Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery

Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery
Francis Durbridge

Paul and Steve are back to solve the latest hard-hitting case of robbery and murder. After a heist goes down at Harkdale bank, a gang of thieves flee and a car chase ensues.As police close in on them, the thieves come to a screeching dead end.All the police have to do is retrieve the money … but the only thing the thieves have on them is an Oxford Dictionary! And when Paul Temple returns home, he finds the dead body of one of the robbers…

FRANCIS DURBRIDGE

Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by

Hodder & Stoughton 1970

Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1970

All rights reserved

Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008125707

Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780008125714

Version: 2015-07-24

Contents

Cover (#u503eaa7b-010c-5a6d-b588-0b26c642f3af)

Title Page (#u754b8eb4-0d25-52cd-b66a-10d79ade8b0d)

Copyright (#u32393e49-dd36-5c4e-905a-0279e9b63613)

Chapter One (#u5e007dd9-24d5-5352-8ff2-179826fe1634)

Chapter Two (#ue3a40991-dca3-553e-8aba-a9b82f9c0779)

Chapter Three (#uf203830b-5b61-5ae6-a318-85f92e698f60)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also in This Series (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#u95d97762-5c7d-595f-9f56-5c14dfb9fa32)

Nothing ever happens in Harkdale on a Friday afternoon.

The black Wolseley cruised along the deserted country road because it was part of the schedule. Showing the police car in Harkdale each afternoon was like showing the flag in the outposts of empire, a symbol for the inhabitants that they were being looked after. Police Constable Newby drove through the flat midland countryside without seeing the potato fields or the pine woods; he didn’t speak to PC Felton beside him. Newby was a town man and only the smoke and the factory skyline seven miles behind them was real. He thought of becoming a sergeant and recited pages of Moriarty’s Police Law to himself to pass the time. There was nothing else to do.

‘There’s a lorry over there in the lay-by,’ said Felton.

Lay-by? He made it sound like the motorway to London. Newby reflected that it was odd for a man called Moriarty to write their basic textbook: Moriarty, the archfiend of Sherlock Holmes. For a bored few seconds he pursued the idea that the archfiend had written it all wrong to throw the law into confusion.

‘Pull up, Bob,’ said Felton. ‘He might need help.’

‘Who might?’

‘The lorry driver, of course.’