Free Death of a Bovver Boy by Leo Bruce

mysterious fascination to murderers which is supposed to attract them to the scene of their crime.
    He was about to dismiss this as absurd and to accelerate when he became aware of something real but inexplicable. On the grass verge, across which by his own account Stick had been rudely pushed by a car, Carolus saw an object—or was it a creature? At all events the shape of a man lying full length. Carolus pulled up short so that his headlights shone towards whatever it was that attracted his attention. Was it a man or no more than an artfully arranged bundle of rags, a sort of prone scarecrow? At all events nearby lying on its side was a motor-cycle.
    Carolus felt sure, sitting there staring at these, that the two objects were not the result of an accident. The man had not been thrown from the saddle of his motor-bike, the motor-bike was not lying there after a crash. They were altogether too deliberately placed. It would be too much of a coincidence if of all the roads in England this particular one, and this particular length of it had been the scene of a crash within ten days of the finding of Dutch Carver’s dead body.
    Yet what in heaven’s name was the idea? The trees about him were torn by the wind and Carolus felt an almost irresistible urge to get out of the car and go to examine what he could see. His hand was on the door handle when it suddenly occurred to him, with a force much stronger than his own curiosity, that this—getting out of the car and going to whatever was lying there—was exactly what he was intended to do, that the whole thing was an elaborate trap, baited by the sight which had aroused his interest as it was meant to do. Who would not go to the assistance of a fallen motor-cyclist beside the road? He would need to be a Levite with an extraordinarily thick skin to pass by on the other side.
    Still he hesitated then backed his car and drove it forward so that the lights fell exactly on the prone figure. Then suddenly, after watching a moment, he drove away, accelerating with all the force of his engine. He did not look back but covered some three miles at speed, till he was approaching a roundabout he knew.
    Here, still maintaining a fair speed, he swerved round the circle and started following the road by which he had just come. He was not surprised to find that at the point where a man had lain beside a motorbike there was nothing at all to be seen. Rider andmotor-bike had completely disappeared.
    Carolus did not attempt pursuit. It would be useless and he knew that between here and Boxley there were several by-roads and forks. Besides, an idea was growing in his mind that he knew the identity of the rider and with that knowledge he would be in a fair way to discover who had killed Dutch Carver. He decided to drive on to Newminster.
    At home Mrs Stick was waiting up for him.
    â€˜Stick remembers where he saw that young man before,’ she announced with no preliminaries.
    Carolus obligingly asked where.
    â€˜He came into the Star one night some weeks ago. Stick remembers because the Star isn’t the house he usually goes to because he never liked the People that had it, only they left some months ago and now some New People have got it and Stick thinks they’re all right only they’re very strict about who they serve. Anyhow this young fellow who was lying dead in the ditch the other night came in with some girl he’d picked up…’
    Carolus interrupted, finding Mrs Stick too uncharitable in her judgments and phrases.
    â€˜How do you
know
he’d picked her up?’ he demanded.
    â€˜You could Tell,’ said Mrs Stick. ‘I mean, it was written all over her, Stick says. So the new landlord waited to hear what the young fellow would ask for and then said—“I’m sorry, son. We don’t serve them here as young as you are.” Stick says this fellow looked as though he was going to make trouble only the girl got hold of his