Read Summer Rain: An Inspector Banks Short Story for Free Online Page B

couple of spliffs that bothered the police; it was big business, big profit, and that was what drew the nastier type of international criminals and gangs. It was hard to turn a blind eye to them.
    “Do you have any security alarms?” Annie asked.
    Beddoes snorted. “What, up here? Waste of bloody money, like I told the constable earlier. Any self-respecting criminal would be long gone before a patrol car got up here, even if one happened to be free when you needed it.”
    He was probably right, Annie realized. Once she had as much detail as she could get from John Beddoes, there seemed little reason to stay. Annie stirred herself and gave Doug Wilson the nod. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we know anything,” she said. “We’ll just have a quick shufti around outside before we leave.”
    “Right you are,” said Beddoes. “Please keep me informed.”
    “We will.”
    Patricia Beddoes lingered behind her husband, her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Beddoes,” said Doug Wilson, ever the polite young man.
    “You’re welcome. Good-bye.”
    Once they had put their rain gear on again, Annie and Doug Wilson squelched over to the garage where John Beddoes had housed the tractor. PC Valentine had examined it earlier, of course, and they saw nothing he hadn’t mentioned in his report. It looked like a crowbar job, Annie thought. The entire metal housing had been prized from the wooden door, and the heavy padlock that lay in the mud was still intact. Annie took a photo of it in situ with her mobile phone, then dug a plastic bag out of her pocket and carefully picked up the lock using the end of a pencil and dropped it in the bag.
    “A kid could have broken into that garage in five seconds,” Annie said in disgust. “Come on, Doug. We’ll send some CSIs to poke around in the mud when we get back to the station. There’s no hurry.”
    “Poor Beddoes,” said Wilson, as the windscreen wipers slid into action and the police Volvo shuddered to life.
    “Oh, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him. That BMW over there looks new to me. And as you said, it’s an expensive tractor.”
    Annie made herself as comfortable as possible in the passenger seat, rubbing at the steamed-up window beside her. Unlike Banks, whom she felt always needed to be in control, she didn’t care who was driving. In fact, all the better if it wasn’t her. She didn’t like driving, especially in this weather. And there were too many arseholes on the roads these days, no matter what the weather. This week wasn’t starting out well, she thought. It was only midmorning on Monday, but already her back was aching, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and have a long hot bath with a pile of trashy gossip magazines.
    W HEN DS W INSOME Jackman arrived at the abandoned airfield, there was already a patrol car parked at the gate and two uniformed officers, one of them enjoying a cigarette, were talking to a man through the chain-link fence. The man was tall and slim, wearing a camouflage jacket, waterproof trousers, sturdy walking boots and a baseball hat, black with a stylized white “A’s” on the front. He was taller than Winsome, but stooped a little and leaned on a walking stick. Whether it was a rambler’s prop or a genuine need, she couldn’t tell. It was also hard to tell how old he was under the baseball cap, but he seemed too young to be needing a walking stick unless he’d had an accident. There was something vaguely familiar about him, Winsome felt, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. A beagle sat quietly by his side, nose twitching as Winsome appeared.
    The uniformed constable introduced herself and dropped her cigarette and trod on it as Winsome approached. Winsome had been told by dispatch that someone had reported seeing what he thought was a bloodstain in a disused hangar near the railway line. It was her job to go over there and assess the situation, weigh up the pros and cons of bringing in an