Free Get Cartwright by Tom Graham Page A

public have in a police force that colludes with villains to cover up the murder of a PC?
They’ll crucify me, Tyler! It’s happened before. That dodgy hack who’s always half-cut, Saucy Jack Sargood who writes for the whatever-it-is, he’s tucked me up like a kipper a dozen times in his filthy little rag, writing all sorts of stuff about me being a bully and a thug and mistreating darkies an’ that. Total bollocks, but people believe it. Just think what a field day he’d have if a
real
scandal came out. He’d make mincemeat of me. And all because your drippy bird stirred up old troubles. Damn it, Tyler!’
    Without warning, Gene span round and grabbed Sam by the throat. He thrust his face against Sam’s and glared right into his eyes.
    ‘You went behind my back!’ he hissed. ‘You and that bird of yours, you deliberately failed to keep me informed! You froze me out! You kept me in the cold! You bloody well –’
    More bricks fell, and this time there came a strange honking sound from behind them, like the frantic calling of a chronically overweight goose.
    ‘What the hell’s them giant farts?’ Gene frowned, tilting his head to listen.
    Two hundred yards away, Fred Dibner was madly honking the old car horn he used as a warning klaxon. Frantically, he waved his arms and pointed, and then honked again.
    Sam suddenly understood. So did Gene. In unison, they glanced up at the chimney as it began to tilt towards them.
    ‘Stand there till doomsday, he said …’ muttered Gene.
    ‘I think doomsday’s arrived early …’ Sam grunted back, prying the Guv’s fingers from around his windpipe.
    In the next moment, they ran.
    There was a deafening roar and a violent cascade of masonry. The sky went dark as great billows of brick dust erupted all round them. Sam had time to glimpse Gene being swallowed whole by the avalanche of dust before he himself was blinded by the deluge.
    And then, a heartbeat later, came the terrible weight of the falling chimney crashing down at their heels, slamming into the earth with the force of a meteorite. The ground heaved and jolted beneath Sam’s feet, but he somehow maintained his balance and kept on running. He felt his back and legs peppered with flying pellets of brickwork. Spinning chunks of debris whistled past his ears and shattered on the ground all about him like hand grenades.
    Choking and spluttering, Sam blundered blindly ahead, aware now that the sun was just visible as a sickly yellow glow. The dust clouds were settling. The air was clearing. Sam slowed to a walk, and found that he was stumbling through a ruinous terrain of heaped bricks and pulverised stone. The chimney had twisted as it fell, hurling itself to destruction off to their left, missing them by a matter of yards. As Sam spluttered and looked about, he saw movement – a shadowy, faceless figure emerging threateningly from the dust. But this time, unlike the encounter outside the Roxy, there was no aura of horror about this ghostly apparition. There was violence, yes, and anger, and a certain brutishness – but more powerfully than that was a sense of moral purpose, a feeling that, for all its faults and failings, this figure emerging from the debris represented sanctuary.
    Caked in dust, like two gingerbread men freshly rolled in flour, Sam and Gene stood looking at each other.
    Fred Dibner came panting up to them, the concern on his face giving way to relief when he saw they were both alive and in one piece. Then he cast his eyes over the ruined chimney, and a huge grin spread across his face.
    In his broad Lancashire accent, he said: ‘Y’like tha’?’
    Gene glared at him: ‘Not one bit, you oily-dicked bowl of bollocks.’
    And with that, he stormed off towards the Cortina, trailing dust in his wake.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THIS IS DIPLOMACY
    Gene angrily floored the gas, sending the Cortina screaming through the streets. As he drove, he ordered Sam to put a call through to CID over the police