The Fall Read Online Free PDF Page B

club.” ’
    ‘Right. Now how did you know that, Mr Stockbridge?’
    ‘I saw his name on his desk, when he took me to the office. He had one of those silly little plaques.’
    ‘You remembered that?’
    ‘I have a good memory, it goes with the job.’
    ‘But you said earlier, when your prints were taken . . . DC Jones?’
    ‘ “I think I just hit him. I don’t know.” ’
    Stockbridge shrugged. ‘Yeah – well, OK, it’s a bit hazy. I’d been drinking. But I remember the name.’
    ‘I see.’ Hegarty leaned back in his chair. ‘And what about your ladyfriend – she was there?’ Ladyfriend . It was a mystery why these old-fashioned phrases came out during interviews.
    ‘Charlotte? Yes, she was there.’ Stockbridge’s eyes narrowed.
    Hegarty tried not to look like he was picturing the curve of the girl’s breast. ‘Your wife?’
    ‘Fiancée. The wedding’s next week.’
    I wouldn’t be too sure about that , thought Hegarty, with a certain satisfaction.
Keisha
    Keisha would never forget the first time she saw Chris Dean. She still had the scar to remind her, after all, the little raised lump on the side of her knee.
    It was her first day in big school, the posh school she’d got into after doing the exam in that funny echoey room up in Hampstead, and her mum had cried and cried, she was so happy. ‘Just like me, an A student. I was top of my class in Jamaica. Everyone said, That girl will go far.’ Until she’d had Keisha, of course, and gone no further than wiping arses in the nursing home. Still, Mercy thought education was right up there with God Himself.
    So it was Keisha’s first day, the navy uniform cutting into her, stiff and new, and there were Asian kids and white kids and black kids, but she was the only one nobody was sure of. What was she? She was crouching her head down to the desk, her History book open to a picture of a Norman castle, when the door opened.
    ‘Well, thanks for joining us. Christopher, is it?’ The teacher, Mrs Allen, had that special sarky voice they all did. She was a fat woman who spilled over the sides of her chair.
    ‘No worries,’ he said, in the half-Irish, half-London voice, and she looked up, and as she saw him she did something spastic with her leg so it banged into the desk and started to bleed.
    ‘Shit!’ she’d shouted before she could stop herself, and laughter spread out round her like a Mexican wave. Mrs Allen said, ‘Watch your language, and do try not to break the school on your first day.’
    Keisha had looked up at the boy, too cool to laugh. His eyes were the kind of blue she didn’t think eyes could be in real life, a blue like the sirens on police cars. He had a pierced ear, unlit cig in his mouth – in school! He was Irish-white, pale as milk, and at thirteen, a year older than her. And that was it for her, sort of like Game Over. Even when they both got kicked out of the school the year after and her mum wouldn’t speak to her for weeks, Keisha didn’t care ’cos Chris was with her. It was her and him against the lot of them. Like Romeo and Juliet. Or at least, she thought so. She’d been too busy snogging him behind the bike sheds to actually pay attention in English. Course, things hadn’t turned out so great for Romeo and Juliet, as it happened. So why should they for Chris and Keisha? She’d been daft to ever expect it.
    After the club on Friday night, Keisha couldn’t believe he’d left without her. The bastard. What a twat he was, really. When she came out of the toilets he was gone. Eventually she got fed up and took the smelly night bus home, only to find him there already, in bed.
    ‘You left me!’
    He’d mumbled under the covers, a hump in the darkness. ‘Felt sick.’
    ‘How did you— You got a cab, didn’t you?’ It was the only way he could have got back so soon. She couldn’t believe it – that was twenty quid down the drain.
    ‘Give over.’
    ‘Fine, whatever.’ She went to pee, easing off the shoes