Murder by the Book by Eric Brown Page A

bonnet and slipped in behind the steering wheel. ‘Good girl!’ Langham said.
    When the tractor passed, Maria swivelled herself from the driving seat and resumed her fictitious inspection of the Sunbeam’s engine.
    He tried to envisage all the possible outcomes of their actions here, much as he looked ahead when plotting a book. The preferred result, of course, would be that he and Maria followed the blackmailer back to wherever he lived; then he would stake out the place until such time as the man left the house. All that would remain, then, was the small matter of breaking in and finding the incriminating photographs and negatives … which would be no small feat in itself.
    And so much could go wrong along the way, he thought.
    The blackmailer was armed, but would he resort to shooting anyone who might follow him? Well, last week in the ruins of the mill he’d seemed willing to blow Langham’s brains out, but for the timely intervention of the bomb site army.
    And the recollection of that close call turned his thoughts to the blackmailer’s motives in wanting him dead, if indeed he had. Langham had spent long hours wondering if the gesture, the placing of the gun to the back of his head, had been nothing more than the blackmailer’s nervous reaction to the situation. He’d wanted to ensure that Langham was unconscious, and was merely covering the possibility that he, Langham, might leap up and attack him before he escaped with the envelope.
    But the very fact that the blackmailer carried a gun suggested that he would not be averse to using it.
    He reached into the pocket of his overcoat and gripped the service revolver he’d borrowed – with the exchange of a five-pound note – from Ralph Ryland that morning. The weapon was cold and heavy in his hand, and afforded him little reassurance.
    His thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of an engine. He glanced at his watch. It was three minutes to two. He laid aside the binoculars and gripped the steering wheel nervously, his palms wet with sweat. The distinctive, dull throbbing of a Bentley Continental’s engine preceded the appearance of the car itself. Seconds later it flashed by, a blaze of electric blue in the sunlight.
    He watched the car motor along the lane, his heart thudding. He raised the binoculars. The Bentley slowed as it approached the gate. He looked at his watch. Charles’s punctuality was impeccable: it was one minute to two.
    Charles opened the car door and stepped into the lane, clutching the envelope. He rounded the nose of the car, then stopped in his tracks as he took in the state of the ground between the gateposts. While his agent vacillated, Langham swept the binoculars along the lane: there was no sign yet of the blackmailer.
    At considerable risk to the shine of his brogues, Charles stepped forward and tentatively placed a foot in the mud. Heartened by the fact that he didn’t sink in up to his knees, he took a further step, and then another. A yard or two from the gatepost, he stopped and tossed the envelope the rest of the way. The rectangle of paper planed aerodynamically through the air and lodged itself against the timber post.
    Charles dashed his hands together, looked right and left along the lane, then turned and high-stepped back to the car. He wiped the mud from his shoes on the grass verge and seconds later was driving towards Maria. She stood next to the Sunbeam’s gaping bonnet, and glanced up as the Bentley sped past.
    Langham listened for the sound of the blackmailer’s vehicle. He hoped it would come from his right, so that it would be he who would give chase first; at least then he would be active and the intolerable wait would at last be over.
    In the event, the motorbike passed neither him nor Maria.
    He heard the rapid throb of its engine and looked along the lane past Maria, but there was no sign of the motorbike. In which case, it had to be coming from his