The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

on a Saturday. And whichever way you look at it, there is a lot of truth in that statement.
    The coffee feels a little lackluster, but that might be because I was utterly spoiled with Trev and Freya’s brew over on Church Street last night. I sip and swill, and glance around the restaurant. The clock over the cereal table reads 7.37am. The room is mostly empty, a couple of early risers peppered about at the window tables. Blokes, with their own backstories, just like me. They go through the motions of their breakfasts with a dull precision suggesting an oft repeated routine, the grey sky outside complementing their supposed monotony to perfection.
    I have a faint memory in my head, wedged somewhere airily between when I fell asleep and breakfast this morning. Not so much a memory, but a faint whisper that I did something. This concerns me a bit, as I’ve seen myself do some fairly ill-judged things, but I feel so refreshed that I know I did nothing. It was my mind that was active. A dream. The subconscious dragging you on a journey from which you can’t resist or alter. I can’t remember what I dreamt of, the fabric of the dream too frayed at this point, so I’ll just leave it there. I don’t really want to know, in any event. I wouldn’t trust my subconscious to construct anything too cheery. It can get a bit dark in there.
    As I watch the two other diners, while trying hopelessly to scoop a segment of grapefruit onto my spoon, I notice that they are utterly addicted to their smartphones. Absolutely, unashamedly slaves to them. I doubt that they have even looked up once, their whole lives organized electronically, different facets of their personalities arranged in a host of social media accounts. I remember too, that I know have a smartphone also. And I remember my Twitter appeal to Jack Brooker. I take out my own device, and activate it. If you can’t beat them, and all that...
    The first thing that hits me when the screen comes to life, is a missed call from a mobile number. I know straight away that that can only be Jack - he’s the only person on the planet who has this number. There’s a little funny looping symbol in the top left of the interface, which I haven’t seen before. It looks like a cassette tape... and the penny drops. Answer-phone. It takes me a couple of minutes to work it out, such is my unfamiliarity with finicky little technology things, and I manage to access the recorded message.
    I hold the phone to my ear and listen. The recording opens with an automated female voice, contextless pre-recorded words strung together to impart meaning.
    ‘Message left today at 4.53am’
    Then follows a full 5 seconds of silence, although it definitely isn’t silence. There is a hiss, and as my ears search the condensed, recorded soundscape, I begin to hear breathing. Ragged breathing. Then a deeper rumble, a popping Dopplered hiss - a car passing. Then another. A voice speaks. It is Jack.
    ‘I’ve called you. Because I don’t know what else to do, nor who to trust. I thought I could do this on my own, but I can’t.’
    Silence again. I put down my spoon and reach instinctively in my jeans pocket for a pen. I grab my napkin, and jot the time of the message down.
    ‘It’s my dad. When I saw you last night, he had been missing for 2 days. I’ve been going mad trying to find him. I’ve tried every way I know, but I got nowhere.’
    That explains his state last night - he presumably hasn’t slept since he found out his father was missing.
    ‘And about an hour ago, the police found him. Shot dead, in a disused warehouse out on the edge of land owned by Manchester Airport, beyond the runways.’
    Jack’s voice is cracking, emotion beginning to pour from the widening fissure. I note down that Jack found out about his father’s passing at approximately 3.30-4.00am.
    ‘Someone shot him. My dad. You seem to know how to handle yourself - please help me find who did this. I don’t trust the police, they