Murder Somewhere in This City

Начало книги

The black police Jaguar surged powerfully up a steep and narrow moorland road, nosed carefully round a walled corner, and emerged on top of the world. Or so it seemed. The way ahead ran comparatively straight along the edge of a high moor, and on one side the ground sloped away, down, down, down to the lower lands.

Detective Inspector Martineau was sitting beside the driver of the car. “Where are we now?” he asked, in a tone which suggested that he would be surprised if the other man could tell him.

Detective Constable Devery was the driver. “I don’t know, sir,” he replied, with astonishment in his voice, as if it were indeed strange that Martineau of all people did not know exactly where he was.

Martineau gave the young man an amused sidelong glance, then he turned to look at the view. Though the day was dry and clear, there was not much to see: only rough fields stretching away downhill until they faded into the haze from several hundred square miles of smoking chimneys. Down there, ten miles away, was a city of a million people, but the city was the hub of a wheeling spread of suburbs, satellites and close neighbors which made it, in reality, one of the very big cities of the world.

Читать дальше →