Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders) Read Online Free

second that you don’t bang on about being kicked out. You’re not being fired, you’re retiring. Deal?’
    ‘Deal. And I don’t know why you all keep going on about my car. I clean it whenever there’s a V in the month.’
    ‘And how long have you had it?’
    ‘Three years.’
    ‘So how often have you cleaned it?’
    ‘Twice, and I’ll do it again this November, whether it needs it or not.’
     
    As usual Ray Dixon drove as if he was on an economy run.
    ‘Get a move on, Ray. It’s low tide in an hour and I want to get a ride out with the Coastguard to look at this tractor. It’ll be underwater before we get there if you carry on at this rate.’
    ‘It’s my petrol we’re using, Ian. So they’ve found it then, the bloke’s tractor?’
    ‘Looks like it. The chopper spotted it again about an hour ago. Half covered in sand already, but they’re sure it’s a tractor. About two miles out, apparently.’
    ‘Do you want me to come as well? Only I’ve not brought my wellies.’
    Mann laughed. ‘You’re all right. You do what you do best, and take a stroll round the village, chatting up the old dears.’
    ‘What am I after?’
    ‘Usual stuff. What was Bell like? Friends, enemies, rumours, anything you can get.’
    ‘Was? So you reckon he’s fish-food then, Ian?’
    ‘You’ve got a lovely turn of phrase, Ray, I’m going to miss that. But unless you pick up anything to suggest he’s done a Reggie Perrin then yes, we can assume he’s dead. But don’t you let on that’s what we think, because you’re bound to bump into a cousin or something. Officially he’s strictly a MISPER, nothing more. You know what these little villages are like.’
    ‘I do. My folks’ families both come from round there.’
    ‘That explains a lot. Anyway, it’ll give you something in common with the locals.’
    ‘The same gene pool?’
    ‘Aye. On both sides of the family, I shouldn’t wonder.’
    Dixon laughed. ‘It’s over-rated, is diversity.’
    Mann leaned over and looked at the speedo. ‘Drive to the limit, Ray, for Christ’s sake.’
    Dixon accelerated, very gently, to 60. ‘I’m going to have a miserable old age, thanks to you, Ian.’
    ‘Ray, you’re not even fifty-five. And you could get another job, you know. There’s no law against it.’
    ‘I want this job.’
    ‘But why? Until the last month or two you’ve done nothing but moan. Even by coppers’ usual standards you’ve turned grumbling into a bloody art form. Like modernist poetry it is, sometimes. Andy Hall told me that, so it must be true.’
    Dixon considered the point, and slowed back down slightly.
    ‘Well, aye, being a DC is a shit job, no doubt about that. The lowest of the bloody low. That’s a given, like. But the alternative is even worse.’
    ‘Being at home, you mean?’
    ‘Exactly. Did I tell you that she’s got a list as long as your arm of all the jobs I’ve got to do? She was talking about getting a wall chart to put them on, and some marker pens. A bloody wall chart, all colour-coded. I’d rather be in the cells.’
    ‘Well I’m going to nick you for wasting Police time if you don’t get a move on.’
     
    Dixon parked carefully behind the Coastguard 4x4.
    ‘See you back here in and hour and a half, Ray’ said Mann, opening the door. ‘Use your charms and find out if he might have done a bunk, or if anyone’s got it in for him.’
    Dixon watched Mann shake hands with the Coastguard and a couple of lads from the search and rescue teams. ‘He bloody loves all this’ said Dixon.
     
     
    And Dixon was right, Ian Mann did love it. Riding out across the sands in the back of a tracked rescue vehicle reminded him of being in the Marines. He was sure he’d been in something just like this, only it was a different colour, and the sand was very dry and very far away from Morecambe Bay.
    ‘Will we be able to recover the tractor?’ he shouted to the man sitting next to him.
    ‘Aye, we can tow it back. But do you want