Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series) Read Free Page A

finding a lead.’
    The team worked on, mainly in silence broken only by one or other officer displaying some article of possible interest from time to time. By four o’clock all the stuff had been sifted through and placed unceremoniously into black bags taken from the surplus stock.
    An unsavoury odour hung over the room despite the opening of windows.
    Amos had taken the precaution of checking whether there were any missing persons reported on the police files from the relevant area but had drawn a blank.
    ‘We’ll take an early night,’ Amos announced. ‘Tomorrow at eight we start touting ourselves around East Street and we’ll work outwards. Let’s see if anyone remembers a young man disappearing about 15 years ago.
    ‘Juliet,’ he said to Swift as his mobile phone rang, ‘organize us a couple more detectives and see if we can keep these two for another day.’
    Leaving Swift to make the arrangements, Amos answered the call. A voice exploded.
    ‘What the hell is going on?’ the Chief Constable demanded. ‘Why haven’t you given the council clearance to empty their lorries?’
    Amos had completely forgotten.
    ‘I gave the council my word we would get back to them as quickly as possible. It’s the least we could do after they bent over backwards to help us. They’ve got dustbin lorries queuing up at the site and blocking the road. I’ve had to put two officers onto directing traffic round them.’
    There was no possibility of shielding the rant from the junior officers. Amos bit the bullet.
    ‘I’m very sorry, sir. We’ve only just come clear,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll ring the council right away and say we’ve done.’
    ‘Don’t bother,’ snapped Fletcher. ‘David will do it. I’ve got quite enough on launching my new campaign to stop shopkeepers selling cigarettes to underage smokers to deal with your shortcomings.’
    And the line went dead. Amos resolved to ditch the mobile phone as soon as he was back at HQ.

 
     
    Chapter 5
     
    The small team assembled at the top of East Street promptly at 8am next morning. The road was used as a rat run by motorists to avoid the town centre and make for the bypass. It was just wide enough for cars to pass comfortably.
    Terrace houses flanked either side as the road sloped down towards the river. A main road ran across the top and the bottom.
    Handing a clipboard to Det Sgt Swift, Amos announced: ‘Juliet, collate the responses. John, you come with me. Marie,’ he said to Detective Constable Holmes, ‘you take George,’ he added indicating the second male uniformed officer, Constable Martin.
    ‘We’ll work in pairs. Ask how long the residents have lived in the house and how long they have lived in the town if it’s less than fifteen years here in East Street. Any previous address near here. Then ask if they remember any boy around the age of twenty disappearing, or if they had heard of one going missing. Say boy or young man, not youth as that could mean a young woman.
    ‘Don’t tell them it’s a murder inquiry, just a case of a missing person we are now anxious to trace.’
    It took only an hour to work down the street. Starting early meant that most houses had at least one occupant at home prior to going to work or embarking on the school run. Although more than half the houses contained at least one resident who had lived somewhere in the town for at least fifteen years, the results were dispiriting. Not one person could recall a relevant disappearance.
    The small group gathered at the bottom end of the street to assess the results.
    There were fourteen people at eleven different houses who had lived in East Street for upwards of fifteen years and another eight residents in six more houses who had lived in the town for a similar period of time.
    Another seven had lived in the street or its surroundings for at least ten years and had heard not a whisper of a strange or abrupt disappearance. Five comparative newcomers to the street had relatives