DEAD SILENT. Neil White

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СКАЧАТЬ and jogged after him. As she rounded the corner, Thomas came into view, but Laura saw that he had stopped, and the thief was heading out of the other side of the car park. Laura came to a halt next to Thomas and tried to get her breath back, her chest pumping hard in her shirt.

      ‘What happened?’ Laura asked, gasping.

      Thomas looked down, and Laura saw that he was taking deep breaths too, fear in his eyes.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

      ‘He pulled a needle out of his pocket,’ he said, between breaths. ‘He shouted he would give me AIDS.’ He looked at Laura. ‘I’m sorry. I bottled it.’ He gave a large heave of his shoulders and then kicked at the gravel. ‘My first test and I got scared.’

      Laura put her hand on his shoulder, turning him away from the shoppers who were watching them. ‘And you’ll bottle it again,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll just care less about it. Next time, just keep running and hit him as hard as you can with your baton, but remember that you may struggle to get a second shot in.’

      Thomas nodded, and then turned back the way they had just come. ‘Let’s go back to the shop, see if they’ve got it on video.’

      Laura nodded and smiled. ‘Okay, we’ll do that,’ she said, and decided that she liked Thomas.

      Frankie ducked behind the gatepost, just to check that the road was clear, and then he crept out. He wasn’t dressed properly, in jogging bottoms and a crumpled old T-shirt, his slippers making slapping noises on the tarmac as he shuffled across the road. He had to slow down as he reached the driveway of the rest home, the gravel hurting his feet through the soft soles.

      The doors to the rest home opened automatically, so he went inside and looked around anxiously, worried about who he would see, wanting to avoid the big boss. Then he saw someone he recognised wandering through one of the rooms. ‘Mrs Kydd?’ he shouted. He shuffled towards her. ‘Mrs Kydd?’

      She stopped and then turned slowly towards him. He noticed her uniform looked tight, stretched across her chest so that it pushed her breasts into a tired-looking cleavage.

      ‘Hello, Frankie,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’

      ‘Was he a reporter?’ Frankie asked.

      ‘Were you watching again?’

      ‘I heard the car, that’s all, and so I watched him,’ he said. ‘What’s the big deal? Why can’t you tell me?’

      She put her hands on her hips.

      ‘I saw him taking pictures,’ Frankie persisted. ‘What did he want? Was it about Claude Gilbert? What did he say?’

      ‘Slow down, Frankie,’ she said, her voice raised. ‘Yes, he was a reporter, okay, and he’s writing a story about Nancy.’

      ‘Does he think Claude killed her?’

      ‘He didn’t tell me what he thought,’ she said. ‘He just wanted to see where she died.’

      Frankie looked at her chest again until she folded her arms, aware of his gaze.

      ‘He needs to speak to me,’ he said. ‘Did you tell him about me?’

      She shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. Please go, Frankie.’

      ‘If he calls again, tell him to come to my house,’ he said, but then he flinched when he felt her hand on his arm.

      ‘Are you all right, Frankie?’ she asked. ‘Are you eating okay? You look poorly again.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

      ‘You need to look after yourself, Frankie. If your mother could see you now, she would be worried about you.’

      Frankie looked away.

      ‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. He said he was called Jack Garrett. He sounded local. If you think he might want your help, call him. He might be interested in what you’ve got to say.’

      Frankie didn’t respond.

      ‘You’ve got to look after yourself though, before you go chasing him,’ she said. ‘Eat properly. Get some sleep.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ he said, and he turned and walked out of the rest home, shuffling quickly along the drive, ignoring the pain in his feet from the sharp stones. He could sense Mrs Kydd watching him, even after the automatic doors had swished shut.

       Chapter Eleven

      I checked my notepad and looked at the scribbles I had made after Susie had gone. I had written down Maybury and Sharpe as Susie’s old law firm. If Bill Hunter was right, that Claude Gilbert had ended up as fish food in the English Channel, the story would end up being about Susie and another Claude Gilbert hoax.

      The firm’s name was well known to me. I had devoured the court reports in the local paper when I was a child, those short paragraphs of shame the only part I found interesting, and the names of the defending solicitors always stayed with me: Harry Parsons, Jon Halpern, Danny Platt—crafty lawyers who managed to find new ways to repackage remorse and excuses for their clients. Maybury and Sharpe had been one of the main players, but Susie Bingham had been talking of a time two decades earlier, and the shrinking of legal aid had seen the firm splinter into its different departments, the ambulance chasers not wanting to be weighed down by the criminal work. The new offshoot was now known simply as Sharpes, staffed by enthusiastic young clerks and a couple of ageing solicitors, who huffed and puffed their way around the Magistrates’ Court like relics from a lost era. I just hoped that someone there remembered her.

      The office front suited the firm, old-style, with frosted windows and gold leaf lettering; no neon sign at Sharpes. When I walked in, I saw that the reception area was quiet, just one client waiting, his face bearing the familiar look of heroin addiction: high cheekbones, blackened teeth and prickles of sweat on his lip. The receptionist was a young Pakistani girl, her hair sleek and long, and when she smiled at me, her eyes were bright jewels in the office gloom.

      ‘I want to have a word with Mr Halpern or Mr Platt,’ I said.

      She reached for the phone. ‘Are you due in court?’ she asked, her voice quiet, almost a mumble, just the smallest trace of the Peshwar in her Lancashire accent.

      ‘No, I’m the court reporter, Jack Garrett. I need some help with a story, and it involves this firm.’

      She considered me for a moment, and then picked up the phone and spoke to someone, her words barely audible. She pointed to the room next to reception. ‘Wait in there,’ she said.

      The waiting client didn’t pay me any attention as I went into a small square room, with just enough room for a desk and chairs on either side. I could hear a whispered conversation through the door, and then it was opened briskly as Danny Platt walked in. His hair was long and unkempt, but the grey patches that broke up its darkness gave away his age as over fifty. His face bore the scars of long hours, with lines etched deep around the eyes, and the bulge of his stomach strained against СКАЧАТЬ