Free Broken Lines by Jo Bannister

in the middle of the road with one hand up and he let it fall. ‘Er – hi,’ he said inanely.
    â€˜I said ,’ repeated the girl, her voice steely with exasperation, ‘what do you want that’s worth risking both our lives for?’
    â€˜I think I was going to make a big mistake,’ admitted Donovan. ‘I was going to ask if you’d any right to be riding that bike.’
    Even outside the shadow there wasn’t a lot of light, but what there was gathered in the pale oval of her face. Enough to show the flash of indignation in her eyes tum first to an appreciation of the compliment and then to amusement. ‘That would have been a mistake,’ she nodded. Unmuffled by the helmet, her voice had the clear carrying quality of struck crystal. ‘Anyway, what business is it of yours?’
    His reply was so low she had to ask him to repeat it. ‘I’m a policeman!’ he said then, loud enough to cause heart attacks all over The Jubilee. ‘I’m supposed to challenge anyone acting suspiciously.’
    Now the anger had subsided she was rather enjoying his discomfort. ‘And I’m Rumpole of the Bailey. What do you mean, acting suspiciously? – I could give lessons on how to ride a motorcycle.’
    Donovan didn’t doubt it. ‘That’s what I mean. In The Jubilee, somebody riding carefully on a clean motorbike is suspicious. If you want to go unnoticed here, lose that prissy helmet and practise your wheelies.’
    The girl laughed. ‘My wheelies don’t need any practice. I take it you’re a biker?’
    Donovan did the slow smile. ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’
    â€˜What do you ride?’
    â€˜Same as yours but the 550.’
    The girl nodded. ‘I like the power of a big bike but the weight’s a problem. The 400’s a good compromise – plenty of burn but I can still hold it up in traffic jams.’
    â€˜Do you live round here?’
    Her head tipped to one side. ‘Is that an official inquiry, officer?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then no. Castlemere, but not here. I was visiting someone. Why?’
    He shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant fashion. ‘I thought, if you’d got a long ride home, you might like a coffee first. I know a place on the canal, three minutes from here.’
    â€˜Well, it isn’t that long a ride,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘On the other hand, it’s a chilly night. A café, you say?’
    Donovan nodded. ‘At Mere Basin, where the narrowboats used to tie up. There are still some about. Talk to me nicely and I might show you one.’
    Her name was Jade. Some people would have looked for rather more in the way of an introduction but Donovan went for months, sometimes even years, without using his first name and had always found one perfectly adequate.
    â€˜How did they know you were going to have green eyes?’
    She laughed again, like a crystal fountain. ‘How do you know I’ve got green eyes?’
    And to be sure, there was nowhere near enough light to tell. But his conviction didn’t waver. ‘With hair that colour? Of course they’re green.’
    â€˜The hair colour might have come out of a bottle.’
    â€˜Sure it might,’ said Donovan. ‘And I might be lead tenor in a Welsh miners’choir.’
    â€˜You’re Irish.’
    â€˜And you have green eyes.’
    Jade grinned and threw a long leg over the machine. ‘Coffee, then. Tell me where to go.’
    Donovan didn’t need asking twice: he got on behind her, only hoping he wouldn’t be flagged down by one of the more reckless PCs for riding without a helmet. But even a PC desperate for arrests would think twice before venturing this far up Brick Lane. In fact they saw no one. Donovan’s biggest problem was riding pillion on a bike when he didn’t know where to put his hands.

Chapter Seven
    Shapiro was unsurprised about