A Well-deserved Murder (Trevor Joseph Detective series) Read Free

intention of taking good advice?’
    ‘As I said, I haven’t entirely been a good boy. I had a better idea.’
    ‘What?’
    Alan tapped his nose. ‘I’m waiting on results. Soon as I get my patio back, you and your lady love – Rose?’
    ‘Daisy,’ Peter growled.
    ‘Must come round for a barbecue.’
    ‘What have you done?’
    Alan glanced at his watch. ‘Tell you next time.’
    ‘And which innocent character is the emperor of the gutter press assassinating this afternoon?’
    ‘Haven’t made my mind up – yet.’ Alan hesitated. ‘Off the record …’
    ‘Isn’t everything always off the record with you?’
    ‘What do you know about that missing girl?’
    Peter narrowed his eyes suspiciously. ‘What missing girl?’
    ‘The beauty queen who disappeared after winning the competition. “Miss Eco-friendly” or “Miss Alternative Lifestyle” …’
    ‘If you mean, “Miss Green Earth” I know jack shit,’ Peter answered. ‘Why? Do you know more?’
    ‘Just asking.’
    ‘I know you. You never “just ask” about anything. You’ve had a tip-off?’
    ‘Not in so many words.’
    ‘No?’ Peter queried sceptically. ‘Because if you have, and kept it to yourself, you could be charged with withholding evidence.’
    ‘It wasn’t worth mentioning.’
    ‘Then why mention it? Stay silent and it could be construed as perverting the course of justice,’ Peter warned.
    ‘I don’t know anything.’
    ‘A pound to a penny if you stretch out your tongue it will be black.’
    ‘Grow up. We’re not six years old any more.’
    ‘You’re behaving as if you’re a fully paid-up member of Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven.’
    ‘All right.’ Alan moved his chair closer to Peter’s. ‘I had a call this morning from someone who said they know where she is and why she’s in hiding. They want to meet so I can print her side of the story.’
    Peter pulled out his notebook. ‘What story?’
    ‘If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t need to meet them.’
    ‘When and where?’
    ‘You expect me to tell you that so you and your colleagues can tramp in with your size fourteen boots? No way. Besides, it might be nothing.’
    ‘And, it might be something.’
    ‘If it comes to anything, you’ll be the first to know,’ Alan assured him.
    ‘Man or woman?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Who phoned you, man or woman?’ Peter pressed him.
    ‘Don’t know. They used one of those electronic voice changer things.’
    ‘Phone number?’
    ‘They rang the office switchboard and asked to be put through to me. And don’t suggest I look at the records. That phone rings off the hook. We get up to 500 calls an hour.’
    ‘In other words you didn’t try to trace it.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Record it?’
    ‘You think I have time to record every crank call that comes in?’ Alan left his chair. ‘Like I said, if anything comes of it, I’ll let you know.’
    ‘It’s not every day a beauty queen goes missing or you read unsubstantiated articles about them being sold into white slavery on the North African coast.’
    Alan held up his hands in mock defence. ‘Not one of mine.’
    ‘This week,’ Peter sniped.
    Alan checked his watch again. ‘I have to file a piece before I meet my snitch, or not as the case maybe.’
    ‘Piece on what?’ Peter asked.
    ‘Police incompetence,’ Alan joked.
    ‘Spell my name right.’
    ‘Don’t I always?’
    ‘Unfortunately.’ Peter picked up his coat and followed Alan out the door.
    Alan filed his report, on the abandonment of a rape trial, by three forty-five. He left the office, bought a box of chocolates and drove out of town via home so he could pick up a sleeping bag in case his contact wanted to move on and it would turn into an all-nighter. He dropped the chocolates into a neighbour’s house as a combination “thank you and sorry for being insensitive” gift.
    Back in his car he headed for a B-road that wound through the hills. The motorway would have been faster but he’d heeded the