Sentinel by Joshua Winning Read Free Book Online Page A

“I want to meet her, whoever she is.”
    Whether he realised it or not, the mystery of this enigmatic and conspicuously absent godmother was the only thing keeping Nicholas going. He couldn’t understand all the secrecy, and he wanted to get to the bottom of whatever his parents had been up to when they died. It seemed like the most important thing in the world now. The only thing.
    Tabatha nodded and wiped at her eyes. “I’ll go see how that tea is doing.”
    “You’ll be going by bus,” Sam told Nicholas. “I have been led to believe that they are quite comfortable. I do regret, however, that I won’t be able to accompany you–”
    “You won’t?” Nicholas was taken aback. “You’re not coming?” The thought that he would have to travel by himself hadn’t even crossed his mind. Suddenly he felt more alone than ever.
    Sam ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. “Oh lad, I am sorry. You know I would if I could.”
    He would if he could. Now he thought of it, Nicholas couldn’t help wondering just what Sam got up to in his spare time – surely a man in his seventies should be taking life easy, playing chess in the park and scribbling poisonous letters to local newspapers about vandals and street gangs. Yet Sam seemed to spend his time constantly running around putting out fires all over Cambridge.
    “Don’t fret,” Sam went on. “A good friend of mine is headed the same way, so he’ll be getting the bus with you. You’ll get on with Richard; he’s a thinker like you.” Sam checked his watch. “Is that really the time? I’m afraid I must be off. I’ll be back at nine a.m. sharp to take you to the bus station. Best have everything ready before then, eh? No playing on that x-cite all evening, or whatever it’s called.”
    “Xbox.” Nicholas smiled despite himself. “I’ll be ready.”
    “Take care, lad. Get some sleep.”
    It was only when Sam had gone that Nicholas realised he’d forgotten to ask him about the strange wall in his parents’ bedroom.
    *
     
    The remainder of the day crawled torpidly by. Hostile clouds lingered in the sky while rain slicked the streets, reducing the snow to mulch. Nicholas despised being cooped up inside, hated the stale air and lying about the house with nothing to do. It gave him too much time to think.
    When he could stand the drumming on his ceiling no more, the boy dragged on a grey hoodie and trudged out onto Midsummer Common. It wasn’t long before he was soaked through, but Nicholas didn’t care. Squelching across the sodden grass, he made his way towards the river, seeing that a number of Red Poll bullocks had been set out to graze on the grassy land. Confronted with the inclement conditions, the cows huddled under a tree, barely moving. Solid mud statues.
    At the riverside, Nicholas stood alone and peered down into the cloudy water. Boats that had been moored on the other side rocked against one another, jostled by the current.
    In this weather, the Common was a desolate place. Nicholas remembered a story that Sam had told him once about a murder committed here in the late 1800s. A sixteen-year-old girl called Emma Rolfe had met up with a local tailor, a man almost ten years her senior, who took her to a nearby green and slit her throat. After killing her, the wretched man returned to a pub in Fair Street to finish his drink. He was later hanged for his crime at Norwich Gaol.
    Nicholas shivered. As the rain battered him, he found it easy to believe such a despicable thing could happen here. When he was a child, he’d marvelled at those macabre tales, thrilling in their bloody ability to chill; but the older he got the more unnerving he found them. Emma Rolfe surely hadn’t wanted to die; her fate had been decided for her by a savage drunk. His parents hadn’t wanted to die either, but that hadn’t stopped it happening. Like Miss Rolfe, their life stories would forever be defined by their deaths.
    Nicholas sniffed, wiped at his nose. It felt