Road of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

area. There wasn’t much going on. A ratty-haired drunk woman in a long nylon coat was sitting on a plastic chair staring at the floor, but apart from that, the place was empty.
    I followed Cole up to the glass-paneled reception desk. The reception clerk—a fat old man in a thin white shirt—was pretending to be busy. He was writing something really important in a really-important-looking ledger. It was so important that he didn’t even have time to acknowledge our existence. It didn’t bother me, but I knew Cole could only take it for so long, so I wasn’t surprised when after thirty seconds or so he raised his hand and gave the glass panel a sudden hard slap.
    The fat man jumped and looked up angrily. “What the hell—?”
    “Sorry,” said Cole. “I thought you were dead.”
    The fat man frowned.
    “We want to see DCI Pomeroy,” Cole told him.
    “You what?”
    “DCI Pomeroy. We want to see him.”
    “You can’t just—”
    “Is he here?”
    “I don’t know…”
    “Find out.”
    The fat man’s hand reached for the phone, but then he realized what he was doing—taking orders from a scruffy kid he didn’t even know—and he frowned again and stopped himself. He turned back to Cole and was about to say something, but Cole beat him to it.
    “Tell him it’s about Rachel Ford,” he said. “Tell him her brothers are here.”
    The fat man stared at Cole for a moment, then grudgingly picked up the phone.
    Pomeroy’s office smelled of air freshener and Juicy Fruit. It was a nondescript kind of place—desk, chairs, filing cabinet, window. Nothing much at all, really. A bit like DCI Pomeroy himself. He was one of those men who don’t seem to take up any space. Not big, not small, not anything. Just some kind of face, a haircut, a suit, some limbs, a voice.
    “Sit down, please,” he said, indicating a couple of chairs on the other side of his desk.
    We sat down.
    Pomeroy smiled at us. It wasn’t much of a smile. It looked like someone had cut into his face with a miniature penknife. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you both for some identification,” he said. “I know it sounds a bit paranoid, but you’d be amazed at the things people will do to get hold of information these days.”
    Cole took out his wallet and passed over his driver’slicense. Pomeroy took it and looked it over. If he realized it was a forgery, he didn’t show it. He nodded at Cole and passed it back, then looked at me.
    “I left my driver’s license at home,” I told him.
    He smiled again but didn’t say anything.
    “I’m fourteen,” I said. “The only thing I’ve got with my name on it is my Simpsons Fan Club Membership card, and I think I’ve lost that. You could probably call the club if you wanted to check…”
    The look on his face told me to shut up.
    “Give him your library card,” Cole told me.
    I reached into my back pocket and passed over my library card. I don’t know why I didn’t do it in the first place. I just didn’t feel like it, I suppose. Pomeroy glanced at the library card, then passed it back to me and leaned back in his chair.
    “So,” he said, smiling at Cole, “what can I do for you?”
    Cole looked at him for a moment, wondering how to play it. I was wondering the same thing myself. Pomeroy hadn’t said a word about Rachel yet. No commiserations, no heartfelt apologies, no platitudes. That was fine with me, and I’m sure it was OK with Cole, too—but it wasn’t how it was supposed to be. And that was a little bit puzzling.
    “We saw Detective Merton this morning,” Cole said. “He’s our Family Liaison Officer—”
    “I know who he is,” Pomeroy said.
    “He’s been keeping us informed about how the investigation is going.”
    Pomeroy nodded. “That’s part of his job.”
    “Right,” said Cole. I could feel his voice getting tighter. So could he. He looked down at the floor, took a couple of steadying breaths, then looked up at Pomeroy again. “You’re the