The Facebook Killer by M. L. Stewart Read Free Book Online

I’m sure the court’s verdict was correct. British
justice and all that. I’d hate for them to condemn an innocent
man.”
    “Bullshit,” said Renee, wiping her mouth with
a napkin. The sandwich gone, “that little bastard was as guilty as
they come.”
    “Sorry?”
    “I said that little piece of vermin was
guilty as all hell, believe me Norman.” Her innocence gone in a
flash.
    “Oh. I take it you know him then?”
    “ Knew him. Past tense,” she emphasised, “he used to come and do
monthly inspections on the shop for his parents. He seemed like a
nice lad. That was before all this happened mind you. I used to
make him a cup of tea every time he came. We’d always have a good
old chinwag. He’d talk about how he wanted to open London’s hippest
nightclub but his parents didn’t trust him with the money so he had
to try and earn it himself.”
    “What did he do for a living?” Norman
interrupted.
    “Nothing. That’s the point. He always drove
flash cars but I don’t think he ever worked. His parents probably
just gave him enough to keep him out of trouble. Anyway, as I was
saying..”
    “Sorry.”
    “That’s alright, Norman. He came to do an
inspection about a year or so ago. I could see when he came into
the shop that he was on something. His eyes were wide-open, pupils
like pinpricks. He locked the door behind himself and..,” she
paused, fishing the crucifix out from under her blouse, gripping it
firmly in her hand, “he grabbed me,” she shuddered, “he tried to
force me into the changing room. He tried to do to me what he did
to that little girl.”
    She looked Norman in the eye, still holding
the cross.
    “When I heard what he had done, I felt sick.
I thought that if I had gone to the police about what he did to me
in the shop then it might never have happened to that little
girl.”
    Norman felt the rage rising.
    “But by then it was too late,” Renee
continued, “I went to church every night after work and prayed for
the souls of that poor girl and her mother.”
    Norman felt a lump in his throat. Renee wiped
away a tear with her napkin.
    “When I first read about it in the paper I
cried for hours. I knew exactly how the husband must have felt. I
was in a similar position when my Robert was killed. I was six
months pregnant you see with our first child. The trauma caused me
to miscarry. So you see, I lost my entire family too,” she wiped
her running nose, “God. Listen to me. We’ve only known each other
for a day and I’m depressing you with all my sob stories.”
    Renee straightened herself up, smiled and
laughed that laugh through wet but sparkling eyes.
    “So enough about me. Tell me about yourself
Norman.”
    What was there to tell? He was only two weeks
old after all.
    “So tell me Renee,” Norman whispered, leaning
across the table for more privacy, “why are you still friends with
Abdul Hamid on Facebook?”
    She looked confused for a moment, then she
started to laugh.
    “You cheeky so and so. You’ve been checking
up on me haven’t you? I bet you were trying to check out my
status?”
    God she was naive. She didn’t even ask how he
knew her surname; if she had done he would have told her that it
was on the receipt from today’s purchase. But she didn’t, which is
just as well because it wasn’t.
    “Well?” Norman asked again.
    “The little bastard kept asking me for a
phone number or email address but I refused to give him one, so I
ended up giving him my Facebook. I meant to take him off as a
friend ages ago but I never use it anymore. Shit,” she said
covering her mouth, “how bad does that look. Me still being friends
with a murderer?”
    Norman asked the barman to call Renee a taxi
when she started to complain of stomach pains. She apologised
profusely for cutting the night so short and asked if they could do
it again soon.
    “Somehow, I don’t think that will be
possible, Renee,” he replied as the taxi took her way.
     

Chapter 6
     
    I cursed