Read The Blurred Man for Free Online Page B

tree.
    Things weren’t looking good.
    But then a car suddenly appeared, speeding across the grass. It raced past one of the unicyclists, knocking her out of the way, then curved round, snapping the stilt man’s stilts in half. The stilt man yelled and dived head first into a bank of nettles. The elephant fell back, rearing up. Tina Trotsky somersaulted backwards, feathers fluttering all around her. The car skidded to a halt next to us and a door swung open.
    “Get in!” someone said, and already I knew that I recognized the voice.
    “Are you a taxi?” Tim asked. I think he was worrying about the fare.
    “It doesn’t matter what it is, Tim,” I said. “Just get in!”
    I pushed Tim ahead of me and dived onto the back seat. There was another rattle of machine-gun fire, a burst of flame and a loud thud as a second knife slammed into the side of the door. But then the car was moving, bouncing up and down along the grass. I saw a bush blocking the way, right in front of us. The driver went straight through it. There was a road on the other side. A van swerved to avoid us as our tyres hit concrete, and a bus swerved to avoid the van. I heard the screech of tyres and the even louder screech of the drivers. There was the sound of crumpling metal. A horn blared.
    But then we were away, leaving Battersea Park far behind us.
    It’s like I said. I’d never liked the circus. And the events of the night had done nothing to change my mind.

THE REAL LENNY SMILE
    “Well, well, well. This is a very nasty surprise. The Diamond brothers! Having a night at the circus?”
    It was the driver of the car, the man who had saved us, who was speaking. He had driven us directly to his office at New Scotland Yard. It had been a while since we had last seen Detective Chief Inspector Snape. But here he was, as large as life and much less enjoyable.
    It had been Snape who had once employed Tim as a police-constable. He had been no more than an inspector then – and he’d probably had far fewer grey hairs. He was a big, solid man who obviously worked out in a gym. Nobody got born with muscles like his. He had small blue eyes and skin the colour of raw ham. He was wearing a made-to-measure suit but unfortunately it had been made to measure somebody else. It looked as if it was about to burst. His tie was crooked. So were his teeth. So were most of the people he met.
    I had never known his name was Freddy but that was what was written on the door. He had an office on the fourth floor, overlooking the famous revolving sign. I had been involved with Snape twice before: once when we were on the trail of the Falcon, and once when he had forced me to share a cell with the master criminal, Johnny Powers * . He wasn’t someone I’d been looking forward to meeting a third time – even if he had just rescued us from the murderous crowd at the Russian State Circus.
    His assistant was with him. Detective Superintendent Boyle hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen him either.
His
first name must have been “Push”. That was what was written on his door. Short and fat with curly black hair, he’d have done well in one of those BBC documentaries about Neanderthal man. He was wearing a black leather jacket and faded jeans. As usual he had a couple of medallions buried in the forest of hair that sprouted up his chest and out of his open-necked shirt. Boyle looked more criminal than a criminal. He wasn’t someone you’d want to meet on a dark night. He wasn’t someone you’d want to meet at all.
    “This is incredible!” Tim exclaimed. He turned to me. “You remember the horoscope in the newspaper! It said I was going to meet an old friend!”
    “I’m not an old friend!” Snape exploded. “I hate you!”
    “
I’d
like to get friendly with him,” Boyle muttered. He took out a knuckleduster and slid it over his right fist. “Why don’t you let the two of us go somewhere quiet, Chief…?”
    “Forget it, Boyle!” Snape snapped.