Binary Witness (The Amy Lane Mysteries) by Rosie Claverton Read Free Book Online Page A

of them snagged his shirt and pulled him down, the tarmac scraping up his back. Shit. No one comes back from the floor.
    But there were blue flashing lights and suddenly the kids were scrambling and yelling, hoods up and away, leaving him crashed out on the ground.
    Jason sat up slowly, wincing as his body reported in his various scrapes and bruises. An anxious-looking copper came over, one hand on her truncheon and the other on her radio. “You all right? Did they get anything?”
    “Just my pride,” Jason heard himself say, levering himself up and onto his feet. He reclaimed his bag and stood up to meet the police officer’s gaze. “And I didn’t know them, didn’t see any faces, and even if I did—”
    “You wouldn’t be pressing charges,” the officer finished tiredly. “You lot don’t make it easy on yourselves, you know?”
    Jason didn’t know who exactly she meant by “you lot”—young men, Bute boys, ex-cons—but he kept his curiosity to himself. “Thank you, officer,” Jason said, already making to leave.
    “Wait,” she said, “can we give you a lift home?”
    “I’m already home,” Jason said and limped away.

Chapter Ten: Exhale
    Jason sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hand, the other clutching a bag of frozen peas to his aching ribs. His mam had gone on and on about getting into trouble and the police and avoiding the local boys for the past hour, and his headache was growing steadily louder and angrier. Worse still, Cerys was leaning against the kitchen counter, watching his humiliation—yet not with a crowing smile and arrogant eye, but folded arms and a pensive look. Jason couldn’t meet her eyes.
    “It’s not a big deal,” he said for the thirtieth time, which just set Gwen off on another tirade about how he had no sense of responsibility and didn’t he know he could’ve been killed? This continued for another fifteen minutes, before he got awkwardly to his feet.
    “I’m going to bed,” he mumbled and dumped the thawing peas on the table, before shuffling towards the stairs. Cracked ribs were the worst—it hurt to lie and sit and stand, and it hurt to fucking breathe. But if you didn’t breathe, you got pneumonia. He’d already been laid up with that in prison and he had no desire for a rerun. He still had nightmares about drowning in the infirmary, too hot to live and too cold to die, the faint laughter of the man who’d socked him ringing in his ears.
    Of course, he couldn’t sleep, staring at the ceiling and thinking over why Damage had decided to come after him now, why he’d brought the whole gang to watch, and how the hell the cops had known what was happening. He replayed it in his mind, but a more intrusive set of questions broke through the haze. Who killed Kate and Melody? And why did they do it?
    His battered phone buzzed once and he glanced over at the bedside table. Painfully, he reached out for it and read the text in the dim light from the street outside. And then read it again. A third time.

    come @ 9. things 2 do. u need strongr passwrd. @

    No prizes for guessing who that was from, but how did she get his number? Maybe the cleaning company gave it to her? Then again, with the cryptic comment about his password—which was perfectly acceptable, had numbers and everything—she might just have lifted the number off his email or something.
    As he tried to get comfortable in his narrow single bed, Jason closed his eyes and pushed away thoughts of gangs, of prison, his haunted past. There were two dead students. And questions his mind was desperate to answer.
    * * *
    This time, Jason didn’t even ring the buzzer before the door opened and he was admitted to the elevator and the flat beyond. “Amy?” he called, shrugging his holdall off his shoulder with a wince.
    She surprised him by appearing in the corridor and pushing the bag back onto the shoulder. Jason yelped. “I need the tape from Whitchurch police station. I’ve exhausted my