Panic by K.R. Griffiths Read Free Book Online Page A

fashionable (but definitely not practical as it turned out) Vivienne Westwood coat that was her prized possession, grimaced as the biting wind tore straight through the flimsy fabric, and trudged toward the centre of town.
    In her wake, the fog rode swirling gusts of wind and writhed around the empty street like a live thing.
     
    *
     
    It was taking too long.
    Michael frowned and glanced at his watch, not for the first time. It had been at least thirty minutes since Carl had spoken to Glenda. There had been no further communication.
    Carl had insisted on using up half the roll of tape, and the entrance to Ralf's Cafe now looked like some vast spider had woven a complicated, untidy web across the trees that straddled the gravel driveway. They had worked in silence, each unwilling to discuss the horrors of the café, unable to think of anything appropriate to fill the resulting vacuum.
    "Something's wrong."
    It was Carl who finally broke the silence. His voice sounded strained, taut.
    Michael looked at him inquisitively. He was aiming to convey casual, but he knew from Carl's expression he was failing.
    "Don't give me that look, Mike. You know it as well as I do. Maybe better, given how many times I've seen you looking at your watch. Why the hell haven't we had a response? It's been, like, forty five minutes. What the fuck?"
    Michael glanced at his watch again.
    "Thirty five."
    Carl snorted.
    "Okay, thirty five. Nothing about that strikes you as odd? We didn't report a stolen bike here. Fucking hell, we reported that the ghost of Jeffrey Dahmer is walking around South Wales chopping off heads and ripping out throats with his fucking teeth. Anything about that not sound urgent?"
    "Maybe they're busy."
    Another snort.
    Michael stared thoughtfully at the yards of police tape stretched across the entrance. It was overkill, yet somehow appropriate. It mirrored the chaos inside the café. It was also messy; unprofessional. It spoke volumes about their preparedness to deal with the type of crime that now confronted them. If, for some reason, they had to deal with this alone for any length of time, Michael did not fancy that he and Carl would come out of the affair with perfect records. Too many chances to make mistakes. Too little expertise.
    Carl, despite his natural tendency toward pessimism, was right. Unless riots had broken out in Haverfordwest – a town only marginally less sleepy than St. Davids itself – Michael could think of no reason why his phone hadn't been ringing immediately. They had stumbled onto the kind of crime that makes national news. The police always responded to that kind of crime hastily. It was, after all, the sort of thing that made careers.
    So why was nothing happening?
    The logical conclusion dawned on him almost immediately: Glenda. Of course . Glenda was, for the most part, good at her job, but certainly she had been known to let her attention wander. Obviously, she had not grasped the seriousness of their situation, and either hadn't made the call, or had somehow botched it.
    Michael felt relief wash through him. It had felt like things were slipping away from him, and moving beyond his comprehension. The sudden realisation that the reason he and Carl had been left hanging must be nothing less mundane than Glenda gossiping instead of doing her job was like finding a tether to reality. It was frustrating, but also deeply familiar.
    He cursed himself for not having the number of the station in Haverfordwest stored on his phone, then let out a chuckle.
    Carl arched an eyebrow.
    "I gotta worry about you losing your marbles now, Mike?"
    Michael grinned, shaking his head.
    "Damn place has got us spooked is all, mate. Nothing more mysterious going on here than a woman who should have called one number probably calling a dozen others instead to let half the town know that something big is going down at Ralf's café. The only mystery here is that we haven't had a stream of gawpers heading out this way