Dying Fall Read Free Page A

yes.’
    â€˜I’ll have you know, madam, that I am in fact a highly respected City stockbroker, midway through what is turning out to be a very unconventional adventure holiday,’ Pogo said sternly.
    Paniatowski grinned. ‘You’re pulling my chain,’ she said.
    â€˜Well, obviously,’ Pogo agreed, grinning back.
    â€˜We really would like you to come down to the station,’ Paniatowski told him. ‘It’s a very serious case we have on our hands.’
    â€˜The murder of a tramp!’ Pogo said dismissively.
    â€˜A tramp who was drenched in petrol and then set on fire,’ Paniatowski told him.
    Pogo rocked on his heels and said, ‘Jesus!’
    â€˜So you’ll come voluntarily?’ Paniatowski asked.
    â€˜Meaning if I won’t, I’ll be coming
involuntarily
?’ Pogo asked.
    â€˜It should be easy enough to find an excuse to pull you,’ Paniatowski said, matter-of-factly. Then she grinned again, and added, ‘After all, you know what bastards the police are.’
    Pogo nodded. ‘I’ll have to collect my stuff together first.’
    â€˜Fair enough.’
    His ‘stuff’ consisted of a sleeping bag, a small knapsack, a tin plate, a mug, a knife, fork and spoon, a Primus stove and small metal pan and a cigarette-rolling machine.
    Most tramps probably had some, or all, of those things, Paniatowski thought. But she doubted that most tramps would have arranged them in the way that this one had. The art­icles were laid out in two straight lines, the first line being roughly a foot from the second.
    Or was there anything
roughly
about it? Paniatowski found herself wondering, and decided that if she’d had to make a bet on the distance between the lines, she’d have to put her money on them being
exactly
twelve inches apart.
    The tramp collected up his possessions methodically and fitted them into the knapsack. When he’d done that, he rolled up the sleeping bag with practised ease, wrapped it in a piece of cord, and tied the cord with an elaborate knot.
    Only when he’d finished his work did he look at Paniatowski and say, ‘The threat of being arrested isn’t enough.’
    â€˜Enough for what?’
    â€˜Enough to make me cooperate with you. If you want me to come to the cop shop voluntarily, you’ll have to persuade me that there’s something in it for me.’
    â€˜How about the promise of unlimited cups of tea?’ Paniatowski suggested.
    Pogo nodded. ‘That’ll do it,’ he agreed.
    The basement of police headquarters had been converted into what the chief constable liked to call ‘the nerve centre of a major investigation’, but as yet there were none of the customary trappings – desks set in a horseshoe configur­ation, blackboard at the front, dozens of phone lines being installed – because this time most of the area was needed as a holding pen for all the tramps who had been picked up in the police swoop.
    There were around two dozen of them, Woodend noted, surveying the scene. They were all kitted out in a similar fashion – wearing clothing long discarded by others and now encased in grime – but otherwise they were a fairly disparate crew, because while it was true that the majority were between forty and sixty, there were also both older and younger men – and three women.
    Thirty years earlier, it would have been surprising to find even two or three tramps sleeping rough in the centre of town, the chief inspector thought. Back then, the tramp was a country-dweller. He would sleep in barns, and sometimes lend a hand on one of the thousands of small farms which were still in existence. And even if he didn’t work for his keep, the tenant farmers would give him
something
, because they would have regarded him as much a part of the natural life of the countryside as the rabbits and birds. Now the traditional farms had mostly gone,