Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron Read Free Book Online Page B

stopped.
    ‘You know which child this is, don’t you? There was an explosion.’
    The mouth twitched again.
    ‘It’s a police matter. Shall we call the police? Do you want the police here instead of me?’
    ‘You’ll have to leave now. Or I shall call security.’
    ‘If I go without seeing her,’ Sarah said, ‘ I’m calling the police.’
    ‘That won’t help you.’
    ‘Why not?’
    A wrestling match took place in the robot’s head: Sarah watched the coverage broadcast live on the robot’s face. The disinclination to give out information versus dealing the clinching blow to Sarah’s wants. The blow won.
    ‘The patient,’ she said, ‘is no longer in the hospital.’
    The patient was no longer in the hospital. What did that mean: she’d been transferred, discharged, what? Abducted by aliens? ‘Are you actually in charge?’ Sarah asked. ‘I mean, who else can I speak to about this?’
    The robot’s eyes narrowed to slits, the kind you find on coastal defence bunkers. The ones they fire cannons through. ‘ I am in charge ,’ she hissed. ‘Any enquiries you have will be dealt with by me .’
    Sarah did not wait to hear it but turned and walked smartly out the front door, the best she could manage on the way being a wink at Dawn on Reception, pressganging the poor woman into an alliance against her horrible boss. Who was probably herself a harassed, overworked woman but there’d be time for rational sympathy later. At that moment, Sarah hoped the robot would soon step into a malfunctioning lift.
    Out in the fresh air, she took a deep breath. It had been years since she’d smoked, but at times like this, of which there were thankfully few, she tended to monitor her stress receptors, putting that old chestnut about there being no such thing as an ex-smoker to the test. Everything seemed normal. No outraged nicotine centre screaming its shredded lungs out. She expelled air carefully, relieved that tobacco slavery was a thing of the past, and headed for the car.
    Where a man leant against her driver’s door: long-haired, bearded; wearing shades today, but she recognized him. Anywhere but here and now – broad daylight, people, a hospital – she’d have screamed. You read about this: women finding strangers by their cars, wielding sob stories, looking for lifts. Afterwards, you’d know they had tools in their bags: saws and pliers, cutting knives. Never trust anybody you meet on the street. If Sarah had children, that would be lesson one. Never trust anybody you meet. But this man carried no bag, and his hands hung loosely by his sides, palms out, as if he were aware of the dangers flashing through her mind, and wanted them out of the way. He spoke first.
    ‘Who are you?’
    Bloody cheek.
    ‘You were on the bridge, with the other women. Now you’re here. What do you want?’
    ‘I want my car,’ Sarah said. She had her keys in hand, prepared to throw them in his face. Or slash out; leave railway tracks down his bloody cheek.
    ‘I don’t mean to scare you. But you’re here for Dinah, aren’t you? Where is she?’
    ‘I want my car,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Would you get out of the way?’
    He didn’t move. ‘Are you a social worker?’
    ‘Fuck off!’ She moved round and opened the passenger door. He didn’t try to stop her. But he watched through the windscreen as she squeezed into the driving seat, and she wished she’d worn a longer skirt. She wound the window down. ‘And who are you ?’
    ‘They’re friends of mine,’ he said.
    ‘The Singletons?’
    ‘All of them.’
    ‘There were only two,’ she said stupidly. Then he turned and walked off, his ponytail bouncing against his neck as he went. He didn’t look back. Whatever he’d wanted, she didn’t have.
    Sarah’s hands were shaking, even once she’d taken a grip on the steering wheel. She felt, now it was over, that she’d spent the past five minutes being beaten up. The patient is no longer in the hospital .