Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"They used clothesline at the first four," I added, 'but the knots were the same."

"They ran out of clothesline?" someone suggested.

"Probably," I agreed. "The point is, we can assume it's the same gang." I turned to DC Madison. "Hospital duties for you, Maggie. Ask if there's any next-of-kin they'd like informed, then if they saw the vehicle. Most importantly, what time did the villains leave and who do the McLellands bank with? Take one of those consent forms with you that we created after the last job, so we can talk to their bank. Find out what you can, but let me know if either of them is fit enough for a proper statement."

"I'm on my way."

"Jeff," I said, looking at Jeff Caton, another of my sergeants. "Liaise with our neighbours, let them know we've had another and keep them informed. Tell them about the tyre print one was found at the Oldham job, I believe. Collect whatever videotapes Traffic have to offer and have someone look at them. Maggie'll let you know the time frame.

It's a pound to a pinch of snuff they use the motorway." So did seventy thousand other vehicles, every day, but what the hell.

"It was Oldham," the SOCO confirmed, referring to the tyre print "Have you done a comparison?"

"No. We don't have the file."

"Fair enough, but let's have it done." I dispatched people to talk to the neighbours and a couple of DCs agreed to have a word with local likely lads on the estates who might have heard something on the jungle drums. They have a system of communication that doesn't rely on wires or radio waves or satellites. It's a hotchpotch of rumour, gossip, lies, wishful thinking and wild imaginings. It spreads like chicken pox through an infant school but sometimes, just sometimes, there's a kernel of truth in it. It's a bit like satellite news.

"And you and me, sunshine," I said, turning to Sparky as the others grabbed jackets and notebooks and filed out, 'we'll have a pleasant morning talking to the usual suspects."

We blinked into the daylight and I wondered if some decent shades would help my image. "We ought to be having the day off somewhere," Dave said as we walked to his car.

"When we sort this," I said. "Big day out. Ingleborough, Hill Inn for a few bevvies, Chinky in Skipton. We'll hire a bus. Long time since we did something like that."

"It'll probably be raining tomorrow."

"Nuh-uh." I shook my head. "It's set fair for the foreseeable future.

High pressure over North Outsera."

"Day after tomorrow, then."

We placed our coats on the back seat and I wound my window down. Dave started the engine. "Tony's Antiques?" he suggested.

"Good a place as any," I agreed.

But Tony had nothing to offer us. These days, he claimed, he'd lost contact with the old gang. Things were not the same; no honour any more; too much violence. He was respectable; all his mistakes were behind him; little woman saw to that. Just like he'd told us the last time.

"Sell many of these, Tony?" I asked, turning a twelve-inch bowie knife with a serrated blade in my hands. I held it to the light and saw Made in East Germany etched into the steel.

"Not many, Mr. Priest," he answered. "One or two, to collectors. And 'unters, sometimes."

"Hunters? What do they hunt?"

"Rabbits, that sort of thing. There's a fishing line in the 'andle."

I pulled the end of the hilt and two yards of tightly coiled nylon line sprang out, thick enough to restrain a playful corgi. I imagined one of Tony's shaven-headed, pot-bellied customers chasing a rabbit across the moors, and concluded that Benjamin Bunny and his friends were not in danger.

"You'll be sure to let us know if you hear anything," Sparky said, pushing his face close to Tony's. "Won't you?"

"Er, yeah, 'course I will," Tony promised, leaning away, his eyes flicking between us.

We were at the less prosperous end of town, where the mills and workers' cottages better described as slums once stood. Now it's a junction on the bypass, with a few run-down terraces left clinging to streets that terminate abruptly against the guard rail and don't figure in the council's road-sweeping plans. We came outside, squinting against the glare and the traffic-borne dust. An old man shuffled by using a Zimmer frame, slippers on his feet. He'd probably lived all his life within a hundred yards of that spot, in one of the few houses left standing. When he died, they'd knock it down and go back to their offices to wait for the next one. It's development by attrition.

"How's he supposed to cross the road?" Sparky wondered as we watched him dodder away.

"Cross the road?" I replied. "Cross the road? Why would he want to cross the road? Roads are for cars."

"Right. So where next?"

"Well, as we're talking about cars, let's go kick a few tyres."

"Good idea. And why don't we walk?"

"Good idea."

It's funny how second-hand car showrooms cluster together, challenging the would-be customer to find a better deal. There are three on the road out of town and over the years we'd had dealings with all of them.

The dazzle as we approached the first one hurt the brain. A Ford Escort convertible, the hood invitingly down, stood temptingly in front of all the others, bait for the impulse buyer. Car of the Week was emblazoned across its windscreen.

"Why doesn't mine shine like this?" I asked the proprietor when he swam out from under his stone.

"I don't know what you drive, sir," he replied. "But these are all quality motors, and that's reflected in the paintwork. Reflected in the paintwork! That's a good one, eh? Are you particularly interested in a cabriolet?"

"No, not really."

"So did you have anything in mind?"

"All of them," I said, showing my ID. "Do you have papers for them all?"

His expression fell quicker than a politician's trousers. "P-papers?" he stuttered. "Papers? Er, yes, in the office. Is there… is there a problem, Officer?"

"Not at all, sir," I replied, smiling like the same politician when he realises it's only the wife who's caught him, and she's not going to derail the gravy train. "I'm sure everything's in order. We'd like a word with you about another matter, though, in the office, if you don't mind."

We were wasting our time, and the other two dealers were no help. They hadn't made any big cash sales recently, and nobody had offered them goods in kind or suggested any sort of dodgy deal. Business was steady and wholesome, even though customers these days knew every trick in the book and were determined to rip them off.

"My heart's bleeding," I said as we walked back to the car.

"You were too easy on them," Dave admonished.

"I think they got the message," I replied. "If they don't know anything they don't know anything."

"Everyone knows something. We should turn one of them over, then ask again."

"Sadly, it's not that easy, and you know it. Where next?"

"The tattoo parlour, then the Golde and Silver Shoppe in the town centre."

"Right. I might have a discreet boudoir scene done on my left thigh while we're there."

Unfortunately the tattooist was busy, so it would have to be another day. We dragged him away from the young girl who was having an iguana added to the menagerie on her scapula, but he didn't know anything, 'know what I mean?" The manageress of Ye Olde Golde and Silver Shoppe used language that would make a Cub Scout blush and threatened to report us to the Council for Civil Liberties. You'd never have believed her old man was doing four years for receiving.

We lunched on a bench in the square. Every town should have a square, a focal point. Ours has just been refurbished at monstrous cost, but it looks good and the office workers and shoppers certainly enjoy it when the weather's fine. We had ham sandwiches in oven-bottom cakes, and tea from polystyrene beakers.