The Nightmare Place by Steve Mosby Read Free Book Online Page A

John didn’t have any pets.
    He came slowly out of the front room to meet me. These days, he walked with a shuffling gait, as though he was a puppet on strings that were growing increasingly slack and could no longer lift his knees properly. Sometimes he looked as though he was trying to run on the spot. A proud man, he continued to insist he was fine – and perhaps he could still manage for now. But we both knew full well that the day was approaching when he would not be able to.
    ‘Zoe.’
    I steeled myself as he emerged into the hallway, and it almost wasn’t enough. It had only been a week since my last visit, yet he looked months older than he had then. He was dressed in a dark suit a few sizes too big for him. Every time I saw him, the suit seemed a little looser, and yet he never bought a smaller size, as though he couldn’t quite believe – or refused to admit to himself – that his body was diminishing. But it was. Former detective John Carlton looked every one of his seventy-three years, and more besides.
    It didn’t feel so long ago that I’d first met John – when I was fifteen, under arrest, and sitting on the wrong side of a desk from the tired but concerned man tasked with facing down my clever, cocksure teenage attitude. It wasn’t that long ago. But the difference between that smart, neat sergeant, still youthful despite the widow’s peak and worry lines, and the man before me now was stark.
    I swallowed the emotions and walked to meet him, embracing him carefully. His body felt like a fragile cage of bones.
    ‘Hello, John. It’s good to see you.’
    ‘And you.’ He placed his hands on my arms; they were shaking slightly. ‘What a lovely surprise to see you.’
    Surprise . It worried me, that, because it wasn’t like I didn’t call in every week. Over the past months, I’d begun to notice that his mind was deteriorating. Increasingly he seemed to remember less, and sometimes I could see him grasping for thoughts and words, not always finding what he was searching for. He’d just shake his head: no, it’s gone . It was as though memories were being packaged away as he prepared to move out of his life altogether.
    I didn’t want to accept that.
    ‘Just thought I’d stop by to bother you,’ I said. ‘You know – the way you used to pester me, all those years ago.’
    That brought a smile.
    ‘Well, that’s nice of you. Come through.’
    I followed him patiently into the front room. The carpet here was beige and faded, and the fabric on the armchairs was worn away. Sitting on them was as comfortable as sitting on hard, bare wood. The coffee table was strewn with magazines and piles of unopened post, while bundles of old newspapers rested against one wall, below the closed front curtains.
    It was always sad to see, because he’d been so fastidious and precise in the past – fussy, even. Old age had enforced untidiness upon him. It had actually seemed like the house of an old man from the beginning, as though he’d had it fixed and fitted in expectation of these later years, when he’d finally catch up with it. All that had really changed was that the three-bedroom property had become too large for him. But that was easily solved, I supposed, by closing a few doors and simply not opening them again. His living space shrinking alongside him.
    ‘Have a seat.’ John eased himself down into a chair. The movement caused him to wince; I knew he was increasingly having trouble with his legs. ‘I’ll make us coffee in a minute.’
    ‘I’ll do that,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t worry.’
    ‘All right. But tell me how you’ve been first.’
    ‘Not great. I talked to victim five today.’
    I updated him on the creeper case first of all. One thing I liked about talking to John was that there was never any need to spare him the details. However fragile and doddery he looked, he was not as vulnerable as he appeared; as police, he had seen it all. Unlike my friends, the partners who had