Read Online Chosen by Bill Kitson - Free Book Online

search parties, the station was quiet. Nash spoke to forensics about the CCTV tapes. They promised to get the enhancement done as quickly as they could. When he’d finished, Nash decided to study the files culled from the PNC.
    He printed them off and began reading. The phone rang. Nash listened for a few seconds then spoke tersely, ‘Right, I’m on my way.’
    He disconnected, then pressed a button on the phone’s base unit. ‘Clara? Your afternoon’s just turned into a pub crawl. Meet me in The Cock and Bottle as fast as you can get there. There’s been a stabbing; it’s fatal.’

chapter five
    The Cock and Bottle might have been a smart, respectable town-centre pub once, but that must have been a long time ago. It hadn’t stood the test of time well. It had a dilapidated, neglected air. The paintwork round the doors and windows was cracked and peeling. One window had been boarded over. The uniformed officer standing at the door informed Nash, ‘In the yard at the back, Sir.’
    The interior mirrored the rundown exterior perfectly. The ceilings, once white, were now a dark unpleasant caramel shade. Nash wondered how many thousand cigarettes it had taken to achieve that effect.
    The carpet felt slightly tacky beneath his feet. The bar rail and the wood beneath his fingers was sticky to the touch. There were half a dozen customers in the bar, all men. He presumed the others had been scared away by news of a corpse in the back yard, or that police would be sniffing round. The seedy appearance of those that hadn’t left suited their surroundings. A barman, who looked only just over the legal age to be serving alcohol, slouched towards him. He was tall and lean, wearing a grubby football shirt and ragged jeans. Dispensing with formalities, the youth jerked a thumb towards the rear of the building. ‘She’s out there.’
    â€˜Who is?’
    â€˜The stiff, the one you’re here about.’
    â€˜Is she a customer?’
    â€˜Not anymore,’ the humour, if such was intended, was deadpan.
    â€˜Was she, then?’
    â€˜I suppose so.’
    â€˜What was her name?’

    â€˜Dunno.’
    â€˜Perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing me the way?’
    â€˜Sorry, can’t leave the bar unattended.’
    Nash looked round at the punters and nodded. ‘I see your point. Where’s the landlord?’
    The barman’s face twisted into a sneer. ‘Upstairs, glued to the telly, watching his money coming in seventh at Kempton Park.’
    â€˜Fetch him down.’
    â€˜More than my job’s worth.’
    Nash leaned towards the barman and smiled humourlessly. ‘When this place closes, which will be in about ten minutes time, I can make sure it never re-opens again. How much would your job be worth then?’
    The barman turned away disappointed, accepting defeat.
    Clara arrived. ‘What’s going on?’
    â€˜A woman’s been stabbed, body’s in the back yard apparently. I’m waiting for the barman to fetch the landlord. If he can drag him away from watching racing on television.’
    â€˜Obviously the caring sort.’
    â€˜Grieving takes many forms, Clara.’
    They heard sirens wailing and an ambulance pulled up outside; two paramedics hurried in. Their entrance coinciding with the return of the barman, accompanied by another man. Nash signalled the paramedics towards the door indicated by the barman. ‘Be right with you. You know the drill.’
    Nash surveyed the newcomer. The man was in his mid fifties, and like the pub hadn’t aged well. He was no more than five feet six inches tall and would probably once have been described as strongly built. All the muscle had long since run to fat. His T-shirt strained to cover his belly, leaving an unattractive bulging strip of flesh hanging over the waistband of his jeans.
    His facial features were equally unprepossessing. A stubble of black