Until Death by Ali Knight Read Free Book Online

couldn’t find the bloody keys, could I? Where did you put the keys?’
    She tried to lead him down the side of the building, painfully aware that if anyone saw them it could be ammunition loaded and stored by her colleagues such as Preston to use against her in the months and years to come. She needed to get her dad to the road and into a taxi as soon as possible.
    ‘Where are you taking me? I’m alone on the bloody anniversary, no one thought about that, did they?’
    Georgie stopped and stared at him. ‘It’s October, Dad. Mum died in April—’
    ‘See, six months. Your brothers didn’t remember …’ He started to keen and stagger about as she pulled out her phone. Three dockers walked past, ogling her tawdry domestic mess.
    She made a call. ‘Ryan, where the hell are you? Dad’s here at work, I need you to come and get him, or get Karl or Matt to come. Right away.’ How ironic. She was the only one in the family to have a job, but she was the one left to pick up the pieces, the one Dad fell apart with. The only woman left in the Bell family, the family of bloody bell ends.
    ‘I feel sick.’ He burped loudly. ‘She wouldn’t have left me like this, no she wouldn’t.’
    ‘You’re not really going to be sick, are you?’ Oh, please God, not here, not in front of the new life she was trying to forge. She felt shame for her father’s weakness and sorrow for the grief and injustice he still felt so acutely. Thirty-two years of happy marriage before cancer dragged her mother from him. ‘Dad, today is difficult I know, but I have a job, I have to work, you can’t keep turning up like this. It doesn’t help me. Dad? You listening to me?’
    He was quiet now, staring at the side of a large warehouse as men in yellow reflective jackets reversed a fork-lift truck. ‘You done well, girl, getting a job here.’
    ‘Dad!’ He had turned to look at her now, the usual feral glint back in his eyes. She leaned in close to him, squeezing his arm. ‘Don’t even think about it. This is where I work. There will never, I mean
never
, be any knock-offs, any special deals …’
    He smiled at her, his grin crooked. ‘But you’re a Bell.’
    Georgie heard the squeal of brakes on a badly driven car behind her. She faced round to see Ryan’s Rav 4 swerve to a stop. Her brother opened the door and got out. He was five years older than her and three times as big. The day was cold but he wore only a tight black T-shirt and jeans. No point in spending all those hours body-building in the gym if no one could see the results of your efforts.
    ‘Ryan, get him home and get him a coffee. Honestly, he can’t come here—’
    ‘What’s got into you two? I thought someone had died from all the messages I got.’
    ‘Someone
has
bloody died – your mum.’
    ‘It’s six months today,’ Georgie added.
    Brother and sister looked at each other. ‘Dad, you can’t do this every month,’ began Ryan. ‘You can’t mourn—’
    ‘I do this every minute of every day, I’m mourning every second.’
    ‘Dad, I didn’t mean that …’
    Georgie looked at the ground to stop the tears. Her dad’s grief, still so raw, was painful to witness. Conflict chewed at her. She loved her family, but she felt the familiar pull of disappointment and frustration with them. She had chosen to tread a different path, and she had never told them what a battle it had been. She had wanted to be a police officer, but that would have been a step too far, a betrayal they wouldn’t have tolerated. She had settled on customs instead. She was aware that her family was all she really had; no job was worth alienating all of them.
    ‘Look at all this stuff, Ryan.’ Her dad was nudging his first-born, nodding in the direction of the miles of warehousing and stacks of containers, egging him on. Ryan winked at Georgie, who swore under her breath. Here they were, sniffing round her job, wondering if there was an angle they could exploit.
    ‘Take him