Dead men under the bridge

Courtesy by Sunday Island

Another dead man under the bridge - three in three months. Inspector Mendis got out of the police jeep dabbing his forehead with his handkerchief and cursing softly. He stood on the bridge in the drizzling rain, his inspector’s cap pulled down tightly and the cold soaking through his khaki uniform. He hated the highlands with its ever present mist and drizzle, ideal for tea growing and a refuge for leeches. He sighed; all he wanted was his old posting in the warm and sultry lowlands and not this. His subordinates, two of them, stood on either side of him shivering in their khaki shorts, the cold eating through their knee high woollen stockings and worn boots.

They looked down the steep, wet slope leading from the bridge to the swamp below where the dead man lay. A cowherd who had gone down there in the morning to cut grass, found the corpse and raced to the small police station to inform them. So now they were here to inspect the body and report on the cause of death to headquarters in Nuwara Eliya.

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