Rider Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’d ever heard.
    ‘Life isn’t fair.’
    * * *
     
    He needed some time alone, some time to collect himself. He told Margaret he wouldn’t be long, that he’d see them back at theirs within the hour. And now, sitting on the damp grass in another part of the cemetery, he stared at the headstone in front of him. In loving memory of Laura Rider, cherished mother. B. 6-9-1956 – D. 24-3-2008. Taken too soon.
    Cancer had consumed her a few years ago and Ryan had been his rock. And now here he was, going through the motions all over again. Without Ryan, he wasn’t sure he could manage it this time. Without Ryan, without the strength that he had given him, Kane wasn’t sure he even wanted to manage this time.
    In his trouser pocket, his phone vibrated and he closed his eyes. If heaven really existed, like his mother had believed, he hoped she was there to meet Ryan.
    And yet—the drugs.
    Part of him still couldn’t believe it. If it was true—and it had to be—then he was more stupid than he could have imagined. You can’t live with someone, sleep with someone, and not notice the puncture wounds on his arm—on his groin, for heaven’s sake. Thorpe had told him that the coroner had found a couple of small needle-marks in the area between his leg and his testicles. Not an uncommon thing, Thorpe said, for users to hide their addiction among pubic hair.
    The thought made him sick.
    His phone continued to vibrate but he refused to answer it. He knew whose voice would be on the other end, knew beyond any doubt.
    And he could go screw himself today.
    * * *
     
    Everyone had gathered at David and Margaret’s house after the funeral. David, a financial magnate with a keen eye for a good deal, had been clever with his money; he had bought a plot of land on the northern outskirts of Belfast and employed a team of builders to construct not just a house, but a mansion. Hidden from the road by a line of trees and an electronic gate, he had been conscious of security and installed CCTV. In their teenage years, before moving in together, Kane and Ryan had spent many summer evenings by the covered pool under the watchful gaze of motion-sensor cameras.
    It was there that they had their first kiss, there that they shared their first sexual experience, hurried and immediate as it was, lying naked beside each other under nothing but a blanket and the wan light of the moon. It was there that they had first said, ‘I love you.’
    The funeral had been wonderful, people said. Ryan would have loved it, they told him. Good old Irish logic. He stopped himself from stating the obvious.
    Kane stood by the glass display cabinet of hunting trophies and photos of David and Margaret with their clay-pigeon friends. It was a sport that never appealed to Ryan or Kane.
    His head was hurting. ‘You should have another whiskey,’ Daphne Do-More’s alter ego, John, said. He had come back from the pub that the guys had gone off to in order to extend his condolences. He scratched the stubble at his neck and said, ‘All I can think about doing is getting pissed.’
    Kane smiled, obliging, and looked around. It was odd seeing John without the wig and make-up, odder still seeing him without Ryan around.
    Margaret, from a place near the front door, caught Kane’s eye and smiled at him. She and David were circling the room, Margaret with a platter of sandwiches cut into little triangles, David with a whiskey decanter.
    Kane sighed, turned back to John, and said, ‘Sorry, can you excuse me? I need a bit of air.’
    He headed towards the front door, but Father Mitchell had just come in and he couldn’t face another well-intended comment about Ryan. Instead, he ducked through into the kitchen and took the rear stairs up to the next floor.
    There were six bedrooms but never more than three had ever been used at once. David and Margaret shared the westernmost room, the master bedroom, and Ryan’s old room, still filled with his teenage life, was on the