The Killing Club by Angela Dracup Read Free Book Online

walls in a bright colour, maybe yellow. Yes, yellow would be good. Like the yolk of an egg – he liked eggs. And he’d put up pictures of people doing things; making stuff, cooking stew and baking pies.
    The probationer was called Brian Norwood. He was something of a disappointment to Craig, being a man in his fifties with a weary manner, as though he was really too tired to think up anything that would take the edge off Craig’s terrified sense of being swamped by confusion and fear as regards the outside world.
    They talked about Craig’s being temporarily booked into a nearby bedsit. They talked of Craig’s chances of getting a job. Or rather Brian Norwood talked and Craig listened. Norwood consulted the thin pile of typed pages on his desk. There was a job going at an abattoir, something at a meat packing plant.
    ‘Not very good wages,’ Brian Norwood said. ‘But it’s a start.’
    Craig could think of nothing worse for a released murderer than working with dead bodies. He looked at Norwood and said, ‘All right then.’ He was fagged out: he had no fight in him. The walk from his bedsit to the office had been so scary he had taken to counting his footsteps to try to steady himself down. The amount of open space between the cars and the buses, the sky and the ground, were frighteningly big. Everything was so far away he felt dizzy, as if there was nothing to cling to. He’d been in prison for eight years. Eight years when he had never been more than twenty feet away from a wall. The exercise yard had been just a narrow strip, and the high walls had protected him from the wind. Out here on the pavement it swirled around his face, jabbing and sharp, whipping his hair into his eyes. When a bus passed by he felt it might suddenly veer towards him, crushing him under its massive wheels. And who would be sorry to see him go. Him … a murdering bastard.
    His toe hit a raised paving stone and he stumbled. He righted himself and stood very still for a moment, staring at the ground and wondering if he could bring himself to take even one more step. People walked past, not seeing the pain in his head, nor the fear in his gut.
    ‘So, will you give one of these jobs a try?’ Brian Norwood said, tapping his fingers on the papers in front of him.
    ‘I’ll have a think about it,’ Craig muttered.
    ‘Good man.’ Norwood said. ‘You can let me know next week.’
    Craig stared at him.
    ‘You’re just out on licence,’ Norwood explained. ‘You’ve done your sentence and you’re a free man, but we need to keep a check on you to make sure everything’s going well.’
    ‘Right.’ Craig grasped the fingers of one hand in the other and twisted the joints so hard they hurt. He wondered about mentioning to Norwood that he was set on finding an old friend who might be able to help him. Maybe let him stay at their house for a bit. He glanced at Norwood’s fed-up-looking face and kept his thoughts to himself.
    Later on, he joined a queue at a bus stop. He wanted to ask the woman in front if the bus was going northwards, but every time he opened his mouth panic rose up in his chest. She was just an ordinary woman, not very tall, big arse on her, greasy hair. She started fiddling around in her bag and then her purse dropped out on to the ground. He bent to pick it up for her. He saw the bus coming, slowing down for the stop. ‘Here,’ he said, handing the purse over.
    ‘Thanks,’ she said, giving him a smile.
    ‘Is it going north?’ he asked in a rush, his voice coming out far too loud. ‘The bus?’
    She thought for a few moments. ‘It’s going to Otley,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’s north.’
    ‘Thanks.’ He couldn’t believe he’d asked, just casual and normal. Couldn’t believe she’d given him an answer, nice and friendly and easy. As if he was just an ordinary chap.
     
    Swift observed Georgie Tyson’s get-up as she got up from her desk to greet him. As usual, she was wearing black leather; not her