Page 2

With a sigh, the old man reached into his pocket, pulled out his driving license, and dropped it into the envelope.

“Right. You can have that back in two weeks. Just come down here and I’ll give it to you. In the meantime, have a think about your driving skills. Dangerous driving is no joke. I can get you on a course if you need a bit of help.”

“I’m a perfectly good driver,” grumbled Dave.

“Mmm, that’s not what McKeefe said when he reported the damage.”

Tilly was getting more and more horrified the more she heard of this conversation. She was itching to say something, positively quivering with the need to interrupt. But her dad had trained her better than that. However he was dressed, Max was her superiorofficer and she couldn’t question him in front of a member of the public.

“Go on then, off you go,” Max was saying. “And if I get reports that you’ve been driving without a license, then there’ll be trouble.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that,” Dave said, looking hurt.

“I know, I know,” said Max comfortingly as he came around the counter. “But I’ve got to say it just so as it’s said.”

Dave sniffed. “I s’pose.” He straightened up a little. “And I s’pose there’s nothing stopping me going to the pub for a pint or two now. Can’t drive home, can I? Josh is going to have to let me sleep in the bar again.”

Max shook his head. “That’s his look-out, but I wouldn’t count on it, not after what happened last time. You can’t go around scaring tourists wearing only your pajamas. I nearly had to arrest you for lewd conduct.”

Dave laughed and was still laughing as he left the station. Max turned his attention to Tilly, and she snapped off a smart salute before finally letting herself speak.

“You should have arrested him.”

“What?” Max asked, looking surprised.

“Dangerous driving is an offense,” she said. “That man should have been arrested.”

“And what good would that do?” Max asked her, looking amused.

“He’d be punished, fined or imprisoned. He’d learn not to do it again. He’d be in custody, so reparations could be collected for any damage done. And… and it’s the law.”

Max leaned back on the wooden counter. “It is,” he said carefully. “But then Old Dave doesn’t have two pennies to rub together and putting him in prison for a few nights would only mean that someone would have to go out and feed his cows and get them milked.”

Tilly opened her mouth and then closed it again, not sure what to say.

“There was no real damage. He took a corner too close and knocked over a bit of hedge in Dougie McKeefe’s lower field. Nothing that won’t grow back. And he wasn’t drunk. Dave knows better than that.” Max smiled. “This way, Dave gets a bit of a break to think about things and a bit of inconvenience, and he’ll be more careful next time.”

“Okay,” Tilly said slowly. “But… but what about the law?”

Max shrugged. “I’ve got no evidence. I didn’t see a thing and by the time I got up there, the rain had washed away any tire tracks. So on the whole, I think this was the best outcome, short of setting up a major incident and calling out forensics to match the mud of the field to the mud on Old Dave’s tractor, don’t you?”

Tilly stood, desperately trying to think of an argument to prove that she was right, and coming up with nothing. She knew that she was in the right, of course she was. And yet… and yet she found that she couldn’t argue the point.

“And here’s me leaving you standing around with a suitcase,” Max went on cheerfully. “Let’s get you a cuppa and then we’ll get you over to the house and you can put that thing away and meet the family.”

“Meet the family?” she asked, finding her tongue.

“Yes,” beamed Max. Tilly was finding it very difficult to think of him as Sergeant Browning. “You’ll be staying with us for the time being.”

“Right,” said Tilly. And she wondered just what exactly she was getting herself into here.

Chapter Two

Sophie glared at her brother over the desk. Not that Gio noticed. He was busy with his head under the bonnet of a Kia, up to his elbows in oil.

It had all started last night.

Sophie had been on the dating apps for as long as she was old enough to dabble. Not that she held out great hopes. But every now and again, someone came along and she was surprised. And Katie had been the biggest surprise of all.