Road Kill Read Online Free PDF

friends. I won’t sell them down the river for you. This is not drug dealing or prostitution or armed robbery. This is a group of lads going out on their bikes at the weekends and riding too fast. And you want me to help you prosecute them? No way.”
     
    He pursed his lips and carefully put down his own empty cup on the window ledge next to him. “Have you considered that you might be saving their lives?”
     
    “Oh no,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “Don’t try emotional blackmail on me, Superintendent. You’ll have to go and find someone else to do your dirty work for you.”
     
    The policeman studied me for a few seconds, his head on one side slightly, then fractions of expression passed across his features. Disappointment and resignation. “All right, Charlie, this was a very unofficial request and you’ve made your position clear.” His voice had returned to its usual clipped delivery. He nodded, just once, and that wry smile snuck out for another brief appearance. “It’s good to discover you’ve survived your recent experiences with your spirit intact,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.”
     
    I followed his progress down the new bare timber staircase. Halfway down he paused and glanced back at me, almost rueful. “I confess I had hoped for better from you, Charlie.”
     
    “No, John,” I said, almost gently. “You just hoped for more.”
     
    ***
     
    Now, as I sat in the hospital waiting area and sweated and drank too much coffee, I recalled every word of that conversation. I hadn’t consciously known that Slick Grannell was one of the group of road racers MacMillan had spoken of, but when I thought about it I realised that at some level I had been aware of it, nevertheless.
     
    And maybe, because I’d refused to do anything about it, Slick was dead and Clare was smashed to pieces. Sometimes you have to face the consequences of your actions. God knows, I’d had to do that a few times. But it didn’t compare to living with the knowledge that I’d done nothing.
     
    The bell had just rung on the second round of me beating myself up about that when my father walked in.
     
    Actually, that doesn’t begin to do justice to his dramatic entrance. He swept in, looking tanned and healthy, with the kind of arrogance only surgeons at the top of their game can truly master. I teetered between dislike and admiration of his utter self-assurance.
     
    An entourage of medical staff scurried in his wake including, I noticed, the young doctor to whom I’d given his number. They halted en masse in the corridor and let him come on towards me alone.
     
    “So here we are again, Charlotte.” He greeted me with the slightest of wry smiles, although his voice was formal and without inflection. I couldn’t really tell if I’d annoyed or gratified him by my interference.
     
    I stood, realising as I did so that he and a number of those around him were dressed in surgical blues. I hid my resentment that he hadn’t thought to seek me out as soon as he’d arrived by telling myself he’d gone straight to his patient instead. Never one to mistake his priorities, my father.
     
    “How is she?” I asked.
     
    “Being prepped for surgery,” he said, not quite answering the question. He caught my expression and sighed. “Your friend has serious and extensive injuries, but I feel we may be able to do something for her.”
     
    I nodded, his confident tone lifting some of the weight from my tense shoulders. It made me suddenly tired and only too aware of the lack of food and the excess of coffee I’d consumed since breakfast.
     
    “When can I see her?”
     
    “Now – but no more than a minute,” he said, giving me a firm stare over the top of his glasses. “I would not normally allow it, but Clare has been asking for you quite insistently. Please bear in mind that she’s received a lot of pain relief and things will be a little hazy for her.”
     
    “Thank you,” I said. An inadequate display