The Bullet That Missed полностью

‘OK, here’s how I see things,’ says Pauline. ‘And I’ve only known you a short while. But this is just my take, and who am I to say? But each and every one of you in the room, each and every one of you, in your own different way, is absolutely barking mad.’

Joyce looks at Elizabeth. Elizabeth looks at Ibrahim. Ibrahim looks at Ron. Ron looks at Joyce. Viktor and Alan look at each other.

Stephen surveys the room. ‘She has a point.’

‘I’ve known you for just over two weeks, and I’ve already been in a grave with a KGB colonel, I’ve seen a tiny old woman drug a Viking, and I’ve shared a bed with the most handsome man in Kent. For three or four years in the eighties I did a lot of magic mushrooms. I once did LSD in Bratislava with Iron Maiden. But nothing – nothing I’ve ever done – compares to a couple of days in your company. What else have you got in store?’

‘Well,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Tomorrow we’re digging up a garden with the Chief Constable of Kent, looking for a body and a gun.’

‘Bethany’s body?’ says Pauline. She is suddenly serious.

‘Bethany’s body,’ confirms Elizabeth. ‘Now, Henrik, I wonder if you might stick around here for a day or so? There’s a spare room at Ibrahim’s, if Ibrahim wouldn’t mind?’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Henrik has had a long and traumatic day.’

‘I just want to go home,’ says Henrik.

‘All in good time, Henrik,’ says Elizabeth. ‘There’s a task I think you might be able to help us with first.’

Inspector Gerry Meadowcroft lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. A cloud of smoke drifted across his fierce blue eyes. Eyes that had seen too much killing, too much blood, too many widows. He felt the weight of a gun in his pocket. Would he have to use it?

Gerry could kill. He had killed before, and he would kill again if he was called upon. But not through choice, never through choice. Each time he killed, Gerry Meadowcroft lost a piece of his soul. How many pieces did he have left? Gerry was in no mood to find out.

He thought back to his training at Ashford Police College. Not everyone trained at Hendon, that was a misconception.

What do you think? I’ve been inspired to give writing a go. There is a short-story competition in the Evening Argus, first prize a hundred pounds and a Zoom call with a literary agent. I don’t really want to do any more Zoom calls than I absolutely have to, but I could give the hundred pounds to Alan’s rescue centre, and it might be fun, mightn’t it?

My detective is named after Gerry, though my Gerry had brown eyes, because you have to change some things. Also, my Gerry had hayfever, and I’ve changed that too. I can’t just have my Gerry pottering about solving a murder. So this Gerry has blue eyes and a gun, while my Gerry had brown eyes and an organ-donor card. But my Gerry often said, ‘Well, then, Bob’s your uncle,’ and I’m going to make that the detective’s catchphrase too.

At the moment, the story is called ‘Cannibal Bloodbath’, but I might change that, because it gives away too much of the plot.

So they think they know where Bethany might be buried. Buried. That just makes no sense at all. Oh, Bethany, what on earth did you get involved in?

Mike Waghorn pours himself a glass of cider. He doesn’t really drink cider in public, it doesn’t look right. In public, he drinks champagne, good wine, the sort of stuff people would expect Mike Waghorn to drink. A beer if he’s fitting in with the lads at a corporate do.

But when Mike was a teenager, he would only drink cider, and as he gets older he finds himself returning to it. He has tried expensive cider, you can get that now. Waitrose does one, but, really, the cheaper the better with cider. The one he is currently drinking is from a two-litre plastic bottle. He has poured it into a heavy cut-glass decanter, just for appearances, but he might stop doing that soon as well. Who is he trying to fool? There is no one here, so he can only be fooling himself.

He washes down his arthritis pills, then his beta-blockers, and his gout medication. You’re not really supposed to drink alcohol with any of them, but no one is going to stop him.