The Faceless by Simon Bestwick Read Free Book Online

parties.”
    “Whatever.”
    The food came. They ate their soup in silence, started talking again as they started work on the mains.
    “So what about the other misper?”
    “Dave McAdams can tell you more than me, but he’s off-shift till tomorrow.”
    “What do you know?”
    “Asian lass. Name escapes me. Seventeen. Vanished off High Street.”
    “Someone snatched her off this High Street?”
    “Yup. Broad daylight.” Stakowski nodded at the mist beyond the windows. “Well, not so broad. Been like this all week. Makes it a lot easier.”
    “Even so. You don’t snatch someone like that on the spur of the moment.”
    “Spare rib?”
    “Just the one. Watching my figure.”
    “Watch it for you if you–”
    “Don’t even think about finishing that sentence.”
    “Ma’am.” Stakowski took another rib.
    “So? What happened with this girl?”
    “Like I said, you should talk to Dave–”
    “–and I will...”
    “But... someone heard a scream, just found but the girl’s handbag. Nowt taken – driving licence, bank card, money all still there.”
    “But she’d vanished.”
    “Thin air. Broad daylight. No trace.”
    “Just like Roseanne Trevor.”
    “Just like.”
    “So there’s either two sets of kidnappers–”
    “–pretty long odds round here–”
    “–or one group. Who on the one hand snatch a toddler, on the other a pretty well-developed teenager. There was a paedophile ring in Kempforth some years back, wasn’t there?”
    “Allegedly. Long way back. ’Bout ’85, if I remember right. Before you were born.”
    “Piss off. But that was pretty well-organised, wasn’t it?”
    “Mid 80s? Before my time. But I heard something of it. Don’t think they ever nailed the buggers, but I doubt any of them’d still be around either. Could always talk to the Bedstead.”
    “Eh?”
    “Well, I think he was a DS at the time. Might have heard something.”
    “Leave that one well alone for now. Might as well just print a t-shirt saying I’m Clutching At Straws .”
    “Your call, boss. So, how do you want to play it?”
    “I want to talk to McAdams first thing tomorrow before I make a final decision.”
    “But?”
    “For now, a single investigation. You head up the Trevor case, McAdams stays on the missing teenager. Pool information, see what we get.”
    “And the Spindly Men?”
    “Make your trip to the library and we’ll see.”
    “’Kay.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Just remember to watch your back on this one, boss. That’s all.”
    “You’re watching it for me. Remember?”
    “Oh aye.”
     
     
    THE TESTAMENT OF PRIVATE WOLFIE JACOBS CONCLUDED pulverising both testicles and the worst of it my cullies the big bastard laugh was that we fell back from the trench with not even that poor gain to show for the loss of my manhood whose tattered remnants were left to rot in germanic earth or earth held by the german bastards anyway oh i hated them and why should i not had i not good cause but not as much as i hated the pity and the horror and the disgust on the faces of the nurses and the vads who changed my dressings and saw and saw and saw for oh women had uncovered my nakedness before but with very different expressions before my tool stabbed them and now i dreamt of stabbing with other implements implements made of metal or wood but i did not do so give me credit brave boys i did not but endured the smart of pity and revulsion and a more sickish brew than that there never was for eleven years before at last weighting my pockets with stones and wading the waters of old father thames one last time in search of peace perfect peace but finding it not brave boys finding it not for the quality of peace is not rare but indeed non existent it abideth nowhere nowhere at all
     
     
    R ENWICK SHUT THE door of her third-floor flat behind her just after ten pm, weary to her bones, and dropped her suitcase in the lounge.
    She wanted a shower, but not because of dirt or sweat. Baldwin . She felt