Over the Edge Read Free

discovery.
    The toaster went ping! and the square of bread was hurled completely clear of the machine, falling onto the kitchen carpet. The springs, it would appear, had been chosen for their ability to lift my normal two slices to the optimum level, not one. I threw the sullied portion in the bin, placed a fresh piece in the machine and pushed it further on to the worktop. While waiting for it to cook I had an idea. I placed a book under one edge of the toaster, to give it a pronounced lift, and carefully positioned my plate next to the other side. I stood back and stooped to get a better view, considering the force with which the doomed slice had been ejected, estimating trajectories, and made a slight adjustment.
    Ping! it went again, and one perfectly cooked slice of toast shot from the machine and fell on to my plate, untouched by human hand. The joy that welled up inside me was beyond belief. It was one of those unique occasions, experienced only when momentous discoveries have been made and known only to geniuses like Archimedes, Alexander Fleming, and now me, Charlie Priest. I scraped the last of the margarine across the celebrated slice and poured hot water onto coffee granules.
    I was so pleased I decided to reward myself by not going for a jog. I’d settled down with yesterday’s newspaper when the phone rang. The clock on the wall said ten to six.
    ‘What’s the trouble?’ I asked. ‘At this time in the morning it’s got to be trouble.’
    ‘Bugger me, Charlie,’ the voice at the other end said, ‘you’re up and about early. Can’t you sleep?’
    ‘Been for a jog, Arthur,’ I replied. ‘Four miles before breakfast is a great way to start the day.’ No need to explain that it was only in my mind. I’d read a magazine article claiming that thinking about exercise was almost as beneficial as practising it.
    ‘Blimey. How long have you been doing this for?’
    ‘Um, well, actually, today was the first time. What’s the problem?’ Arthur is the controller at Heckley nick, I’m in charge of the CID. He wasn’t ringing me to make smalltalk.
    ‘Rodger’s radioed in, Charlie, from an RTA upon the high road. It happened about an hour and a half ago. Car gone into a wall at high speed, driver killed. Rodge thinks there’s more to it than meets the eye.’
    ‘Is he still up there?’
    ‘Affirmative.’
    ‘What about a photographer?’
    ‘He’s already sent for him.’
    ‘OK, give me the location and I’ll be off.’
    Rodger is our night detective. CID work normal office hours, plus or minus a few, but we have a representative on round the clock in case something crops up that needs a CID presence. Rodger is our regular night man. No doubt he would have told Arthur all about it, but I preferred to be up there, learning firsthand. I pulled my clothes on and finished the toast in the car, heading out of town up on to the moors.
    It was a cold morning, drizzle and mist combining in a way that’s special to this part of the world. According to the clock the sun should have risen, but it was only half-light and all the signs said that winter wasn’t far away. I switched on the headlamps and wipers and groped my way upwards, wondering about the life that had been snuffed out, wondering who was waiting for him to come home.
    The blue lights were visible from a mile away, blurry smears of colour on a grey background. Thefirst set was a roadblock. Anybody using that route to work on a Thursday morning was going to be late. I lowered my window and the PC recognised me and waved me through. I paused alongside him long enough to say: ‘What’s it look like?’
    ‘Grim, boss,’ he replied.
    Further up the road a cacophony of lights, flickering and dancing across the roofs of the assorted vehicles like static electricity, marked the scene of the crash. Two fire appliances and three police cars were clustered around a mangled wreck that sat in the middle of the road like it had been brought down by enemy