The Stone That Never Came Down Read Free Page A

bloody useless,” he said.
    On the other side of the office Sergeant Brian Epton glanced up from the charge-sheets he was compiling. “What’s useless, chief?” he demanded.
    “This whole night’s work!”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” Epton countered. “Eighteen arrests, and some of them people who make news by catching cold … It’s going to look good on the crime-sheet, isn’t it?”
    “Oh, I admit that,” Sawyer grunted, rising and crossing the office to look out of the window. In the yard beyond was a car with a dented wing. Yesterday evening it had been driven into a protest meeting of unemployed Italian immigrant workers, and a man had been sent to hospital with two legs broken. Snow was sifting down, fine as sugar from a dredger. A shivering constable was holding a plastic sheet as a kind of awning over the head of one of the forensic people while he examined the damage to the car.
    –Another pin for the map …
    His eyes strayed to the wall where a visual record was kept of unsolved crimes of violence, a big red, black, or yellow pin marking the spot where the incident occurred.
    Every day there seemed to be more of them. More often than not there actually were.
    –And what was I doing all night? Spoiling someone’s party, that’s what.
    Aloud, though, as he unhooked his coat from the stand by the door, he merely said to Epton, “See you this evening, then.”
    “Yes, of course.”

    High above Lambeth in his council flat, Harry Bott was woken by the sound of his children shouting in the adjacent kitchen, and his wife Vera desperately ordering them to shut up. Blearily he peered at the luminous Jesus clock beside the bed. It was just past nine, and he’d intended to lie in late today. He hadn’t come home until after 3 a.m., having spent long cold hours sitting in his car. It had not yet started to snow, but through the cloudless sky the heat of the land was being broadcast to the stars.
    Still, it had all been worth it. Now he knew exactly how he was going to carry out the job he’d been planning for so long.
    –Not this week, though. Not before Christmas. Directly after would be best, when trade’s at its slackest. Anyway, I’ll need help. Someone to drive, someone to stand lookout, someone to carry heavy crates.
    And with the scheme he had lined up, he could rely on recruiting the best talent in the manor.
    His good humour drove away his automatic intention to yell at the kids. Here in a high-rise block, when the lifts were so often out of order, where else was there for them to play when the weather was this bad except at home?
    –Of course their cousins …
    But he was in too good a mood even to feel his regular pang of jealousy at the luxury his brother-in-law–Vera’s brother–wallowed in, with his big house in Hampstead Garden Suburb and his two cars and the rest of it. A tickle or two like the one he was currently planning, and he might be on the way to similar prosperity.
    Humming, he pulled on a dressing-gown and padded into the kitchen in search of a cup of tea.
    “Here’s your dad!” Vera exclaimed. “Now you’re for it!”
    Except for the baby, yelling in his crib, the children fell silent, round-eyed, and she turned from her ironing-board to confront him with tear-stains on her once-pretty face.
    “I did try and keep ’em quiet, Harry, honest I did! It’s just that I feel so low. I don’t have any energy these days.” She put her hand on her belly, where three months of pregnancy were just beginning to bulge her cotton overall, and glanced at the picture of the Virgin in its place of honour as though in search of sympathy from another mother. “You know it was like this last time a baby was on the way, and the doctor did say I shouldn’t–”
    “None of that dirty talk in front of the children!” Harry roared.

    The first time the doorbell rang, Valentine Crawford failed to hear it. For one thing, he was trying to fix his baulky oil-heater. On being lit this