Free Death of a Sunday Writer by Eric Wright Page A

man,” Lucy began. Then, “Do you often have to trace missing persons?”
    â€œSometimes. I just finished one. Found him in thirty-six hours. I just sat in a bar, a drug-dealers’ hangout, and he walked in the second night, just before they did for me.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œThey knew what I was, and they knew I wasn’t a regular cop, so a couple of guys with braided hair told me to move on. They wouldn’t have told me twice. Luckily the kid appeared right after.” When Lucy had understood him, she said, “Looking for people sounds dangerous.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m telling you. Ninety-nine per cent of our work is boring as hell, and the other one per cent is dangerous. Stay out of it.”
    â€œWhy do you do it?”
    â€œI love it. I couldn’t do anything else.”
    â€œCan I ask you one more question?”
    â€œWhat do I charge? Fifty an hour.”
    â€œThank you.” She had that right, then. “May I call you if I need you?”
    â€œSure. I charge for lessons, though.”
    Lucy gathered herself together. “I do have one more question. What if you come across a crime being committed, even by your client?” In her reading, this was a standard dilemma that the detectives faced.
    â€œCall the cops. Now, Buncombe said you were from Longborough. That right?”
    â€œYes. Kingston originally, but Longborough for the last two years. Why?”
    â€œThis could be my lucky day.” He picked up a piece of paper and spun it across the desk at her. “How about doing this one for me? Get your feet wet.”
    The paper was a letter from a firm of solicitors in Bournemouth, England, requesting a search as to the whereabouts of Brian Potter, who arrived in Longborough in 1940 at the age of ten to stay with his uncle, a farmer of the same name.
    â€œHe’s a relative of someone who died,” Brighton said. “That’s what those enquiries are about. There may be some kind of legacy, but don’t tell that to anyone in Longborough until we’re sure we’ve got the right one. It can’t be much, or one of those English lawyers would have treated himself to a trip over here, so there’s no hurry. Maybe by the weekend you could take a run up, see what you can find? How about it?”
    â€œYou mean it? You want me to do it?”
    â€œYou could start at the library.” He smiled slightlyto indicate that he knew that was where she worked.
    Lucy held the letter out to read it again, wondering what to say. She got the feeling from Brighton that he expected her to refuse, that he was making fun of her. “What’s the fee?” she asked.
    â€œTwenty an hour, gas and meals. No hotels on this one, and check in every time you rack up six. Don’t look at me like I’m a crook. Fifty is what I get; I pay you twenty and run the office out of the rest.”
    â€œRack up six what?”
    â€œHours.” He reached for the letter to put it away, giving up on her.
    Lucy leaned forward and took the letter from him and put it in her purse, reminding herself she needed a bag to carry things in, maybe a briefcase. “I should have something in a week,” she said, naming what sounded like a reasonable period of time, and had the pleasure of seeing that he was slightly nonplussed.

Chapter Thirteen
    Sergeant Ibbotson, in charge of the gambling detail, was waiting for her.” Go down to Woodbine,” he said. “You know. The racetrack? That’s where he spent his time. Why do you want to know?”
    â€œI want to find out what he was like, what he meant to people.”
    Ibbotson blinked. “You know what kind of people that might be?”
    â€œBad people.”
    â€œYou got it, ma’am. Some of these guys make their living hurting people. You don’t want to have anything to do with people like that.”
    Lucy said, “Just each other,