Free Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade by M. J. Trow

spire of the church leaning at a rakish angle. It wasn’t long before Bradstreet had turned the colour of the sail creaking tautly overhead - the colour of old parchment.
    True, Lestrade was more suitably attired. Whenever his job took him to maritime areas, he tried to dress the part, but the jaunty black sailor’s peaked cap and the matching pea-jacket could not disguise the landlubber’s inability to roll with the ship. Most of the time, in fact, he rolled against it, barking his shins on lobster creels and smearing his sleeve with tar and foul-smelling bait. The smack bellied and plunged on the roaring surf, making interrogation of a crucial witness well nigh impossible.
    Bradstreet’s task was to commit the vital deposition of Blogg the fisherman to his notebook, but when he looked the page of jottings, he realised that it would do justice to Mr Isaac Pitman, except that it wasn’t shorthand. When Lestrade saw it later, in the relatively tranquil surroundings of the Fisherman’s Arms, he pronounced it unintelligible. As well, then, that Lestrade’s memory served to record the conversation. William Bentley, it transpired, was a native of Yorkshire, had served some time in the Army, and had been lighthouse keeper for eight years. He was past retiring age really, but nobody else wanted the job. It didn’t pay well and most of the younger men were either fishing or moving into the new profitable tourist trade that was becoming the vogue along the coast. Folk from Lunnun mostly and it was the railway that brought ’em there. Blogg spat volubly and contemptuously into the hurtling waters in scorn of both institutions. The act alone was enough to send Bradstreet over the edge, not literally, but metaphorically, and he vomited copiously over the side.
    Friends? Only one really – a royal coachman from Sandringham, the Prince of Wales’ estate, who came over once a month to play chess with Bentley. Enemies? Wei there was the Tuddenhams. Tough bunch they were. Bentley had fell foul of ’em almost as soon as he arrived. Blogg didn’t rightly know why. The Tuddenhams, it transpired, were family of fishermen from nearby Mundsley whose names were well known to the local constabulary as trouble makers, drunkards and shifters. Jem Rook had had his nose broken by one of them only last year, simply because the constable ha smiled at him funny one morning. Yes, the Tuddenhams were the boys. If anybody had murderous inclinations in the area and bore Bill Bentley a grudge, it was them.
    The conversation ended there, as nets were cast and hands dashed here and there, flinging ropes, hauling weights. Bradstreet was quietly wishing he was dead. Even Lestrade felt a little green round the gills, much like the wet, flapping mackerel that flopped down on the slippery deck. There were shouts and laughter and it was well into the afternoon before Bradstreet’s prayers were answered and Blogg turned his smack for home.
    Another magic evening, the sun casting long shadows across the shingle. Lestrade’s legs had returned to his body and leaving Bradstreet fiat on his back in his room at the Fisherman’s, the inspector walked the beach with Bill Bentley’s daughter. Emma Hopkins, as she now was, was a middle-aged woman who still retained much of the striking good looks of her youth. She spoke fondly of her father, but was not surprised that he had enemies.
    ‘Always in trouble, that was Dad,’ she was saying with her soft-spoken Yorkshire accent. ‘If there was a family like that here that didn’t like him, you can bet – mind you, ’e weren’t a betting man – but you can bet ’e’d put up a fight.’
    ‘Liked a scrap, did he, your dad?’ Lestrade asked.
    ‘Aye, ’e did.’ Emma Hopkins chuckled. ‘Eeh, there were times Ma didn’t know what to do wi’ ’im, but ’is heart was in’t right place. Y’know, I’ve seen that man take on’t bare-knuckle champion of Bradford just to buy me a dolly I’d seen in Mr