"Pawson, Stuart - The Picasso Scam" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pawson Stuart)

Away to our left were the lights of Heckley and the string of other
towns making up what was once called the Heavy Woollen District.
Millions of glowing specks: beads of orange streetlights and coloured
window lights, like galaxies carelessly flung down to blanket the
hills. We used to come up here often, when I was courting Vanessa,
just to look at the lights. Well, that wasn't the only reason.

Vanessa had dreams of painting the sight, and one night we brought her
paints and a canvas and she worked by the car's interior light. She
was going through her Abstract Expressionist phase. The picture had a
background of black and Prussian blue stabs of colour, with the lights
picked out by splatters of white, yellow and orange. It was good I
liked it but she made a right Jackson Pollock of the inside of the
car.

"The lights look nice," Nigel confirmed.

"Yes, they do," I replied eventually.

We were coasting downhill. The Cortina was a lot happier going
downhill. I wasn't the brakes were about as much use as a plough to a
fish farmer.

"I had a messy divorce," I explained. "Left me cleaned out, with a big
mortgage. A friend gave me this to help out. It's been a godsend."

"Sorry, boss," he said. "I didn't mean to pry."

"Don't worry about it," I replied. "It's over. From now on it can
only get better."

We rolled on in silence for a while. "Are you in a hurry to get back?"
I asked.

Nigel said he wasn't.

"Good. So let's go looking for rustlers. You know all about them, I
suppose?" No harm in reminding him of the pecking order. There had
been a spate of sheep-stealing lately. Lambs had gone missing, and one
had been found staggering around with a crossbow bolt sticking through
its neck. Nigel was familiar with the basics of the case. I swung off
the main road and followed a much narrower one for about a mile, to the
area where the injured lamb had been found. When we reached a
crossroads I parked in a gateway, behind a dry-stone wall. In one of
the angles made by the roads stood a telephone box. It was the
old-fashioned type, and the light was on inside.

I filled Nigel in on the details. The farmer had found the lamb and
tyre tracks near the box. It was a slim chance but that was what
detective work was all about: put yourself in the right place and then