LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I could do with some tea and a packet of cigarettes. See what the canteen can offer, will you?’

      The young constable went on his way briskly, for Miller was a particular hero of his – Nick Miller, the man with the law degree who had made Detective Sergeant with only five years’ service. All this and an interest, so it was rumoured, in his brother’s business that enabled him to live in a style to which few police officers were accustomed.

      As the door closed, Miller turned to Macek. ‘Now then, you bastard, let’s get down to it.’

      ‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ Macek said woodenly.

      Brady laughed harshly and there was a heavy silence. Macek looked furtively at Miller, who was examining his fingernails, and said desperately, ‘All right, so I knocked her around a little. Bloody little tart. She had it coming.’

      ‘Why?’ Brady demanded.

      ‘I took her in,’ Macek said. ‘Gave her a place to stay. The best of everything. Then I find her sneaking out at two in the morning with my wallet, my watch and everything else of value she could lay her hands on. What would you have done?’

      He sounded genuinely aggrieved and Miller picked up the girl’s statement. ‘She says here that you’ve been living together for five weeks.’

      Macek nodded eagerly. ‘I gave her the best – the best there was.’

      ‘What about the men?’

      ‘What men?’

      ‘The men you brought round to the house every night. The men who called because they needed a woman.’

      ‘Do me a favour,’ Macek said. ‘Do I look like a pimp?’

      ‘Don’t press me to answer that,’ Miller told him.

      ‘You’ve kept the girl under lock and key for the past two weeks. When she couldn’t take any more, you beat her up and threw her out.’

      ‘You try proving that.’

      ‘I don’t need to. You said you’ve been living together as man and wife.’

      ‘So what? It’s a free country.’

      ‘She’s just fifteen.’

      Macek’s face turned grey. ‘She can’t be.’

      ‘Oh, yes she can. We’ve got her record card.’

      Macek turned desperately to Brady. ‘She didn’t tell me.’

      ‘It’s a hard cruel world, isn’t it, Macek?’ Brady said.

      The Pole seemed to pull himself together. ‘I want a lawyer.’

      ‘Are you going to make a statement?’ Miller asked.

      Macek glared across the table. ‘You get stuffed,’ he said viciously.

      Miller nodded. ‘All right, Jack, take him down and book him. Make it abduction of a minor and rape. With any luck and his record, we might get him seven years.’

      Macek sat there staring at him, horror in his eyes, and Jack Brady’s iron fist descended, jerking from the chair. ‘On your way, soldier.’

      Macek stumbled from the room and Miller turned to the window and pulled the curtain. Rain drifted across the glass in a fine spray and beyond, the first light of morning streaked the grey sky. The door opened behind him and the young probationer entered, the tea and cigarettes on a tray. ‘That’ll be six bob, sarge.’

      Miller paid him and slipped the cigarettes into his pocket. ‘I’ve changed my mind about tea. You have it. I’m going home. Tell Detective Constable Brady I’ll ’phone him this afternoon.’

      He walked along the quiet corridor, descended three flights of marble stairs and went out through the swing doors of the portico at the front of the Town Hall. His car was parked at the bottom of the steps with several others, a green Mini-Cooper, and he paused beside it to light a cigarette.

      It was exactly five-thirty and the streets were strangely empty in the grey morning. The sensible thing to do was to go home to bed and yet he felt strangely restless. It was as if the city lay waiting for him and obeying a strange, irrational impulse he turned up the collar of his dark blue Swedish trenchcoat against the rain and started across the square.

      For some people the early morning is the best part of the day and George Hammond was one of these. Lockkeeper in charge of the great gates that prevented the canal from emptying itself into the river basin below, he had reported for duty at five-forty-five, rain or snow, for more than forty years. Walking through the quiet streets, he savoured the calm morning with a conscious pleasure that never varied.

      He paused at the top of the steps at the end of the bridge over the river and looked down into the basin. They catered mainly for barge traffic this far upstream and they floated together beside the old Victorian docks like basking sharks.

      He went down the steps and started along the bank. One section of the basin was crammed with coal barges offering a convenient short-cut to the other side and he started to work his way across.

      He paused on the edge of the final barge, judging the gap between the thwart and the wharf. He started his jump, gave a shocked gasp and only just managed to regain his balance.

      A woman stared up at him through the grey-green water. In a lifetime of working on the river George Hammond had found bodies in the basin before, but never one like this. The eyes stared past him, fixed on eternity, and for some inexplicable reason he knew fear.

      He turned, worked his way back across the river, scrambled up on the wharf and ran along the bank.

      Nick Miller had just started to cross the bridge as Hammond emerged from the top of the steps and leaned against the parapet sobbing for breath.

      Miller moved forward quickly. ‘Anything wrong?’

      ‘Police!’ Hammond gasped. ‘I need the police.’

      ‘You’ve found them,’ Miller said crisply. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Girl down there in the water,’ Hammond said. ‘Other side of the coal barges beneath the wharf.’

      ‘Dead?’ Miller demanded.

      Hammond nodded. ‘Gave me a hell of a turn, I can tell you.’

      ‘There’s an all-night café on the other side of the bridge. ’Phone for a patrol car and an ambulance from there. I’ll go down and see what I can do.’

      Hammond nodded, turned away and Miller went down the steps quickly and moved along the bank. It had stopped raining and a cool breeze lifted off the water so that he shivered slightly as he jumped for the deck of the first coal barge and started to work his way across.

      He couldn’t find her at first and then a sudden eddy of the current swirled, clearing the flotsam from the surface and she stared up at him.

      And she was beautiful – more beautiful than he had ever known a woman to be, that was the strangest thing of all. The body had drifted into the arched entrance of a vault under the wharf and hung suspended just beneath the surface. The dress floated around her in a cloud as did the long golden hair and there was a look of faint surprise in the eyes, the lips parted slightly as if in wonder at how easy it had been.

      Up on the bridge, there was the jangle of a patrol car’s bell and in the distance, the siren of the approaching ambulance sounded faintly. But he couldn’t wait. In some strange way this had become personal. He took off his trenchcoat and jacket, slipped off his shoes and lowered himself over the side.

      The water was bitterly cold and yet he was hardly conscious of the fact as he swam into the archway. At that moment, the first rays of the morning sun broke through the clouds, striking into the water so that she seemed to smile as he reached under the surface and took her.

      A

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