The Score by Howard Marks Read Free Book Online

think so. But it’s a small town.’
    Cat knew that most teenage runaways came home of their own accord after a few days. She imagined the two girls up in London somewhere, staying with a friend, talking about how adults didn’t understand them. She’d been there, done that.
    Martin nodded, to himself as much as anything. He looked down into his lap trying to compose himself. ‘She wouldn’t go missing of her own accord; she was going to appear on that talent show on S4C.’ He glanced towards the home cinema next door.
    ‘Talent show?’
    ‘It was a big deal for her. What she lived for, really.’
    ‘Maybe she changed her mind. Didn’t want the pressure.’
    ‘It was all her idea. She’s been rehearsing all her audition pieces with her tutors at the college. You must have seen her on TV?’
    Cat shook her head. Martin rose, moved next door. He motioned for her to sit, picked up the remote from the coffee table. Esyllt appeared on the screen, a younger version of her teenage self in the photo on the table.
    ‘It’s from the Urdd Eisteddfod a few years ago. She came first in her category.’
    Esyllt’s voice had a depth and a richness that singers of that age rarely possessed. Cat could detect a slight nervous tremor in the first few bars, but Esyllt soon settled down. Although ‘Ar Lân y Mor’ had been a regular feature of Cat’s own days in the Urdd, this was as good as hearing it for the first time. Throughout, the girl’s eyes were bright and wide, as if watching the sounds descending to her from somewhere above. Martin was holding his hand over his face as if he could barely watch. On the screen, Esyllt stopped singing, stood back from the microphone, accepted the applause with a small bow of her head. Her face was closed, showing nothing.
    Martin concentrated on wiping his eyes. Cat noticed that the set of his mouth looked just like Esyllt’s when she had finished her performance.
    ‘Don’t you think that she might have been friends with this Nia? Maybe they met up and went off somewhere together?’
    Martin shook his head again, more vigorously this time. She noticed the skin on his neck was raw and scaly, just as it was as a teenager. As if aware of her eyes on him, he tugged his shirt at the collar.
    ‘No, that copper’s right. She might have known her to say hi to, but they weren’t friends. I’d have known.’
    Cat was about to ask something further, when she felt a vibration against her leg, pulled her iPhone out. The screen flashed Thomas’s private number.
    ‘Thomas?’
    ‘Price, we’ve found something and it’s not pretty.’
    From Thomas’s end came a dry, hacking sound. Cat wondered whether he’d been sick.
    ‘You got a name?’
    ‘We’re trying to ID her right now.’
    Cat glanced sideways at Martin. His face looked calm. His hands were so tightly interlinked that fingernails were digging into flesh. He was trying to follow the gist of the call. Cat turned her head slightly to the right, spoke quietly into the phone. ‘Get me a picture now. Take one on your mobile and send it to me.’
    ‘You know that’s against the rules.’
    ‘Get me photographic. Just pretend you’re looking for a number and press capture.’
    ‘You know any magic words, Price?’
    ‘Please.’
    There was silence for several seconds, finally a theatrical sigh from Thomas. ‘You owe me one, Price. This time I’ll be calling in my marker.’
    She ended the call. Martin’s mouth was so tight with tension the words had to fight their way out of him.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Probably nothing that you need to worry about.’
    Cat’s phone beeped, alerting her to a new message. She hesitated, brought up the picture. She spied Martin from the corner of her eye. Be strong for him. Her feelings were not the most important in this. She forced herself to look at the phone. Thomas was no photographer and the body seemed to lie quite far off, in some kind of pit, but she could see enough to know that the face