Free Death of an Innocent by Sally Spencer Page B

‘I swear you bloody won’t.’
    He took his packet of Capstan Full Strengths out of his overcoat pocket and, cupping his hand, lit one. When he looked up again, there was no sign of either of the rabbits or the hawk.
    Had the furry little animals escaped the feathered killer? he found himself wondering. Or had the hawk soared off in triumph, a trembling rabbit held tightly in its cruel claws?
    If he’d been watching, he’d have had an answer to that question. But he hadn’t been watching, and now he would never know whether there had been yet another unwitnessed murder on the moors.
    He glanced down at his wristwatch. It was only half past twelve, which meant that most of the day was still ahead of him. Unless something really dramatic broke in the investigation, it was unlikely that Monika Paniatowski would ring him again until the following morning. How the hell was he going to fill in the time until then?
    He sighed heavily, and reached into his pocket for his car keys.

Eight
    I t was just after the grandfather clock had struck nine when Woodend realized that though he’d been staring at the television screen since the evening news came on three hours earlier, he had not even the vaguest idea what programmes he’d sat through.
    Well, it was pointless being there any longer, he decided, hauling himself off the sofa and reaching for his coat. Even if he couldn’t do much about his mind, he could at least treat his body to a few pints of best bitter.
    It had been years since he’d gone out drinking on his own, he thought as he headed up the lane towards the Victoria Hotel. But that was because it was years since he’d
needed
to. At that end of any normal day, there was always an ongoing case to discuss with his team – and where else but in the pub would he have chosen to discuss it? There was a case that wanted talking over that night, too, but he had neither the information which would make his own contribution worthwhile, nor the available subordinates to bounce his ideas off.
    Poor old Charlie, he mocked himself. Has that nasty Mr Ainsworth taken all your toys away from you? Won’t he even let you play with your little friends any more?
    There were a number of cars parked in front of the pub, but two of them stood out clearly from the rest. One was a Jaguar ‘E’ type – a car which was still uncommon enough in Whitebridge for it to turn the envious heads of drivers of more humble vehicles The second was a Mercedes Benz 300S, an even rarer sight in the town. But it was not so much the vehicles themselves which caught his attention as the colour schemes their owners had chosen.
    The Jag’s owner had selected a deep, muted blue, whereas the Merc was painted in a vivid red which, it seemed to him, served to rob it of some of its inherent dignity. Parked as they were, side by side, they presented a bizarre contrast, and the detective who was deeply ingrained inside Woodend decided that while both the owners of the Jag and the Merc undoubtedly had plenty of money, only one of them really knew how to use it.
    He entered the bar, walked up to the counter, and looked around him. There were some familiar faces there, but also quite a number of customers who were unknown to him.
    Even
local
pubs had stopped
really
being local, he thought. The days when everyone had walked to the boozer, as he had done himself that night, were gone forever. Now that so many people had cars, they were travelling further afield for their entertainment, often abandoning the town centre altogether, and making country pubs like this one their chosen destination. It was, he supposed, just another example of the townees’ yearning for the country – just one more example of the trend which had allowed places like Moorland Village to come into existence.
    â€˜Well, speak of the devil!’ he exclaimed.
    He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but from the reaction of the