The Drowners Read Online Free PDF

had been preparing him for the next few tough years ahead.
    ‘There’ll always be those who are jealous,’ the sergeant had said. ‘Those not as able or those not as willing to put the work in. Don’t listen to them. You keep your head down, do the best you can and you should make sergeant in record time. Just remember, you’ll be younger and less experienced than half the men you’re leading so you need to be better than them – smarter, quicker and tougher all round. Good luck.’
    They had shaken hands and that was the end of his training. He’d caught the train to Somerset the next day and had scarcely had time to stop and muse on life since. One thing he did know for sure, however, was that if he ran away from the autopsy he’d ruin two years of the hardest work he’d ever done. So he stood in his allotted place and tried to concentrate on the voice of the pathologist. Suddenly he heard his name being called.
    ‘Ah yes, you’re Constable … Constable Brown isn’t it?’ The pathologist was staring at him and gesturing with one red-gloved hand. ‘Come over here where you can see properly. You won’t learn anything over there. Come on.’
He waved several students aside and Dave Brown found himself up close and personal with his first post-mortem. Over the next twenty minutes or so he discovered some smells don’t fade with time, that the average human brain weighs about a kilo and a half, and Sticky Micky’s last meal had been some sort of meat hotpot washed down with an excessive amount of natural cider. As he left the hospital he was gratified to receive a nod of acknowledgement from the detective sergeant in charge of the case. It was almost worth it, he thought, as he clambered into the car and made his way back to the station in Highpoint. Despite the chill in the air hewound down the window, convinced the smell of Michael Franks was still clinging to his uniform.

    Alex woke from her post-lunch nap feeling better – surprisingly better. She raised her head from the pillow, ready to surrender again at the first sign of the monstrous headache ’s return, but apart from a slight humming in her ears all seemed well. She slid her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, waiting again, but her vision stayed clear and the room, so recently a spinning nightmare, was still. She was bored, she realized. Bored almost to the point of madness. What first – a book perhaps? There was a small television in the spare room – maybe she could get that and set it up next to the bed. Then she thought of the kitchen. Coffee! Oh, she was so sick of water, fruit juice, more water mixed with juice – it had to be coffee. She took a deep breath and rose to her feet, grabbing for the doorframe as her weakened body trembled. After a moment she felt better again and began to make her unsteady way downstairs.
    The open staircase loomed before her, tempting and terrifying in equal measure and she clung to the banister rail, taking one step at a time, both feet safe before trying the next. Shaking all over by the time she reached the safety of the ground floor, she dropped into the armchair nearest the stairs and closed her eyes for a moment. The cold woke her twenty minutes later. Her eyes were sticky and the sickness she’d suffered over the past week threatened to return as she wriggled her way out of the chair and lurched over towards the kitchen door.
    ‘Pathetic,’ she muttered to herself through gritted teeth. ‘This is just ridiculous. A few days in bed and I’m reduced to crawling like a baby!’ Somewhere deep inside a little voice was telling her to get back upstairs whilst she could still manage it but ahead of her, just on the front of the shelf in the kitchen, she could see the coffee tin. A souvenir of happier times, it was decorated with stylized designs from continental railway posters. She’d loved it the moment she’d seen it in theshop and it was one of the few items to survive the great purge of