Remains to be Seen Read Free

right. When he was wheeled on to make his grave statements to television cameras or radio microphones, Thomas Bulstrode Tucker was usually successful, whether in proclaiming the latest successes of his underlings or in assuring an impatient public that everything possible was being done and they must remain patient.
    His equanimity was hardly affected by the fact that his colleagues regarded Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker as a complete tosser. That was one of the more polite phrases for him which circulated on the busy floors beneath the chief’s splendidly elevated office.
    On Monday afternoon, Tucker gazed out over the softly sunlit town and enjoyed the view for a few moments. From this height, you could appreciate the changing seasons. There were definite signs of spring today. The days were lengthening and the birds were nesting around his suburban home. Not too many springs now before he could contemplate a well-earned retirement and a splendid pension.
    Just avoid banana skins and any serious cock-ups for another year or two, Thomas, and you’ll be able to cement your position as a well-respected figure in the Lodge. Freemasonry had served him well; in retirement, he could see himself consolidating, perhaps even embellishing, what he saw as his burgeoning reputation within the brotherhood.
    Tucker sighed deeply after his contemplation of the extensive but unremarkable sprawl of the old cotton town. Then he turned reluctantly away from the wide window of his private visions and back to the mundane business of self-preservation. He buzzed the number on the internal phone and said authoritatively into the mouthpiece, ‘Come up here for a few minutes, please, Percy.’
    Chief Inspector Denis Charles Scott Peach had been given the forenames of the most charismatic cricketer of his father’s young days, Denis Compton, but was now universally known as ‘Percy’ in a police service which loved the simple pleasures of alliteration. This was the man who succeeded in carrying the considerable burden of Thomas Bulstrode Tucker upon his broad shoulders. A man who worked at the coal-face of crime and relished it. A man who produced the clear-up figures for crime upon which Tucker sailed, but which he could never have produced for himself.
    DCI Peach knew what happened in Brunton CID better than any other man. He was also more than any other officer the man responsible for the unit’s successes and considerable reputation. Tucker might be a bumbling fool at everything except public relations. But he was not such a fool that he did not know the worth of Peach, did not recognize how vital the man was to his own reputation and progress.
    Tucker detested Peach, detested the liberties the man took and the insolence he suspected but could not pin down. But he knew also how much he needed his DCI.
    For his part, Peach regarded the man he had christened Tommy Bloody Tucker with cordial contempt for most of the time, and with a contempt which was not at all cordial when Tucker perpetrated his worst excesses. Cloaking his disdain under the thinnest veil of subservience, he taunted his superior officer relentlessly, knowing that the older man needed him more than he needed any other person to preserve the fiction of his efficiency.
    Percy Peach now appeared in answer to Tucker’s summons, a squat, powerful figure, with gleaming black toecaps beneath an immaculate grey suit. He was only thirty-eight, but he looked at first sight a little older because of his shining bald head, the whiteness of which was emphasized by the jet-black fringe of hair around it and the equally black moustache and eyes in the round, alert face.
    â€˜You didn’t give me your normal Monday briefing on the events of the weekend,’ said Tucker. Start as you mean to go on, he told himself. Assert yourself to this presumptuous upstart.
    â€˜Written report was on your desk at nine forty this morning, sir,’ said