Blue Like Friday by Siobhan Parkinson Read Free Book Online Page B

hand slipping around toward twelve. “When the second hand hits twelve, it’s fifteen minutes from when we said we’d give it fifteen minutes. And that was after he’d already been gone about fifteen minutes. That’s half an hour that he’s been in there with those dead bodies, Hal.”
    â€œDon’t!” said Hal.
    â€œWell, the mortuary part was your idea. In fact, this whole thing was your idea, Hal King. I am suffering from sleep deprivation and I am on the verge of starvation and you expect me to mince my words.”
    â€œDon’t say ‘mince,’” wailed Hal.
    â€œMince!” I said spitefully. “Hamburger. Bolognese. Mince pies.”
    â€œI can’t think if you keep talking about food.”
    â€œAnd I can’t think if I don’t eat. If we don’t eat soon,” I said, “there’ll be two more candidates for the mortuary.”
    â€œOlivia, that is not nice,” Hal said reproachfully.
    â€œTell you what,” I said. “Why don’t we just ask the security man what the story is? And then we can decide what to do.”
    You know, it was a bit weird. There was Hal, trying to get rid of Alec, and now that he had finally disappeared, we were putting all this energy into trying to find him again. Life is not very logical, is it?
    Anyway, I went up to the little glass kiosk and knocked.

    The security man looked up from his copy of the Irish Independent. “Yes?” he said, opening a little sliding glass door in the side of the kiosk.
    â€œDid a man drive in here about half an hour ago?” I asked.
    â€œListen, a-lanna,” said the security man, pushing his peaked hat back off his forehead, “any number of men have driven in here in the last half hour. Which per-tick-ler man would you be thinking of?”
    â€œThe one in the white van with the ladder on top,” I said.
    â€œThe painter?” said the security man, and laughed. “Looking for the mortuary? Only he didn’t seem to know it was the mortuary.”
    â€œThat’s the one,” I said.
    â€œAh, yes,” said the security man. “Yes, indeed.”
    â€œWell?” I said.
    â€œWell, what?”
    â€œWell, where is he now? I mean, would you have any idea?”
    â€œI beg your parsnips?” said the security man.
    Parsnips! What was he on about?
    â€œThe painter,” I said, enunciating carefully. “What happened to him?”
    â€œHow would I know?”
    I looked at Hal. Hal shrugged.
    â€œIs he your da or what?” asked the security man.

    â€œHe’s his da,” I said, pointing at Hal.
    Hal opened his mouth in a big O shape, like a goldfish. Please, Hal, I breathed silently. Please don’t announce he is not your father, not even your stepfather, he is just this fly-by-night your mother has given houseroom to. Just-—don’t—say-—it. I don’t know if thought transference works, but Hal closed his mouth again and said nothing.
    â€œAnd Saturday is pocket-money day, I suppose,” the man went on, turning it into a joke. “But I’m afraid I can’t help you. I definitely saw him coming in, and a right story he had, too, I can tell you. But what I can’t tell you is what happened to him once he got inside. I haven’t got a telescope in here, you know.” He gave a little chuckle at his own wit, and he slid the window closed.
    We stood there for a moment. I was wondering what to do next, and Hal was blowing his nose. Next thing, the little sliding door opened again.
    â€œYou two planning on standing there all morning?” the security man asked.
    â€œWe were just wondering,” I said carefully, “suppose he couldn’t find who he was looking for in there, what would happen to him?”
    â€œHappen to him?” said the security man. “Nothing would happen to him. I suppose he’d just come out again, wouldn’t