Requiem for a Dealer by Jo Bannister Read Free Book Online Page B

She asked Deacon what he knew about Alison Barker.
    But all he knew or cared was that she’d taken Scram and was in no condition to tell him where she’d got it.
    â€˜You know she thinks her father was murdered.’
    He reared his thick body up on one elbow to look at her. ‘He was a horse dealer. He fell in a pond.’
    â€˜His daughter thinks he was pushed.’
    â€˜Still? I thought she’d probably come to terms with it by now. That’s – what? – a couple of months ago?’
    â€˜Three. You’re sure it was an accident? Or, at least, that nobody else was involved?’
    â€˜There was no evidence to suggest anyone was with him when he died. His partner found him in the morning and called us. The PM showed he’d been drinking heavily. It may have been an accident, it may have been suicide. I do know he wasn’t murdered by the man Alison Barker blamed. He was driving a lorry in Europe at the time. His tachometer was a pretty good witness for the defence.’

    â€˜OK, so the girl’s paranoid. But Daniel’s concerned. If you could just reassure him that there’s nothing to worry about …’
    â€˜Oh – Daniel’s concerned, is he?’ Everything about Deacon – the craggy face, the heavy body, the gruff and venomous voice – was built for sarcasm. ‘You should have said sooner. Of course I’ll drop what I’m doing to make enquiries about some druggy girl who’s so scared someone’s trying to kill her she thinks she’ll save them the trouble! It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. Anything at all urgent.’
    â€˜You think it was a suicide attempt?’
    â€˜Actually, I doubt if it was,’ he conceded. ‘Suicides don’t usually go for a walk while they’re waiting for a drug to take effect. They try to avoid being found while there’s still time to save them.’
    â€˜What if she wanted to be found?’
    â€˜The cry-for-help thing? It’s possible,’ said Deacon. ‘Maybe insisting her father was murdered was the same sort of thing. She wanted someone to pay her some attention.’
    Almost against her wishes Brodie found herself empathising with the troubled girl. ‘The poor kid’s had a packet to deal with in a short period of time. Before she lost her father she lost just about everything else.’ Then annoyance tacked up the corner of her mouth. ‘It doesn’t say much for society, does it, that a girl her age can be so alone this is the only way she can get someone to listen to her.’
    â€˜It’s working, though,’ growled Deacon. ‘She’s not even awake yet but she’s got Daniel’s attention. That’s as much being listened to as would last most people a lifetime.’
    Brodie grinned. Although it gave her problems from time to time, the antipathy between the two men in her life was an endless source of amusement. Except it wasn’t exactly antipathy, more a total and mutual lack of understanding. Jack Deacon could understand the deep, dark workings of violent minds; Daniel Hood could understand people whose own mothers had given up on them; they just couldn’t understand one another. The harder they tried – and they had tried, for her sake – the wider the gulf yawned between them.
    â€˜I know. Well, look at it this way – better she wastes his time
than yours. So for everybody’s sake, especially mine, can I tell him that she really hasn’t any reason to be afraid? That you’re convinced the murder only occurred in her imagination?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Deacon. ‘Look, people get drunk and have fatal accidents every day of the week. Not all in Dimmock, thank God, but you know what I mean. There were no suspicious circumstances. His business had been failing for months. He’d sold everything he owned – horses, house, everything – and