Charley by Tim O'Rourke Read Free Book Online

that sleep wouldn’t come easily, even though I had another nightshift ahead of me and I would need some rest. And if I were to be honest, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to my next shift. I knew DC Jackson was still going to be pissed at me for suggesting my theory to the DI. I mean, how dare I? I was just the proby, after all. I knew diddly-shit!
    But I did know Jackson was wrong about how Kerry Underwood had come to be on those tracks. Sure, he had made the facts fit, but that was because he was arrogant and lazy and desperate to prove the new guy wrong. But none of that mattered. What mattered was discovering the truth.
    I stopped at a set of traffic lights. With my hands strumming against the steering wheel, I looked left and then right. Left took me home to my flat and a nice warm bed. Right took me back inthe direction of the railway tracks where Kerry Underwood had died.
    The lights turned to amber, then green. I accelerated, hit the indicator and turned right.

CHAPTER 7
    Charley – Monday: 05:56 Hrs.
    I woke up, my phone still gripped in my hand. I looked at the screen: 05:56 am. Groaning, I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes again, hoping for another hour or two of sleep. There was no reason to get up. College had broken up for the Christmas holidays and I had yet to find myself a part-time job, despite my father’s constant reminders. I had been too upset by Natalie’s death to look for work. With thoughts of my best friend already creeping into my mind, memories of the previous night’s flashes and the conversation I’d had with my father followed.
    Was he still going to be pissed at me because of what I’d said about his lady friends? It was his private life after all. I didn’t enjoy arguing with my father at every opportunity, but that’s all we ever seemed to do lately. If only I could prove to him that what I saw in those flashes was true. It wasn’t as if I got some kind of kick out ofhaving them. Did he really think I enjoyed seeing the disbelief in his face? Or being ridiculed by my friends?
    I had once made the mistake of confiding in a girl I went to school with about my flashes. Lucy had discovered me in the toilet in our last year at secondary school, leaning over the basin with my head in my hands, recovering from flashes about a small boy drowning.
    It hadn’t been a severe episode – I hadn’t collapsed at least. But the flashes had been strong enough to make me feel sick from the blinding bolts of pain that I’d felt inside my head.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Lucy had asked, dropping her bag to the floor and rushing to my aid.
    ‘Aw, it’s nothing,’ I told her.
    ‘That’s crap, Charley, and you know it,’ she said. ‘I’ve known you since primary school and you’ve always suffered from headaches. My mum reckons you’ve got a tumour.’
    ‘Thanks,’ I said, rubbing my temples. ‘Cheer me up, why don’t you?’
    ‘She doesn’t mean anything by it,’ Lucy said. ‘You know she’s just kinda concerned, that’s all.’
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I don’t have a brain tumour, Lucy. I’ve had more tests than a lab rat.’
    ‘So what is it then?’ she asked, tossing a piece of gum around the inside of her mouth with her tongue.
    ‘You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you,’ I said, taking my bag and phone and heading for the door.
    ‘Ooooh!’ Lucy said, snatching up her own bag. ‘That sounds kinda spooky!’
    ‘It’s not spooky,’ I said as we walked together through the maze of corridors zigzagging across the school. ‘Well, at least I don’t think it’s spooky. I’ve kind of got used to it.’
    ‘Used to what?’ Lucy asked, her eyes almost bulging from their sockets.
    I knew that now I had grabbed her curiosity, I would never hear the end of it until I told her. I could see it all now, a constant stream of texts and Facebook messages, until I told her my secret.
    We left the school building, found a nice shaded spot beneath a tree and sat