Endangering Innocents Read Free Page B

Prime Minister was busily delivering pre-election speeches assuring his voters that the countryside was open for business. Business - yes - Joanna thought sourly. Alton Towers would open at Easter - after it had culled their animals. But the countryside, to all intents and purposes, was closed for pleasure, its freedom denied to ramblers, hikers, bikers. When the grass started to grow, then what? Would England become a land of desolate fields strangled by weeds allowed to grow freely? Would animals grazing be consigned to the fiction of children’s picture books? Would we all say,
remember when?
    She pedalled faster.
    It must not happen.
    She bent her head lower over the handlebars, flatteningher back and feeling her hamstrings and quads ache as she wondered how the moorlands farmers would brave this latest catastrophe. Already there had been one suicide; one local farmer, wandering at dawn to the farthest corner of his most isolated, deserted top field, had blown his brains out with despair. There would be more. After the BSE abandonment of meat, foot and mouth seemed like the second plague.
     
    The town was eerily quiet; even the early morning traffic subdued. The farmers were staying on their farms, imposing voluntary isolation in the hope that self-inflicted quarantine would protect them from the insidious air, dust and rain in which the virus spread. She free-wheeled the last half a mile through the streets, passing the cottage hospital and the big mill on her right before veering off to the police station where she padlocked her bike to the railings. The desk sergeant greeted her with a brief nod. A quick change in the ladies’ locker room and she was ready for work in a black A-line skirt and pale blue sweater, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, exposing slim, tanned arms, one decorated with a gold wrist chain, the other displaying a watch.
    Mike was already behind his desk, leafing through some papers. “Morning, Jo. Good weekend?”
    “Well no. Not really.”
    He looked up from his reading matter. “Oh - I forgot. Weren’t you being the Fairy Godmother yesterday?”
    “More like the Black Fairy. And not content with forcing me to do something that went completely against the grain.” She sat on the corner of his desk and crossed her legs. “My bloody sister tried to poison me with some prawn vol-au-vents. I’ve been throwing up half the night.”
    “They do say avoid shellfish.” He gave her a swift, sneaky glance. “And champagne.”
    “I didn’t have that much,” she said defensively. “I’m not fond of champagne. Overrated stuff, if you ask me. Give me a good Spanish rioja any day.”
    “So you weren’t the sober driver, Inspector?”
    “OK, smartarse.” She leaned across. “What are you reading anyway?”
    Mike smiled at her. Square-faced, blunt featured, broad shouldered, his black hair and dark eyes proclaiming his semi-Polish origins. “Something and nothing.” He pushed the papers towards her. “Just a run of complaints from a primary school.”
    “Which one?”
    “Horton.”
    “What are they complaining about?”
    “Someone sitting in a car watching the children.”
    “Not a parent?”
    “No one seems to recognise him.”
    “Got the number of the vehicle?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So?”
    “No one with a record. Just a 37-year-old jobbing plumber, guy who lives in Leek. Name of Joshua Baldwin.”
    “Married? Children? Does he live alone?”
    “The electoral roll places him in Haig Road, in a council flat. And he’s the only one registered at that address.”
    “Do we know anything about him?”
    Mike glanced down at his sheets. “A couple of complaints about neighbour noise. Seems he likes a quiet life.”
    “Anyone been round there?”
    “Hang on a minute. The guy hasn’t done anything. He’s just been seen outside a school.”
    “On more than one occasion?”
    “Yeah - but.”
    “But what, Mike. You know what the climate is like for anyone who just might display