Dark Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

security cameras?’
    ‘We’re checking those.’
    ‘House-to-house?’
    ‘Progressing, but nothing significant.’
    She must have sensed his frustration because she tried for something positive. ‘We should have a DNA sample to check against the database soon.’
    ‘Why did he wear gloves and not a condom?’ Bill was really asking himself, but Janice answered.
    ‘He’s worried we have his fingerprints and not his DNA?’
    ‘Maybe he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty?’
    ‘Or the sexual deviance of the attack demanded he spill his sperm.’
    Bill tapped the table with a pen. ‘Did she have a mobile?’
    ‘There wasn’t one in the handbag.’
    ‘She must have had one, if only to keep in touch with her invalid mother. Maybe the kid took it?’
    ‘Or the murderer?’
    ‘Check the mobile phone companies. See if she’s registered with any of them. Find out who the old lady’s doctor was. They might know something about the family. The Passport Office. Let’s find out if Carole Devlin went abroad. And records of births, deaths and marriages. Was Mr Devlin still in the picture? Anything we can get on her, bank statements, credit cards. Did she ever have a joint account? What about friends? Some girlfriend is bound to come looking for her. And the kid’s school. Did they ever hear talk of a daddy? Those bits of news kids write in their jotters . . . teachers know a lot more about home life than parents realise.’
    Carole Devlin and her son had a life. People knew them. If the killer wasn’t a stranger, then maybe they knew him too. Angry, jealous or disturbed men often killed their kids as well as their partners.

6
    STEPHEN OPENED HIS eyes to darkness. At first he imagined he was at home in bed and everything else was a nightmare. Then he knew it wasn’t. He closed his eyes tightly and the blackness became bright swirling red, like the blood in the kitchen.
    He smothered a sob, fearful that he might be heard. Tears escaped from his eyes and slipped down his face. Something terrible had happened to his mum. And his gran. He shivered, his teeth rattling together. Now that his body was awake, pain, fear and hunger swept through it.
    When he’d seen his mum’s face at the window, he thought she was angry because he had gone outside the gate. He’d expected her to shout at him, but then she had mouthed the instruction to RUN. Stephen stuck his thumb in his mouth, twisting his top in his hand, trying to squeeze comfort from the feel of the cloth. He should have done what she told him. He should have RUN.
    When he’d looked at the window again, she wasn’t there. At first he’d been relieved, then he heard a funny sound like a groan. That was when he’d thought about his gran. Once before she had fallen in the bathroom and his mum had called for him to get help.
    Worry and a desperate need to see his mum had taken him inside, to find the hall strangely still. He’d stopped, unprepared for the feeling that gave him. The door to the bedroom stood open. The smell of pee was stronger, even though his mum had changed the bed. He could see the edge of the white sheet through the open door. He’d glanced inside. His gran was in her chair, head slumped forward.
    He’d stood, hesitant, at the door.
    ‘Gran.’ His voice was as small as a mouse’s squeak.
    His gran hadn’t looked up. He took one step in, then stopped when he saw the blood. He’d turned and run into the kitchen . . . and saw HIM standing over his mum’s body.
    Stephen’s terrified mind blanked out the picture. A scream rose in his throat, but the sound never emerged to echo around him in the darkness.

7
    RHONA STUCK a copy of Stephen’s photograph above her desk. It made him seem real and very much alive and that’s the way she wanted it.
    She had been involved in a number of child abductions and murders in her career. They didn’t happen often, thank God, but when they did, they left their mark on everyone involved. Most murders