TT13 Time of Death Read Online Free PDF

she was all right, but there was no response. Just the noise of heavy footsteps trudging upstairs.
    ‘Danny’s up there,’ Linda said. ‘Her brother. He’s barely been down since we got here. Just to grab a drink or something to eat then he’s away again. An officer brought them over a computer they could use, which was nice of him. Didn’t have to do that, did he?’ She looked at Helen. ‘They took both the kids’ laptops.’ She shook her head, brushed something from her skirt that wasn’t there. ‘They took everything.’
    ‘I know,’ Helen said.
    ‘You wouldn’t believe the stuff they took. CDs, DVDs, the lot. Bags and bags.’
    ‘I know,’ Helen said again. ‘I’m a police officer.’
    Linda stared at her, opened her mouth a little, then closed it again.
    ‘I’m not here because of that, though. I’m not working. I came because I saw your picture on the news and I thought you might need a friend.’
    ‘Oh, you did?’
    Helen saw how what she had said must have sounded. ‘I mean, I’m sure you’ve got loads of friends, but … I thought I might be able to help.’
    Linda nodded and leaned across to the table. She picked up a biscuit then put it back. ‘I didn’t know we were friends,’ she said. ‘How long is it since you left?’
    ‘Twenty years,’ Helen said. ‘Good as.’
    ‘And you’ve not been back?’
    Helen shook her head.
    ‘We had a school reunion. You could have come to that.’
    ‘I wanted to …’
    Linda looked as though she was trying to decide whether to believe Helen or not. Either she did, or she decided that it didn’t much matter. ‘It was a laugh, as it happens.’
    ‘Maybe there’ll be another one.’
    Linda ran fingers through hair that was thick and frizzy, with a good deal of grey at the roots. Her face was drawn, the lines pronounced around her eyes and mouth. Her lips were cracked. Helen knew she had changed a good deal herself in twenty years, but the woman sitting next to her was barely recognisable as the smiling bride in the recent wedding photograph.
    ‘Can’t see either of us going now,’ Linda said. ‘Can you?’
    They said nothing for a minute or more. Outside the officers were talking and suddenly music began to play upstairs.Something with no words and a repetitive beat, like a racing pulse.
    ‘God, I must sound like such an ungrateful bitch,’ Linda said.
    ‘It’s fine.’
    ‘No, really, I appreciate you coming. You didn’t have to.’
    ‘I wanted to.’
    There was a knock on the door and a uniformed officer poked his head around it. He asked if anyone wanted more tea and they both said they did.
    When the door had closed, Linda rolled her eyes. ‘Bloody tea,’ she said. ‘I’m swimming in it. They teach you that, do they?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘At cadet school or whatever it is? If in doubt, make the poor buggers some more tea.’
    Helen smiled. ‘I know it must seem like they’re just trying to pretend everything’s fine, but it’s not that. Sometimes it’s just about being nice, but mostly it’s because you don’t know what else to do.’
    ‘Yeah, fair enough.’ Linda leaned forward again, took the biscuit this time.
    Helen looked around the room. Like the sofa on which she was sitting, most of the furniture was modern, but well worn. There were colour prints in clip-frames on one of the walls; pictures of motorbikes and drag-racers. The carpet was light green and the curtains a darker shade with prints of leaves. There was a brownish, mock-marble fireplace containing a gas fire and the TV next to it, though certainly big enough, was not a make Helen had ever heard of.
    ‘So, whose place is this, anyway?’ she asked.
    ‘Nobody’s.’ Linda popped the last of the biscuit into her mouth. ‘Well, it was, but I don’t know who they were. It was repossessed.’ She shrugged. ‘Whoever they were, they didn’t have a lot of luck.’ She puffed out her cheeks, clearly aware of theirony in what she’d said. ‘I don’t