Page 11 of Return Ticket

Hartridge had been watching the exchange from halfway up the rubble pile, and suddenly some of the bricks gave way and he slid down a little.

“Cheers,” the boy said, turned and ran into the alleyway between two of the buildings opposite.

“You think you can trust that?” Hartridge asked. “He might just be trying to keep up with the boys who found the body.”

“Maybe,” James agreed, but he didn’t think so. “Even if he is, it’s an interesting thing to invent, isn’t it? He didn’t say he saw the body, or the murder, just a man pushing a wheelbarrow through a pea souper.”

Hartridge gave a grunt, widening his stance a little to keep his balance. “Good point.”

“Let’s go look over the other side. See if there is anything the pathologist missed.” James carefully climbed the rubble pile again, and stepped over the top.

There was plenty of rubbish caught amongst the debris and smashed bricks. The wind would have blown plenty here over the years since the site had been tidied up by a bulldozer, pushing all the rubble up into a pile in the center of the lot to keep it out of the way.

The sun had managed to struggle out from behind the heavy clouds about ten minutes ago, and a glint caught his eye. He bent closer, and hunkered down, trying to extract whatever it was from between the bricks.

“What is it?” Hartridge, who was looking around to his right, asked.

“Not sure.” James carefully lifted smashed rubble and stone to one side, and eventually got his fingers around it. He drew it out carefully. “A change purse,” he said.

It was cheap—the metal clasp mostly rubbed bare of its original gold plating, but the fabric that formed the pouch of the purse was colorful and pretty. He hefted it. There was change inside it.

He felt the wind ruffle his hair, and decided not to open it here. He rose and slid it into an inner pocket.

“Let’s get out of the wind and start looking into missing persons reports lodged since the pea souper,” James said.

Hartridge nodded, and they made their way carefully back to the road.

When they came back out onto the Kings Road, James was just in time to see the Land Rover roaring off, turning left at the end of the street.

He’d had to park relatively far down the street, and there was no way he could get to his car and follow the Land Rover. It would be long gone by the time they reached the Wolseley.

“Do you think he knew he was in trouble?” Hartridge asked. “He was going pretty fast.”

“Maybe.” James scanned the buildings on both sides of the street. “Evans said he sees the vehicle parked around here a couple of times a week. So he’s probably visiting someone nearby.”

There were mainly shops and a few nice townhouses in this part of the Kings Road. He thought he caught the twitch of a curtain above a homewares boutique, but that didn’t signify anything.

Still, it was worth making a note of it.

“What are you going to do about it?” Hartridge asked.

“First I need to find out what we can charge him with,” James said. What he’d done should be a crime, but when it came to personal property, James knew things got sticky.

“You think he didn’t break the law?” Hartridge sounded amazed.

“I hope he has,” James said. He really did. But he had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.

chaptersix

Gabriella almost didn’t tellMr. Greenberg about the electrocution.

She’d been involved in a lot of trouble so far in this job, and while it hadn’t been her fault, she had a feeling it reflected badly on her. It made her worried Mr. Greenberg might consider letting her go.

She didn’t want to lose her position—it paid better than secretarial work, and helped fund her search for her father. Every week that went by that she couldn’t find the bastard, dead or alive, was another week her mother and Gino couldn’t get married.

So it was with hesitant steps that she approached the boss.

“Miss Farnsworth?” Mr. Greenberg was coming from the staff kitchen, walking back to his office, and she waited outside his door for him.

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