Martyn Pig by Kevin Brooks Read Free Book Online

an accident.’
    â€˜They don’t know that.’
    â€˜But you can’t just
leave
it, Martyn. You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to tell
some
body.’
    I thought about it. I tried to follow it through – what if this, what if that – but there was nothing there. All I could see was a black hole. ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘whatever I do, I’ll still end up at Aunty Jean’s.’
    â€˜But you won’t have to stay there for ever, will you? You’ll be sixteen soon enough, you can get your own place.’
    â€˜I’ll be in a straightjacket by then.’
    â€˜And what do you think’s going to happen if you leave your dad’s body in the front room?’
    I looked at her. ‘I don’t know.’
    She took a deep breath and sighed.
    And that’s how it went on for the rest of the night. Alex saying call the police and me saying no. Alex saying why not and me saying I can’t. Why not? Because. Yes, but. No. Why not? Because. Yes, but. No ... Round and round in never-ending circles. We weren’t getting anywhere. By the time it got to midnight we were both too tired to carry on.
    â€˜Let’s talk about it tomorrow,’ I said finally.
    â€˜It’s already tomorrow. The longer you leave it—’
    â€˜I know. Let me think about it, OK? I’ll sort it out in the morning.’
    She sighed again, looked at her watch and nodded wearily. ‘All right.’
    I got up and went over to the back door. On the path outside, wet black bin-liners sagged by the wall. Cats had got into one, scattering the path with sodden tissue and chicken bones.
    â€˜What about tonight,’ Alex said. ‘You can’t stay here.’
    â€˜I’ll be all right.’
    â€˜You can come over to my place if you want. I’ll get Mum to make up a bed in the spare room.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said, locking the door. ‘But I’ll be all right here.’
    We were standing in the doorway. The rain had stopped. A crescent moon hung high and white in the black sky. The street was empty, the surface of the road wet and black in the sodium glow of streetlights. Alex buttoned her coat.
    â€˜Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ she asked again.
    I nodded.
    She put her hands in her pockets. ‘I’d better go. I’ll come round in the morning. OK?’
    I watched her cross the road back to her house. Back to her home, her mother, her warm bed.
    She didn’t look back.
    I shut the door.
    The house was still cold. And quiet.
    I went upstairs and got into bed.

Thursday

    A small windowless room lit by a naked lightbulb. Condensation gleams on bare concrete walls. On a shelf by the wall twin cassette tapes whirr in a big black tape recorder, red light blinking automatically.
    It’s cold, but my hands are sweating.
    Across the table from where I sit, Inspector Morse shakes his head impatiently.
    â€˜I don’t have
time
for this, Pig. What did you do with the gun?’
    Standing behind him, wearing a long coat and a deer-stalker hat, cradling his angular chin in his hand, Sherlock Holmes fixes me with a black-eyed stare. I look away and turn my attention back to Morse.
    â€˜What are you talking about?’ I ask him. ‘What gun?’
    â€˜Oh come on, Pig,’ he says with exasperation, ‘I know you shot him.
Holmes
knows you shot him. We all
know
you shot him.’
    â€˜Shot
who
? What are you talking about?’
    He gives me his tight-mouthed look and rises from the chair. Sherlock leans over and whispers something in his ear. Morse grins and sits down again.
    â€˜Where were you at eight-thirty this evening?’
    â€˜At home. Watching television.’
    â€˜Watching what?’
    â€˜Watching you.’
    â€˜Why did you shoot your father?’
    â€˜I didn’t shoot him. It was an accident—’
    â€˜That’s not what Alex