Free Wanted Dead by Kenneth Cook

fair amount of time looking for me, and——”
    â€œYou may suppose what you like, Riley,” said the sub-inspector harshly. Then dropping his voice so that it was almost a whisper: “All I’m giving you is the facts.”
    He leaned back in his chair with a smug simper on his face, as though to say, “there what do you think of that?”
    This man was a genuine maniac, Riley realised. Not just an irascible eccentric but a lunatic who simply ought to be locked up. And here he was in charge of a body of troopers and with his, Riley’s, fate in his power.
    â€œThey found the cave you spoke of Riley,” continued the sub-inspector, “and some evidence of an explosion. So at least we can assume that some part of your story is true—there was an explosion, eh?”
    â€œAnd do you know what else they found Riley? Do you know what else they found?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œThey found a new grave Riley, a new grave.”
    A grave, then he had killed somebody?
    â€œThey dug it up, Riley, and what do you think they found inside? A body, Riley, the body of a man who had been shot in the head.”
    That dark mass that had screamed when he fired at it on the path on the bridge a week ago; that was the man he’d killed. Riley was aware of no particular emotion.
    â€œAnd this man, Riley, is no known bushranger. He’s not known to the police at all. So what do you make of that? Eh?”
    â€œWell, I presume, sir, that he’s just a member ofHatton’s gang. He must recruit new members occasionally. I suppose it’s quite possible there are quite a few bushrangers whose identity is not known to the police.”
    â€œYou suppose a lot, don’t you, Riley? Well suppose you just go out now and see if you could identify this man.”
    â€œBut I couldn’t possibly, sir,” said Riley.
    â€œWhat, couldn’t even identify the man you shot?”
    â€œBut I told you in my report, sir, it was completely dark: I had no idea what he looked like.”
    â€œIs that so, Riley?” said the sub-inspector, leaning forward again and leering. “And after the warning I gave you when you started to be careful who you went about shooting.”
    This was impossible, thought Riley. This couldn’t be happening to him.
    â€œThere’ll have to be an inquest, Riley, an inquest. And wouldn’t it be surprising if you found yourself charged with murder as well as horse stealing.”
    Riley said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
    â€œVery good. Sergeant,” said the sub-inspector, “take him out and show him that body.”
    There was a sweet sick smell in the hot tin shed, empty except for the slab table with its burden of a blanket shrouded mass that looked as though it couldn’t possibly be the body of a man.
    This was a man he’d killed, thought Riley, but still there was no reaction. This was all too remote from the frantic action on the ridge. There was no longer any relationship between himself and this man, this body. Not that there ever had been much.
    The trooper pulled back the blanket and Riley sawthe remains of a human face, badly torn about and almost black with dried blood.
    â€œWhat did you hit him with,” said the sergeant, speaking for the first time. “A shotgun?”
    So it was the bird shot that had done the job. Riley thought, he might have realised he would have missed with the ball.
    â€œNo,” he said, “I had a pistol loaded with bird-shot.”
    â€œMust have been pretty close,” said the Sergeant.
    â€œYes,” said Riley.
    The corpse’s head was almost bare of hair, and Riley remembered seeing the bald headed man in the fire-light when he was crouching in the cave. That gave the corpse some identity, gave Riley some feeling of actually having killed someone—not a faceless blur in the dark that had become a faceless corpse in a tin shed. Some