Crystal Coffin Read Online Free PDF Page A

bed for something that was missing.
    â€˜Jewellery’s not my thing,’ he thought aloud. But it was Helen’s.
    He removed the velvet earring pouch, re-wrapped the jewellery box carefully in the pink towel, and then looked around for somewhere to hide the pouch.
    â€˜Perfect,’ he said, spotting a discarded cigarette packet at the edge of a grave. The plastic wrap had protected the carton from the dew, but as he stashed the pouch inside the packet and slipped the packet into the chest pocket of his shirt, he looked up, realising that he’d been lured closer to the twin graves that he’d avoided until now.
    A wagtail chirped, laughing at him. It flitted to the twin headstones, landed and chirped again as he tried to walk away. The bird started singing, and Locklin stopped and turned back to it.
    â€˜Sorry Mum,’ he said, bowing his head to the nearest headstone as he had done since he was nine. The bird flitted off and he was silent for a long time, letting memories of his mother soothe the turmoil in his head. He could still feel her hair in his fingers as it had come out in his small hands, but he could also smell her skin, perfumed like lavender, and see the remnants of her smile, just the corners where it curled at a perfect dimple. Then he looked to the next grave, while he was still comforted enough to face it.
    The headstone over the second grave was a mirror image of the first, and together, they looked like two pages of the same book, only the second page was whiter over a fresher grave. The mound had been removed, but the soil was still soft and Locklin dropped to his knees and touched it.
    He opened his mouth to honour his father’s memory, but shame held his tongue still. His kid sister Kirby was going on to uni in the new year. His older sister Helen had graduated and was starting her family. But he had achieved nothing that his father expected of him.
    His shoulders slumped and he clenched his fists until his fingernails drew dark welts inside his palms. Traitor, son of a coward , was what people would call him soon and his gut ached to think of it. His heart throbbed so hard that his chest went numb. He forced his eyes closed again and squeezed shame and guilt into a ball of hot rage in his mind’s eye — and he squeezed that rage smaller until he could close his fist around it.
    He opened his eyes and kissed his fist, sucking the contents of it back into his gut to make it part of him again. And the rage heated his blood. It spread warmth through his body and burned oxygen from his lungs in a clear flame that returned logic to his thoughts and clarity to his purpose.
    His father had been murdered and he had to find his killer. But to do that he needed a place to stay that was close to the action.
    He marched back to the Bedford and yanked open the door to use his phone again. Then he punched in a phone number that he’d called at dawn that morning.
    â€˜Hi Denny,’ he said a few seconds later. ‘Thanks for the tip-off.’
    â€˜Don’t thank me yet, lad,’ rolled a thick Scottish accent, ‘until I’ve got him out fer you. If only I’d have noticed him missing yesterdee, I’d have gone and gotten him meself already. Only some slug has gone and pinched the Bedford overnight and I’m running around like a chook with me head cut off trying to borrow another one.’
    â€˜Yeah, mate, about that …’ Locklin said, not sure how to break the news.
    â€˜I even tried ringing down to the meatworks, only they’re not answering their phones fer some reason. I got a cousin down there picked himself up a contract as a van driver I’m pretty sure, only I can’t get a hold of him to intervene.’
    â€˜Big guy? Uglier than you with a similar speech impediment?’
    â€˜Don’t get cheeky!’ Denny scolded. ‘He and I have had our arguments I’m admittin’, but if he can help us, we should