Sorrow Bound Read Online Free PDF Page B

for the pharmacy that represents the only high-street name on this little parade of independent shops and salons. She pauses for a moment to look at the display of cupcakes in the window of a bakery, but an angry blaring of the car horn indicates that Archer is watchingher in the rear-view mirror and is not in the mood for waiting.
    ‘Okay, okay,’ she mutters, accepting that for now, there is no time for cake.
    It’s cool inside the brightly lit store and for the first time in days, Tremberg’s skin goose-pimples as the sweat turns cold upon her bare arms. It’s rare that she exposes any flesh while on duty but today she has acquiesced to a short-sleeved blouse, which she has not tucked into her pinstripe trousers.
    ‘Wipes, wipes …’
    She finds the right shelf, and pretends she can’t see the lemon-scented ones. She picks the packet with the most overtly chemical smell, then heads to the counter, where a short Asian lady gives her a bright smile.
    ‘It’s two for one,’ she says, conspiratorially. ‘Special offer.’
    Tremberg shrugs. ‘They’re for my boss. She can make do.’
    The lady grins, and Tremberg hands over the five-pound note Archer has given her. ‘Put the change in the charity box,’ she says, crumpling the receipt.
    ‘We don’t have one.’
    ‘Then get yourself an ice cream.’
    Tremberg heads for the exit, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror behind the make-up display as she leaves. She’s at ease with what she sees. At thirty-one, she’s happily single and rarely lonely, and though she may be a little more broad shouldered than she would like, there is nothing offensive about her round face with its narrow features, or her simply styled brown hair.
    He’ll like it
, she tells herself.
Get up the courage to suggest a drink. And stop checking your phone!
    For the past few weeks Helen has been receiving increasinglycolourful messages from a solicitor she met while waiting for a court case. His emails are the favourite part of her day and she has taken to checking her phone almost obsessively. Although she is no stranger to relationships, she is nervous about being the first to get in touch each day. It seems important to her that she is the respondent to his overtures, rather than making the running herself.
    Helen emerges back into the muggy air and takes in the view. She’s never got out of the car on this stretch of road before and wonders if she ever will again. It’s no shabbier than anywhere else, and there are only a few untenanted shops. Each of the parking spaces by the side of the road is taken, and there is a steady procession of shoppers wandering from store to store, filling shopping bags with fruit and veg, bread rolls, sliced meat, saying hello over the noise of the traffic and thinking about how best to jazz up the salad they are considering for tonight’s tea. It reminds Tremberg of the Grimsby neighbourhood where she grew up. Normal folk. Normal people. Bit skint by the third week of the month, and a week in Benidorm each June. Fish and chip tea on a Friday, and six-packs of supermarket lager in front of the Grand Prix on a Sunday. The people she became a copper for. The people worth protecting.
    Tremberg tries to get her bearings. Works out where she is. She’s half a mile from the prison on the road that leads to the Preston Road Estate. She has only been working in Hull for a year and has not had time to familiarise herself with every neighbourhood, but knows the PRE by reputation and is grateful that it was never her beat when she was still in uniform. More Anti-social Behaviour Orders have been handed out here than on any other estate in the city boundary, and barely an editionof the
Hull Daily Mail
is published without it containing some report or another about teenage gangs making life miserable for ‘decent’ people.
    Tremberg rarely troubles herself with the politics of her job or the social background to the crimes she investigates. She