Fireflies by David Menon Read Free Book Online Page B

Lillie Mae died.
    ‘Toby, would you mind if someone came to live here who could look after you when I’m at work?’
    Toby looked up at his father quizzically. ‘Have you got a girlfriend, Daddy?’
    Jeff smiled. ‘No, mate, I haven’t got a girlfriend but when I do I promise you’ll be the first to know’.
    ‘So what’s up, Daddy?’
    ‘Well I think we need someone here all the time’.
    ‘You mean we’d get a servant like in Downton Abbey? They couldn’t live downstairs though because there isn’t enough room in that little cupboard and they wouldn’t be able to breathe’.
    Jeff ruffled his son’s jet black hair. ‘No, they wouldn’t be like a servant, mate. They’d be more like a friend who was here to take care of both of us’.
    ‘But we’ve got Uncle Lewis and Uncle Seamus to do that. Don’t they want to do it anymore?’
    ‘Of course they do, of course they do’ Jeff reassured. ‘We’d still see Uncle Lewis and Seamus as much as we do now. It would just make life easier when I get called out to go to work at short notice. I mean, do you remember that time I had to run you round to Pam’s in your pyjamas and dressing gown?’
    ‘Yeah but I didn’t mind’ said Toby who was shaking his legs up and down under the table. ‘I got to have breakfast with Stephen and Jennifer and Pam made pancakes with strawberries. She says I’m cute as Christmas’.
    Jeff laughed. ‘And she’s right you are, mate’.
    ‘So what’s the problem?’
    ‘Well Pam might not always be there when we need her’ said Jeff. ‘But if someone lived here then neither of us would ever have to worry’.
    Toby sat and thought for a moment. ‘Okay’.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yeah’ said Toby. ‘Why not? It might be fun’.
    ‘Okay, well your Uncle Lewis and Uncle Seamus have got a mate called Brendan who wants to make a living out of caring for people like me and you’.
    ‘You mean people without a Mummy?’
    Jeff brought his hand up to his mouth and gulped. ‘That’s it, mate’.
    ‘Well then okay get him to come round’ said Toby. ‘If he can play xbox and cook as good as Uncle Lewis can then he’ll be sound. On one condition though?’
    ‘What’s that, mate?’
    Toby slid off his chair and got on his Daddy’s knee. Jeff put his arms round him. ‘After Mummy died you said we’d always be the A team?’
    ‘Yeah and we always will?’
    ‘So if someone else comes to live with us then we’ll still be that A team, Daddy?’
    ‘Of course we will’ said Jeff. ‘Nobody else gets to be part of our A team’.
    ‘Daddy?’
    ‘Yes, mate?’
    ‘Are you missing Mummy?’
    Jeff had to take another deep breath before answering. ‘Yes, mate. I am missing Mummy’.
    ‘Well you’ve still got me’.
    Jeff kissed the top of Toby’s head. ‘I know mate and that makes me the luckiest Daddy in the whole world’. 
     
    Jeff dropped Toby off at school and then drove into work. When he got to the station he sat in his car for a few minutes to try and compose himself. Grief was such a long and drawn out process and recently he thought he’d been doing okay. But it wasn’t as simple as that. Just when he thought he might be starting to come to terms with it he’d woken up that morning and been struck by an emotion that was as crushing as the day he’d been told that Lillie Mae had died.
    But he also had a case to think about and he simply didn’t believe that the body of a grown man could be dumped at the back of a large hotel without anybody noticing. Someone had carefully planned the murder of James Clifton. He was certain of that much. But was James Clifton the actual target or did he just happen to fit the profile of whatever the killer was looking for? Was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? It’s rarely as simple as that in Jeff’s experience but they needed to delve more deeply into Clifton’s background to see if he’d done anything that might go some way towards explaining the horror of his