Falling More Slowly Read Free Page A

I mean I have met him, of course, once, but that was formal. To work under?’
    ‘Ehm, Denkhaus?’ Austin sounded distracted as his DI drove across three lanes, getting snarled in traffic, weaving, bullying his way through. ‘Up Stokes Croft until I tell you. Ehm, he’s a no-nonsense copper, can suddenly become a stickler for procedure when the mood takes him. I have book-shaped indentations on my head to prove it. Someone suggested it always happens when he tries to lose weight. Sugar cravings.’ He pointed across the street. ‘Not a bad takeaway that, by the way.’
    McLusky came up behind a bus going at walking pace. He worked the horn, mounted the pavement and managed to overtake in the space between two lamp-posts. Just.
    Austin kept his eyes firmly shut until he felt the car regain the road.
    ‘I remember this bit, came down here on my way to the station. But keep up the directions. Albany Road a happy nick?’
    ‘Depends who you’re working with, but yeah, it’s all right, I suppose.’
    McLusky parped his horn at a pedestrian who looked like he might just be thinking of stepping into the road.
    Austin hung on tight and gave directions in good time since the inspector was already cornering with squealingtyres. He didn’t know a lot about the man and half of that was rumour. He was about five years older than himself, he guessed, thirty-three or -four. He’d transferred up to Bristol from Southampton after nearly getting himself killed in the line of duty there. University man and difficult with it, someone had said. And something about being a bad team player. Unpredictable. Not exactly what they needed at Albany. He sneaked a glance at the new DI. He seemed utterly relaxed despite driving at speed in a new town and an unfamiliar road system. Some system. ‘Next left.’
    McLusky didn’t slow. ‘I live down that street over there, next to the Italian grocer’s.’ He cornered and accelerated up the hill.
    ‘Above Rossi’s? What’s it like? Left and directly right again.’
    ‘The grocer’s?’
    ‘Your place.’
    ‘Well … Quite cheap. Totally unmodernized, wonky floorboards, no central heating or anything.’ No heating at all, now he came to think of it.
    Austin shrugged. He could only dream of central heating. He and his fiancée had just scraped together enough for a tiny dilapidated end-of-terrace. Heating would have to wait. ‘I quite like Montpelier, couple of good pubs round there. Go left, no idea what that’s called, and right up the hill.
    ‘Keep going, nearly there. Careful, there’s often dopey schoolkids wandering across this street.’
    McLusky worked the horn again. Austin had never driven through the city at this speed, not even with Blues and Twos. He hated to think what kind of speeds the DI reserved the siren for. McLusky drove up on the wrong side of the road, overtaking everything, barging through, getting a chorus of angry horn play in return.
    ‘Turn right, that should be it.’
    ‘Very leafy round here.’ They certainly had the right place. There was no need to look for the paper on whichhe had scribbled the name of the house. Just beyond the crest of the humpback street was the scene of the disturbance, unlike any domestic McLusky had yet attended in his eight years on the force. Spectators had gathered on the opposite side of the road. He pulled up and jumped out. They were intercepted by a distraught-looking constable. McLusky showed him his ID.
    ‘I’m glad you’re here, sir.’
    ‘I bet you are. What the hell’s going on?’
    The drive of the squat detached house looked like a scrapheap. At various angles stood two squad cars, a BMW and what appeared to have been a green civilian Volvo. All four cars were utterly destroyed, their roofs caved in, windows missing, in fact there wasn’t a single surface left undamaged on any of them. Behind all the battered metal, on the once well-kept lawn, stood an enormous wheeled digger, its engine growling, its