Not Safe After Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

mirror to his mouth to see if his breath would mist it but there was nothing.
    I know we should have told the truth and we have regretted it for all those years. We were always brought up to be decent honest folk respecting our parents and God and the law. Bert was
     ashamed that his son was a drug addict and didn’t want it in the papers. I didn’t want him to go to jail for what he had done because it was really an accident and it wasn’t
     fair. He was suffering more than enough anyway because he had killed his only son.
    So I said we must throw away all the drugs and needle and things and take our Joseph’s shoes off and say he slipped coming down the stairs. We knew that the police would believe us
     because we were good people and we had no reason to lie. That was the hardest part. The laces got tied in knots and I broke my fingernails and in the end I was shaking so much I had to use the
     scissors.
    And that is God’s honest truth, Mr Banks. I know we did wrong but Bert was never the same after. Not a day went by when he didn’t cry about what he’d done and I never saw
     him smile ever again. To this day we still do not know what has become of our grandson but whatever it is we hope he is healthy and happy and not as foolish as his father.
    By the time you read this letter I’ll be gone to my resting place too. For two years now I have had cancer and no matter what operations they do it is eating me away. I have saved my
     tablets. Now that I have taken the weight off my conscience I can only hope that the good Lord sees fit to forgive me my sins and take me unto his bosom.
    Yours sincerely,
    Betty Atherton
    Banks put the letter aside and rubbed his left eye with the back of his hand. Outside, the rain was still falling, providing a gentle background for Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto on the
portable cassette. Banks stared at the sheets of blue vellum covered in Betty Atherton’s crabbed hand, then he cursed, slammed his fist on the desk, went to the door and shouted for Susan
Gay.
    8
    ‘Her name is Catherine Anne Singer,’ said Susan the next afternoon. ‘And she was relieved to talk to me as soon as I told her we weren’t
after her for leaving the scene of a crime. She comes from somewhere called Garden Grove, California. Like a lot of young Americans, she came over to “do” Europe in the
sixties.’
    The three of them – Banks, Susan and Jenny Fuller – sat over drinks at a dimpled, copper-topped table in the Queen’s Arms listening to the summer rain tap against the diamonds
of coloured glass.
    ‘And she’s Jerry Singer’s mother?’ Banks asked.
    Susan nodded. ‘Yes. I just asked him for her telephone number. I didn’t tell him why I wanted it.’
    Banks nodded. ‘Good. Go on.’
    ‘Well, she ended up living in London. It was easy enough to get jobs that paid under the counter, places where nobody asked too many questions. Eventually, she hooked up with Joseph
Atherton and they lived together in a bedsit in Notting Hill. Joseph fancied himself as a musician then—’
    ‘Who didn’t?’ said Banks. He remembered taking a few abortive guitar lessons himself. ‘Sorry. Go on.’
    ‘There’s not a lot to add, sir. She got pregnant, wouldn’t agree to an abortion, though apparently Joseph tried to persuade her. She named the child Jerry, after some guitarist
Joseph liked called Jerry Garcia. Luckily for Jerry, Annie wasn’t on heroin. She drew the line at hash and LSD. Anyway, they were off to join some Buddhist commune in the wilds of Scotland
when Joseph said they should drop in on his parents on the way and try to get some money. She didn’t like the idea, but she went along with it anyway.
    ‘Everything happened exactly as Mrs Atherton described it. Annie got scared and ran away. When she got back to London, she decided it was time to go home. She sold the car and took out all
her savings from the bank, then she got the first flight she could and settled back in California.