Broken Lines by Jo Bannister Page A

was going to have to prove it. Until then he was on his own.
    Out on his own was a place Donovan knew, but that didn’t necessarily mean he liked it. People assumed he behaved like this from choice, deliberately taking positions where he could expect no support. He didn’t. He didn’t enjoy fighting all his battles single-handed, gaining ground a bloody inch at a time and always staring defeat in the face. But that puritan streak insisted that if a cause was right it remained so however few people espoused it, and right was worth fighting for however uphill the struggle. He often wished he could be more flexible, compromise without it feeling like drawing teeth. But he was a prisoner of his own myth, and by now he was so used to being the dissenting minority that he mistrusted anything that seemed too easy.
    â€˜God damn it, I don’t know!’ But he wasn’t angry with Shapiro, or even himself, so much as a third party he had no way of identifying. ‘Roly Dickens is the only one who knows, and he’s not going to tell me even if I take a shovel to him.’ At the back of his mind he was aware that it might not have been a deliberate treachery so much as somebody saying something to his wife who then said something to her mother who was discussing it with her sister in the queue at Woolworth’s … That sort of thing happened more than bribery and corruption, and it was unstoppable because nobody ever realized they were the weak spot where the dam started to leak.
    â€˜Which you wouldn’t dream of doing,’ Shapiro said pointedly; and after a moment, reluctantly, Donovan nodded.
    â€˜â€™Course not, sir. Figure of speech.’
    â€˜Besides which,’ murmured Liz, ‘you take a shovel to Roly Dickens and he’ll wrap it round your neck.’
    â€˜OK,’ admitted Donovan, ‘I can’t prove it. But it’s happened, and it’s cost us time and effort and a couple of good convictions. Worse than that, it’s let Roly Dickens get up on his hind legs and crow about putting one over on us. About how his family are fireproof. We can’t let the idea get around that there are people in this town that the law doesn’t apply to.’
    â€˜I know that, Sergeant,’ said Shapiro stiffly. ‘I may have said as much to you. I may also have mentioned that elephants aren’t the only ones with long memories. We’ll get them. We’ll get Mikey for the garage robbery, and we’ll get Roly for concealing the gun. I can’t promise it’ll be this week or next week, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ll be here for a while. And this investigation doesn’t founder because we haven’t got the gun. We’ll find someone who saw Mikey alone in the van. Mrs Taylor may be able to help when her head’s a bit straighter.’
    Liz nodded. ‘I’ll go and see her again after the weekend. She was still pretty upset when I talked to her before. She’ll have calmed down by now, she may have a clearer picture of what she saw.’
    â€˜And if she hasn’t?’ asked Donovan, edgily.
    â€˜Then we’ll look for someone else,’ said Shapiro. ‘It was early Sunday evening, there must have been other people on Cambridge Road. If we ask for eyewitnesses there’ll be someone who saw Mikey drive off alone. Or maybe I can poke a hole in his story. He’s waiting downstairs now.’
    Donovan was taken aback. ‘You’re going to charge him?’
    â€˜Certainly not. The obliging little chap’s here voluntarily to help catch the wicked criminal who hijacked his van.’
    They didn’t have irony in Glencurran; even after so long Donovan could miss it if he was preoccupied. ‘But – he made that up.’
    Liz grinned and Shapiro closed his eyes for a second in despair. ‘Sergeant – go find some detecting to do. I’ll talk to Mikey. If I can make confetti