Random Acts of Unkindness Read Online Free PDF Page B

up council estate on the outskirts of town. Northlands. It was semirural, on the edge of the river.
    A large cotton mill hung behind the estate, until recently, used as a catalogue clothing distribution company. Connelly had bought up all the units, then the building, and branded it as a fitted kitchen outlet. It was even registered with Companies House. All nice and legal.
    I’d done my homework, sitting for hours outside, hoping to catch a vibe from Aiden. Are you in there, son?
    I discovered that Connelly had been buying up rented houses all over town. When I dug deeper, I found out that his father, dead now, had started this, and owned a good portion of the tiny mill houses in the surrounding areas. Signature two-up, two-down poverty houses for those people of a bygone age who worked in the mills.
    Connelly Snr appeared to have gotten funding in the sixties to tart them up and install inside toilets. It looked like Connelly Jnr had carried this on, opening a letting agency to manage it. None of this made finding Aiden any easier.
    At first I’d imagined that they had him captured in the mill, but I quickly realized that he could be anywhere, lying dead in one of Connelly’s tiny box houses. Why would they though? To get at me. Us. The police. To try to blackmail us into slowing down the operation. The threats, they all point to this.
    He could be lying dead anywhere, my son. No one would know. No one would suspect. It had been six weeks now, and he could have been lying dead all that time, all alone.
    Which is how I came to be at 57 Ney Street. I had an Ordnance Survey map with all Connelly’s houses marked in green on it. I’d listen on the radio for any suspicious reports at any of the addresses, and attend. Usually it was a fight or a burglary, nothing to concern me, but this one had been different. No one seen at the property for weeks and there was a horrible smell when someone looked through the letter box for signs of life.
    And this brings me to now, standing here in my nightgown, a bundle of money in front of me. I have a surge of guilt, a moment when I realize this is probably the end of my policing career, even if I never get found out. Now I’m a criminal, aren’t I? How could I ever do my job knowing I’d stolen from a scene of crime?
    Then I remember that it’s potential ransom money. That’s why I took it. If they have him, they’re going to want a paying off, aren’t they? I count the money and put it in a nearly empty washing powder box under the sink. Even acting like a criminal now. Using tricks I’d seen others use. If you can’t beat them, join them.
    I can’t sleep. It’s two thirty now and I can hear the distant rumble of the M60. Twenty-four-seven travel. Percy is lying on the end of my bed, reminding me that, even though I’m in turmoil inside, I still have to get up and feed him, change his litter tray—do all the things I and he need to survive. It’s comforting, though, the feeling that Percy needs me.
    I search around for something to occupy me, something that isn’t late-night TV or old family videos of Aiden when he was young. I remember poor Bessy in the chair, and the birds.
    I stiffen with shock as I realize that I’d hardly flinched at the baby’s tiny, flesh-free hand as it fell into mine, my mind on the money and a ransom and, at the end of a long train of thought, Aiden. Aiden. Aiden. Aiden. I need a break, something to distract me just for a moment.
    My hand strays to the papers bundled in with the money. Some bills, a birth certificate for a Thomas Swain. Mother Bessy, father Colin. Receipts and a book of old cooperative divi stamps. Another book of Green Shield Stamps.
    At the bottom, an exercise book, grey and well thumbed, with narrow, feint, ruled lines. I expect to see a child’s hand, maybe English or maths, but the writing inside is fine handwriting, looped and formal. It draws my eyes and I’m gripped.

Going Away
    Lucky I’m writing it all down.