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Just give me a little time to dig around

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Just give me a little time to dig around.Whitstable: How long, Hazlitt, as if I didn't know?Hazlitt: Three weeks should be quite enough.Whitstable: All right, three weeks. I came across some wonderful Viking remains just down the road. Had to have a poke around.Whitstable: What was wonderful about them?Hazlitt: Well, I didn't know the Vikings had corner shops.Whitstable: What makes you think it was a Viking corner shop?Hazlitt: This fossilised snack. So why are they reopening the case now?Whitstable: Because athletics has had a lot of bad publicity recently with all the drugs stuff, and they thought that a soft, gentle murder case might take off some of the pressure.Bollard: Murder? They think this bloke Skilton was murdered? But how on earth are we going to open an inquiry on something that happened 30 years ago?Whitstable: That's easy. [He shows them an ancient pasty-shaped stone.]Whitstable: That's not a fossil It's a Leeds lamb'n'leek pie. It is only a man carrying a spade.Whitstable: Ah, Hazlitt, it's you!Hazlitt: Sorry if I'm a bit late. We simply send for our forensic archaeologist, Hazlitt.Suddenly Bollard clasps at Whitstable's arm and points through the gloom.

A ghastly figure is approaching, holding what looks like a scythe.Bollard: My God, sir! What's that? Is it.. Death?Whitstable: That's crazy. Why would Death want to go to Leeds?Bollard: To get some Leeds United shareholders, maybe?The figure comes closer. Maybe he's still staggering around there in the mist somewhere, in his little tin-foil spacesuit.Whitstable: Maybe, Bollard Except that this was 30 years ago And except that we know who he was His name was Walter Skilton They know that he started the race They know that he didn't finish And he has never been seen again since!Bollard: Bloody heck. The two men get out into the thick mist.Whitstable: And so 321 runners vanished into the driving mist But only 320 re-emerged three hours later One was missing!Bollard: Maybe he just hadn't finished, sir Some people are so stubborn about marathons. And so, in 1971, 321 runners set off on the first Leeds Lamb'n'Leek Pie Pennine Marathon.Bollard: Lamb'n'leek pies?Whitstable: They were the first sponsors They were all they could find.Bollard: Right.The car stops. Of course, they already had a pretty tough fell-running tradition up North, but it was always going to be easier to get sponsorship for marathons.

Three hundred hopeful runners set off into the mist and rain...Bollard: Sir, can I ask if this is background briefing for a crime, or just general waffle to establish how well read and informed you are?Whitstable: Oh, no waffle No Stephen Fry-type performance. It's all strictly relevant to the case.Bollard: In that case, I'll concentrate and listen.Whitstable: I believe it was the first time they had tried to establish a serious North of England marathon. And it was up here, about 30 years ago, that they staged the first Pennine marathon. Where exactly are we?Whitstable: Well, Bollard, we're just coming up to the Yorkshire/Lancashire border. When it comes to the rough, tough world of dating, the Harvard Business School approach to self-branding can only make matters worse.Terblacker aol More from Terence Blacker. It's time for another outing for my police hero, Hazlitt, the only forensic archaeologist in thrillerdom.

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