Free True Witness by Jo Bannister Page A

some lunch off you and they might succeed.”

    He shook his head. “They won’t come back. They made their point. I think they scared themselves nearly as much as they scared me. They might be big but they’re only kids. They were upset. About now they’ll be feeling pretty foolish. They won’t bother me again.”
    â€œMaybe they won’t,” agreed Brodie. “But if the feeling’s going around that this is somehow your fault, someone else may. And a sock in the eye may be the least of it.”
    â€œSo what do you want me to do?” asked Daniel, with more levity than was wise. “Enter a witness protection programme? Change my name and move to Brighton?”
    â€œMaybe,” retorted Brodie, her voice and her temper rising. “Maybe that’s exactly what you should do. Tell you what: you can ask Jack Deacon when you tell him what just happened.” She lifted the telephone and thrust it at him.
    Daniel looked at it and then at her. Then he went into the kitchen for some ice.
    Brodie swore at his departing back. She dialled the number herself, but put down the phone before anyone answered. “All right,” she growled, “we’ll leave Deacon out of it, for now. That doesn’t mean they get away with this.”
    Daniel returned holding a packet of frozen peas to his face. “Let it go, Brodie. It wasn’t important. Let the dust settle. When Deacon stops worrying about the man who didn’t do this and starts looking for the one who did, nobody’ll be interested in me any more.”
    Exasperated, she left him nursing his eye and went to make them some lunch. Everything she could think of required peas.

Chapter 6
    Brodie left the netting-sheds at five to two to walk back to her office. But as she went to turn into Shack Lane a sign further up Fisher Hill caught her eye. The Attic Gym. She stood and stared at it for perhaps half a minute, then with a determined sniff set off up the slope.
    There was, of course, more than one gymnasium in Dimmock. Off-hand, she knew of one attached to the golf club and one attached to the squash club. Neither seemed the natural habitat of young fell-runners. Perhaps The Attic Gym wasn’t either, in which case she’d have wasted a few minutes and a brisk walk; but perhaps it was.
    It wasn’t above the narrow shop outside which the sign swung, it was beneath it. So it was a reference not to the location but to the Greek ethos: a sophisticated play on words not likely to earn many kudos in Dimmock, Brodie thought as she descended the area steps. Dimmock’s idea of sophistication was cake doilies and a plastic heron by the goldfish pond.
    She wasn’t sure if the gym was open. No lights showed, but when she tried the door it swung wide with the cheery tinkle of silver bells.
    Inside were running machines, cycling machines, weight-lifting benches and a boxing ring: very much the sort of place young men would feel at home. But no one was working out right now. Probably the lunchtime shift had already cleaned up and returned to their offices while the leisured afternoon class had yet to arrive.
    But someone was here or the door would be locked. Brodie raised her voice in peremptory summons.
    A man appeared from the locker-rooms. “I’m sorry, miss, we’re not open today. I only came in to get something – I should have locked the door. We’ve had a bit of a tragedy.”

    â€œChris Berry,” Brodie said stiffly. “I know.”
    George Ennis raised an eyebrow. But of course it must be common knowledge by now. “Was it one of the ladies’ classes you were interested in? If you could come back tomorrow …”
    â€œThanks,” she said brusquely, “but I get all the exercise I need in the course of a day’s work. Do you want to know what I was doing this lunchtime, for instance?”
    Ennis wasn’t sure he should hazard a guess. But she