Frozen by Richard Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

out into the road and waved frantically at a cab that was passing on the opposite side of the street. It did a U-turn in the light traffic, and headed towards us.
    “You take it, Ads. I'm going to walk for a while.”
    He peered at me suspiciously. “Sure?”
    “Sure. I'll be fine.’
    He clapped me on the back. “I'll call you tomorrow.”
    I watched the taxi go, and then meandered slowly towards home in the twilight.
    Without Adam, I think I would have fallen apart that day, within hours of hearing of Verity's fall. Without him, I would have been so... severed. But he was there.
    And I felt more alone than I could ever have imagined.

CHAPTER 6
    SAM MANDOVINI'S over-bright clothes did nothing for my hangover—and she wouldn't stop talking, her voice low and monotonous, which didn't help either.
    “I just can't believe it,” she mumbled. “I spoke to her on Wednesday morning. On the phone. She was working from home.” She was distracted, picking at the tasselled hem of her crop-top, looking at the ground, the street, the sky—anywhere but at me. I stood on the pavement, because she had not yet thought to invite me in. The London fumes were making me feel sick.
    I had woken late, with the sun shining directly into my eyes. Dizziness and nausea had struck the moment I tried to lift my head. This wasn't just a headache; this was the kind of hangover that convinces you you're genuinely ill. Grilled some bacon for a sandwich, nearly threw it up. Ran a hot bath, couldn't face it. Switched on the telly and lay on my bed, not really watching, and wondered whether the black coffee I was cradling was such a good idea after all. But being alone with my thoughts didn't suit me either, and in any case I had a job on later in the day. Time to get going. I went to the corner shop and bought a newspaper, which I couldn't face reading. Eventually I admitted to myself that my first duty of the day was to deal with Verity's Filofax.
    It was sitting on the table in the living room, with the keys and the postcard next to it— Paris, babes, slay 'em or die!!! —and I had decided that maybe I could delay the Filofax by going to see Sam. Perhaps she would help with it. I flicked through it, trying to gauge the scale of the task. Names and addresses, some that I knew, many I had never heard of; diary dates heavily circled or with exclamation marks next to them—dates she had never mentioned. There was even an entry for the day she had fallen: “3.30,” ringed, with “B. Gap Hotel, thatched bar” next to it, and below that, “A259 => Eastbourne. R turn—BIRLING GAP.” Three-thirty—five hours before she fell. What had she done with those hours? Who had she spent them with? I looked at a map. Birling Gap was between Brighton and Eastbourne, on the coast near Beachy Head. Whatever she had been doing there, I couldn't see how it could have kept her more than a couple of hours. If she had been there at three thirty, she would have had time to get back to Jim's by half past seven for her date with good old Harry—Harry who, it seemed, knew next to nothing about the life of his closest friend. I folded the Filofax back together, and trudged to the tube station.
    And now, with my hangover ripening nicely, I was facing Sam and wondering if she would be any help at all.
    “I mean, it's just dreadful.” Her voice was flat and dull. She studied the buttonholes of her tiny fuzzy pink cardigan. Sailcloth trousers and black platform shoes completed her outfit. “It's just...”
    Her gaze flicked to me and then away, to follow a bus as it growled past. “She... I can't believe she...” Finally her eyes locked with mine, and widened in surprise. “Oh... I'm sorry, Harry. I'm just... come in. You look dreadful.”
    It's always nice to start the day with a compliment.
    She led the way. A piece of paper had been stuck to the wall with masking tape, falling away where it had pulled at the flaking pale green paint: “Verity Hadley, Sam