Leave it to the Hangman by Bill Knox

Author:Bill Knox [Knox, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

If there did happen to be any compensations to the task of being a policeman’s wife, mused Mary Thane, it was high time someone told her about them.

She eyed the brown coffee spouting regularly into the glass top of the percolator, decided the liquid was now sufficiently dark, and disconnected the base plug. At eight o’clock she was usually just summoning courage to engage in the nightly battle to get the kids to bed and the eruption into the house of two hungry cops didn’t help. Still—she smiled and shrugged as the conversation drifted through the open serving hatch from the living room.

‘Dad said he’d repair it, Uncle Phil—but he still hasn’t,’ complained young Tom Thane, holding the current pride of his life, a small battery-operated model sports car finished in authentic British racing green.

Phil Moss forked the last segment of scrambled egg from his plate and examined the model. ‘What’s up with it anyway, youngster?’

‘The reversing lever…’ The schoolboy gave his father a withering look. ‘It stopped working nearly a week ago.’

‘It just needs a spot of cleaning out,’ explained Colin Thane. ‘What else can you expect when you get it covered in dirt in the garden? When I was your age…’ He gave up. ‘Look, I’ll fix it. But not tonight.’

He was saved by his wife’s arrival with the coffee.

‘Bed,’ she declared firmly. ‘Now, Tom. You too, Kate.’

The girl glanced up from the corner of the room, where she was sprawled beside a storybook, gauged her mother’s possible patience, and decided it was best to obey.

Thane waited until the two children had thumped their noisy way upstairs, Mary close behind.

‘We’d better get moving soon,’ he declared. ‘I’ve to check in at Headquarters about nine. Really shouldn’t have come out at all, come to that.’

Moss snorted. ‘Couldn’t do much good hanging about Millside at the moment. Ah…’ he settled back, lighting a cigarette. ‘Nothing like home cooking.’

‘You can hardly call scrambled eggs a complete sample,’ apologized Thane. ‘But⁠—’

‘At this hour, Mary would have been justified turfing us both right out again,’ grinned his friend. ‘No, just coming home like this to the kids, a fireside, and knowing there’s a welcome, I mean. You’re a lucky man, Colin.’

‘Then why guard your bachelor status so fervently?’ asked Thane slyly, pouring another cup of coffee. ‘Don’t tell me your landlady has stopped making eyes at you?’

‘Since she found that her new bank manager’s a widower, she’s lost interest in humble coppers,’ said Moss. ‘And a good thing too—it was getting beyond a joke.’ He changed the subject. ‘Think Snouty will have turned up anything?’

‘He’d better, for everyone’s sake.’ Thane’s tone was serious. ‘The chief constable’s climbing the walls, the papers are having a Roman holiday, and the information room are getting about three phone calls every five minutes from well-meaning old ladies who think they’ve got an escaped con under their beds.’ He tossed his cigarette end savagely into the glowing fire. ‘And I’d hate like hell to end up pulling in the Kilburn girl and her brother on a murder rap.

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