Free The Sleepers of Erin by Jonathan Gash Page A

‘Ledger’ll be going berserk.’
    George wouldn’t say any more so I dressed awkwardly and was whisked into town by a dozily irritable constable in a posh police saloon. So many things about the whole business had bewildered me that it was only one more mind-duller when the motor cruised the wrong way down Priory Street and pulled up at the narrow iron gate leading to the ruins. The bobby parked illegally and led me through the old graveyard with the aid of his torch. Ever been in that state of mind where you can fully understand everything that’s going on, yet you know you’re not really taking any of it in or even believing what you see with your very eyes? Well, that was me when up ahead through the spectral yew trees we heard voices and caught sight of the great ruined arches washed by shifting torchlights. I
knew
, but didn’t gather quite what everybody was on about.
    ‘This way, sir. Mind your head.’
    The lights blended into a brilliant glow as we came into the main flooring opposite the sanctuary area. A generator whirred, steadied, and floodlights hit from three directions. I’d never seen so many of the Old Bill not in a procession. Ledger was talking with two other plainclothes blokes and jerked his chin at me to follow among the mounds and gravestones.
    ‘You took your time, Smethurst,’ he grumbled to the constable.
    ‘My fault,’ I said, more to nark Ledger than from pleasantry.
    ‘Know what, Derby? Every bloody thing’s Lovejoy’s fault. Torch.’ One of his tame nerks snickered, and beamed his flash. Ledger led us through the nettles towards another island of floodlight where Joxer’s shed had once stood. Now the scene was a shambles of charred bricks and stench. An angry uniformed copper approached. He was covered in ash. Sweat glistened on his stained face.
    ‘Sir. These fire-johnnies are buggering us about.’
    ‘Stop them, Lynley.’
    A yellow-helmeted fireman came up, sweatier and even angrier. The six others at the scene wore white helmets. Presumably he was the gaffer.
    ‘Sergeant Ledger! My duty is to excavate and neutralize all fire—’
    Ledger spat on an innocent floodlit nettle. ‘Your duty is to make it safe here for my men.’
    ‘Then that means—’
    ‘Standing by until we tell you.’
    The furious fireman tried to overbear but Ledger wouldn’t give way, and stepped down to where Joxer’s floor once was. I had difficulty seeing even where the bench had been. Ledger scuffed the debris and balanced on a piece of corrugated metal, part of Joxer’s fallen roofing. Ash clouded in the beams up to our knees. The white glare and the abruptly stencilled shadows made it a mad lunar picture.
    ‘Tell him, Derby.’
    Derby intoned, ‘Antique dealer and fabricator known locally as Joxer, height—’
    ‘Yeah, yeah.’
    Derby shrugged, skipped some. ‘Found dead in his burning workshop. Cause of death yet to be reported, but—’
    ‘Skull fracture,’ Ledger cut in. ‘Our quack says it
might
have been falling brick.’
    Joxer was dead. So somebody had been hurt in the fire after all. I remembered Sinead’s sudden tension at Marcia’s news.
    ‘Might means might not, Ledger.’
    ‘True, Lovejoy.’ He kept balancing on the debris, hands in his pockets, looking at me. ‘You accuse Clarke and, Sam, and they inexplicably leap off a motorway bridge. You visit Joxer, and he gets stove in and stoved.’
    ‘And you’re arresting me for coincidences?’
    ‘Don’t be silly, Lovejoy. Last time that rich tart unhooked you. Same thing’d happen.’
    ‘Would it?’
    ‘Lovejoy.’ He came and stood by me. If I didn’t know better I’d have said he was feeling sad. ‘You’re in something deep with that pair of crooks—’
    ‘Which pair, exactly?’ Things were stupifying me.
    ‘The Heindricks. And I want you to know something.’ Derby was standing close by. ‘This old town of ours saw the Roman Empire out, saw the back of the Saxons, Normans, and withstood the Black