’ replied Davies sourly.

‘I saved you from being thrown off the train for not paying your fare. You might have even been arrested,’ Boot pointed out.

‘Yes, very good of you, mate. Now where exactly are we getting off?’

‘I’m not getting off,’ said Boot firmly. ‘You can if you like. But I told you, I don’t want any copper following me home and upsetting my mum. It’s not as if you’ve got a warrant or anything. Like I told you before, my solicitor ought to be present.’

‘She means a lot to you, your mum,’ commented Davies.

‘Funnily enough she does,’ replied Boot sharply.

‘Did you used to go home, to your mum in the old days—in the good old days, remember? Did you go home to her after screwing Roxanne Potts on the vaulting horse?’

‘Who the hell…!’

‘Roxanne Potts, now there’s a name to conjure with.’

Boot looked miserably thoughtful. ‘Jesus, you’ve been busy digging them up, haven’t you. Roxanne Potts. She must be forty-odd now.’

‘She was fifteen then,’ said Davies quietly. ‘So was Ena and so was poor dead Celia Norris. Remember the trampoline? Nobody could accuse you of not using the equipment.’ He made a bouncing movement with his hands. ‘Davy go up, Davy go down. Davy go up…’

‘Pack it in, will you, you bastard,’ snorted Boot. He looked along to see if the men at the far end of the carriage were listening. They had stood up to get out. The train was at the end of the line. They looked around curiously at Davies and Boot, then stepped down and hurried away with collars pulled around their ears. As each of them walked past the window their eyes came around the sharp end of their collars to look at the two who remained in the train.

‘Elephant and Castle,’ said Boot, half getting too his feet. ‘It stops here.’

Davies eased him back into the seat. ‘But I don’t,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve travelled so far together I want you to listen for a while and then I want to hear your story too.

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