Read Online Those Who Feel Nothing by Peter Guttridge - Free Book Online Page B

walking was a man with a huge cluster of balloons battling with the wind. Dirigibles really, shaped as Dalmatians, dolphins, whales and tigers. A big gust of wind almost lifted him off his feet as it caught the balloons. Watts smiled but the man didn’t. There seemed something wrong about a man selling such happy, silly things being so churlish.
    Damn if the middle-aged Asian woman from the pub wasn’t standing against the railings, holding a carrier bag. She scowled at the balloons as they bobbed towards her. Watts watched her for a moment then went to his telescope.
    He had bought it when he moved in. He’d decided that of a sleepless night, of which he’d been having many, he would stargaze, light pollution permitting. He’d always been vaguely interested in astronomy and he’d read there would be two comets to watch this year.
    Since he’d started living in the flat, however, he’d slept like a log and the nightly sea frets had obscured even the moon.
    He trained the telescope now on a boat on the horizon that looked familiar. It was the elegant rum-runner from the Great Escape heading back to Brighton. Smoke puffed out of the central funnel. He scanned the length of the boat but could see no one on deck.

FOUR
    G ilchrist left Heap at Rafferty’s house questioning Roger the house guest whilst she escorted Rafferty to the station. She handed him over to the desk sergeant to process and went to her office to call Legal for advice about what he might actually be charged with. Whilst she was waiting for a call back she googled ‘contemporary grave robbing’ and found a case of a man in Russia, an academic, who had done a horribly similar thing, even down to the tea party.
    She was mulling over the fact that two minds thousands of miles apart had been having the same sick thoughts when her phone rang. Tracey, the chief constable’s secretary.
    Within the limits of her Botox, Hewitt was looking fraught.
    â€˜Sit down, Gilchrist. Bernard Rafferty is no friend of mine but he’s a big cheese in our town. What is he doing in our cells without a lawyer in attendance?’
    â€˜Bernard Rafferty was interrupted digging up a body in Keymer graveyard,’ Gilchrist said.
    â€˜Which is not a sentence I thought I’d ever hear,’ Hewitt said.
    â€˜Indeed, ma’am,’ Gilchrist said. ‘His lawyer is on his way.’
    Hewitt looked up at the ceiling. ‘Maybe he was doing research for a new book.’
    â€˜With respect, ma’am: at four in the morning, by torchlight?’
    â€˜Don’t ask me – academics are a law unto themselves.’ Hewitt sighed. ‘An actual body? Recently buried?’
    â€˜Not a body,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Bones – a skeleton, as far as we can tell.’
    â€˜Isn’t that more grave robbing than bodysnatching?’
    â€˜I don’t know, ma’am – I’m afraid I’m not up on this aspect of the law. Burke and Hare were a bit before both our times.’
    Hewitt sniffed. ‘I’m glad you included me in that comment. Had he actually dug up the skeleton or bones or whatever it was?’
    â€˜No, ma’am. Our officers stopped him before he had got that far.’
    Hewitt clasped her hands. ‘So in fact he’s only guilty of something like disturbing or maybe desecrating a grave.’
    Gilchrist tried not to stare at Hewitt’s smooth forehead. ‘Probably.’
    â€˜How old was this grave?’
    â€˜One hundred and fifty years or so.’
    Hewitt slapped the palm of her hand lightly on the desk.
    Gilchrist looked at the desk. She was bemused by the fact there was never anything on Hewitt’s desk. Anything. The chief constable’s computer was at a station behind Hewitt’s chair and Hewitt would take her tablet out of her drawer at the start of any meeting.
    Gilchrist assumed that at some stage Hewitt had been on the same in-house course