A Dedicated Man Read Free

daughter less self-centred, they might have realized that they loved each other very much.
    The thing was, though, Charles Lumb would have liked to see more evidence of common sense in his daughter. She was certainly a bright girl, and it would be easy for her to get into university
and become a doctor or a lawyer. A damn sight easier, he reflected, than it was in his day. But no, it had to be this bloody academy, and for all he tried, he could see no value in learning how to
paint faces and show off swimsuits. If he had thought she had it in her to become a great actress, then he might have been more supportive. But he didn’t. Maybe time would prove him wrong. He
hoped so. At least seeing her on the telly would be something.
    Sally, after a few minutes’ sulking, decided to change the topic of conversation. ‘Have you seen those men on the hill?’ she asked. ‘I wonder what they’re
doing?’
    ‘Looking for something, I shouldn’t wonder,’ her father replied dryly, still not recovered from the argument.
    Sally ignored him. ‘They look like policemen to me. You can see the buttons of their uniforms shining. I’m going up there to have a look after dinner. There’s already quite a
crowd along the road.’
    ‘Well, make sure you’re back before midnight,’ her mother said. It cleared the air a bit, and they enjoyed the rest of their meal in peace.
    Sally walked up the hill road and turned right past the cottages. As she hurried on she danced and grabbed fistfuls of dry grass, which she flung up high in the air.
    Several cars blocked the road by the field, and what had looked from a distance like a large crowd turned out to be nothing more than a dozen or so curious tourists with their cameras, rucksacks
and hiking boots. It was open country, almost moorland despite the drystone walls that criss-crossed the landscape and gave it some semblance of order. They were old and only the farmers remembered
who had built them.
    There was more activity in the field than she could recollect ever seeing in such an isolated place. Uniformed men crawled on all fours in the wild grass, and the area by the wall had been
cordoned off with stakes and rope. Inside the charmed circle stood a man with a camera, another with a black bag and, seemingly presiding over the whole affair, a small wiry man with a brown jacket
slung over his shoulder. Sally’s eyesight was so keen that she could even see the small patches of sweat under his arms.
    She asked the middle-aged walker standing next to her what was going on, and the man told her he thought there’d been a murder. Of course. It had to be. She’d seen similar things on
the telly.
FOUR
    Banks glanced back towards the road. He’d noticed a flashing movement, but it was only a girl’s blonde hair catching the sun. Dr Glendenning, the tall, white-haired
pathologist, had finished shaking limbs and inserting his thermometer in orifices; now he stood, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, muttering about what a warm night it had been as he
made calculations in his little red notebook.
    It was just as well, Banks thought as he looked over at the spectators, that two of the forensic team had first examined the roadside. They had found nothing – no skid marks or tyre tracks
on the tarmac, no clear footprints on the grassy verge – but it looked as if someone or something had been dragged up the field from the road.
    Glendenning confirmed that the victim had been killed elsewhere and merely dumped in this isolated spot. That would cause problems. If they had no idea where the man had been killed, they
wouldn’t know where to start looking for the killer.
    The doctor rambled on, adjusting his column of figures, and Banks sniffed the air, feeling again that it was too fine a day and too beautiful a spot for such unpleasant business. Even the young
photographer, Peter Darby, as he snapped the body from every conceivable angle, said that normally on such a day he