Talking to the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

helpful.
    “You must have known them, I suppose?”
    “She came in here, I think. The mother.”
    “The redhead? Janet?”
    Farideh nodded. “You people were here already. I already told them.”
    I didn’t quite catch whether she said “you people” or “your people.” You people sounds a bit edgy, a bit Them and Us. Your people sounds rather flattering, like everyone in the police is part of my tribe, workers bees buzzing around their queen. Then again, Farideh’s English is heavily accented, so maybe I’m reading too much into her word choice.
    She rings up my purchases and puts on her pay-and-get-out-of-here face.
    “You never saw the girl? Not even to buy, I don’t know, choc ices?”
    “No.”
    “Girls don’t really buy choc ices, do they? What do they like?” I think out loud, not feigning my uncertainty. I know I used to be a six-year-old girl once, equipped with pocket money enough to buy sweeties at the corner shop, but those days seem unbelievably distant. I’m always bewildered at other people’s memories of their own pasts. But still, I thrash around trying to guess at April’s confectionery habits. “Rolos? Kit Kats? Gummi bears? Smarties?”
    I don’t know if I’m even vaguely close, but Farideh is insistent. She hasn’t seen the girl. The pensioner who came in behind me has finished foraging in the chiller cabinet and is waiting to pay. I find some money and hand it over.
    The front of the shop is adorned with handwritten adverts. People selling off their mountain bikes, or offering garden clearance and handyman services. “No job too small.” There’s a police notice already up in the window too. Smartly laid out by one of the people on our communications team. Printed on glossy card in four-color reprographics, with a free phone number in red at the bottom. And it’s useless. An alien intruder. The sort of poster that people around here will simply blank from view. The same kind of disappearing act that is performed on utility bills, planning notices, Social Services forms, tax requests.
    I let the pensioner pay, then ask Farideh if I can put a notice up.
    “Paper or card?” she asks.
    “Card,” I say. I like card.
    She gives me a card, and I write on it in ballpoint pen:
J ANET AND APRIL MANCINI. L IVED AT 86 ALLISON STREET. K ILLED ON 21 M AY. I NFORMATION WANTED. P LEASE CONTACT D.C. FIONA GRIFFITHS.”
    I add not the toll-phone number but my own mobile one. I don’t know why, but it looks right once I’ve done it, so I don’t go back and change it.
    “One week, two weeks, or four weeks?” asks Farideh. It’s 50p a week, or 1.50 pounds for four weeks. I go for four weeks.
    Farideh sticks the card up in the window as I leave.
    Sunshine, secrets, and silence.
    Outside, I sit on a bollard in the sun, eat my sandwich, and call Bev Rowland on her mobile. She’s in the middle of something, but we chat for a minute or so anyway. Then a text comes in from David Brydon inviting me for a drink that evening. I stare at the screen and don’t know what to do. I do nothing, just finish the sandwich.
    Back in the office, I don’t get the Where-the-hell-have-you-been question I was more or less expecting. I don’t think anyone’s even noticed that I’ve been on walkabout. I email Dennis Jackson with a quick report on Cefn Mawr. Then type up my notes properly and get them on Groove.
    Then it’s back to Penry’s damn bank statements, which don’t add up, or don’t when it’s me operating the calculator anyway. I call the school to check there wasn’t some other bank account that he could have been nicking money from and am a bit peeved when they say no, definitely not. No let-off there.
    My mood is just beginning to take a turn for the worse when I get a call from Jackson, summoning me downstairs.
    He wants to know more about Cefn Mawr. I give him the gist. I try to keep my language bland and professional, the way we’re trained, but Jackson isn’t fooled.
    “You said