The silent house arc, p.20
The Silent House (ARC), page 20
Do you still want to know what I know about the
case?
Anna’s eyes lit up. Of course. Why?
Because I’m ready to tell you. Get a notebook or some-
thing. We’re going to find out who did this.
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Chapter 16
Anna and I didn’t go back to bed, instead we started
sorting through all of the information I’d learned about
the case, the suspects so far and the distinct lack of an
obvious motive. I felt lighter after sharing it, and I knew
Anna would feel more empowered to support Laura if
she knew what was going on. I knew there was a chance
it would jeopardise my job if anyone found out I told her,
and that worry still niggled at me, but the relief of sharing finally outweighed this concern.
Do you want to come out with me this morning? I
asked, knowing I needed to clear my head after everything
that had happened.
No, she shook her head. I need to send some emails and have a chat with my supervisor. She gave me a sideways glance and I wondered how much of her PhD work
would actually get done, but I didn’t comment.
Driving into town, I knew exactly where I wanted to
go. The Scunthorpe Arts Centre was based in a converted
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church, flanked by the steelworks and several council buildings. There was something incongruous about the
beauty of the old building directly opposite the ugly rear
of the library, with the glow of the industrial chimneys
behind, but to me it was an oasis in the desert.
I’d seen the exhibition advertised for several weeks and
kept meaning to go, but I’d never found the time. Today,
however, I needed some beauty to detract from the threats
and violence. It was a free exhibition, and I took my
sketchbook with me in case it inspired any ideas.
Heading into the main body of the church, I stopped
to drink in the colours of the work around me. This
particular exhibition was a mixture of glass and metal-
work, but the ways the colours blended and complemented
each other sparked ideas for my own textile projects.
I spent an hour wandering slowly around the exhibition
while people around me came and went. Sometimes I felt
self-conscious, pulling out my sketchbook in public, but
for once it didn’t bother me. An idea came to me of a
piece I could do to represent the local landscape, and I
sketched it out with notes at the side about colours and
textures.
When I was satisfied with what I’d come up with, I
wandered through to the cafe area, only to see a familiar
face on the other side of the room. DC Singh was sitting
opposite a blonde woman in her fifties, and as I watched
they both stood, she gave him a hug and a kiss on the
cheek then left. Singh sat back down to finish his drink,
and on impulse I wove my way through the tables towards
him.
‘Hi,’ I said, hovering next to the chair the woman had
just vacated.
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‘Paige,’ he said, smiling. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve just been in to see the exhibition. How about you?
Hot date?’ I asked with a smirk.
He laughed. ‘Not quite, that was my mum.’
My surprise must have been written all over my face,
because he laughed again. ‘What, think I’m too brown to
be half white?’
‘I . . . I don’t know . . . No, I don’t think . . .’ I
stopped, flustered, as he tried to keep a straight face and
failed. I took a deep breath. ‘I made an assumption, and
I apologise.’
‘No harm done. My brother and sister are paler than
me. Genetic quirk I suppose.’
‘Are you close to them?’ I asked, taking the seat oppo-
site him.
He nodded. ‘Pretty close. My sister still lives at home,
so I see her and my parents regularly. My brother’s at uni
in Birmingham, doing a PhD in pharmacology.’
‘Anna’s doing a PhD too, in London. She comes to visit
pretty often though.’
‘Is it just the two of you?’
I nodded and told him about our history, the deaths of
our parents within a few short years and how we’d become
closer since.
‘I find myself trying to replace Mum sometimes, though.
Anna’s only two years younger than me, but I still feel
responsible for her.’
He sat back and folded his arms. ‘She can take care of
herself, she’s clearly a capable young woman. Maybe you
should cut her a bit of slack, relax a bit. I get the feeling you spend too much time worrying about her instead of
living your own life..’
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I shuffled in my chair and looked down at the table, not wanting to let on that he’d hit on an uncomfortable
truth. The awkwardness was broken by a waitress coming
to clear the plates left over from Singh’s lunch with his
mum. I used the interruption to get up and fetch us a
coffee each, hoping he’d change the subject when I
returned.
‘What do you do for fun?’ he asked after I sat down
again.
‘I’m pretty busy with work, but I try to see friends at
least once a month,’ I replied. As I said it, I was aware
of how sad it sounded, but work had been my necessary
priority for the last three years. Mike left me with huge
debts that I was still repaying, and it affected my life to
a massive extent.
Singh waited expectantly, so I wracked my brains for
something else to say. ‘I love going to art galleries, and I
usually come to see the exhibitions here, whatever they
are. I love all kinds of art, seeing different people’s interpretations of the world around them.’
I found myself explaining to him about my aborted
textiles degree, how I sometimes pulled out my felting and
made some progress on my own art work, but life got in
the way and I never seemed to finish anything. Or if I did
finish it, I had no confidence in its quality as a piece of
art, and it ended up sitting in a drawer.
When I paused, I realised he was watching me intently,
his eyes dancing.
‘What?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re really passionate about this,
so why are you settling for a job you don’t enjoy?’
I shifted my weight uncomfortably. ‘I don’t hate being
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an interpreter. I find it rewarding, a lot of the time anyway.
It would be too difficult to go back to uni now. I’m too
old.’
He burst out laughing. ‘People study when they’re in
their seventies. How old are you? Late twenties?’
‘Thirty,’ I told him, feeling defensive. ‘I need to pay my
mortgage, though, and I can’t work full time and study.’
It wasn’t the time to bring up my last relationship, the
financial control that had left me with almost nothing. It
was a miracle I’d managed to keep my flat.
‘Okay, I won’t push it,’ he said, smiling at me and
laying a hand over mine for a brief moment. ‘I’m sorry.
But I think you should look into it.’
‘What about you?’ I asked, moving the conversation
on as quickly as possible. ‘What do you do for fun?’
‘Fun? I’m a police officer, I don’t have time for fun,’
he joked.
‘You’re not working right now,’ I pointed out.
‘True, but I usually use my time off for sleeping and
seeing family. Sad, but there you go.’
I smiled at his self-deprecating shrug. Clearly, his family
meant a lot to him. I wished things had been different,
and that Anna and I had grown up surrounded by a large
extended family. Both of our parents were only children,
so when they died, our family halved in size. I wanted to
know what it was like; maybe I’d have children of my
own one day, and Anna too, so they’d at least have cousins.
That brought my thoughts around to my friends’ sugges-
tions that I tried dating again, but the mere idea brought
me out in a cold sweat. I didn’t want to lay myself bare
on a dating site, but I had no idea where else I was going
to meet an eligible man who might be interested in getting
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to know me. Also, I’d been such a bad judge of men in the past, I couldn’t trust myself not to get sucked in again.
‘I’d better go,’ Singh said, with a regretful grimace.
‘This was nice, though. We should do it again, when there
isn’t a murder hanging over us.’ He frowned, as if he was
blaming himself for having some down time when Lexi’s
death was still unsolved.
‘Maybe,’ I replied, unsure of what he was asking. If he
was just being friendly, I could cope with that, but if it
was something else . . . I felt my face flush.
He nodded and stood up, then hovered awkwardly for
a moment before squeezing my shoulder and walking
away. I turned to watch him leave and he turned back as
he reached the door, raising a hand in farewell before
zipping his coat up to his nose and pulling on a hat.
I sat there for a while longer, hands wrapped around
my coffee mug, staring into space. I felt like there’d been
a shift in the last week, as if everything in my life had
suddenly changed, but I couldn’t put my finger on why I
felt like that. With a sigh, I bundled myself up and prepared to go back into the bitter February air.
It was already getting dark, and at first I didn’t notice
the two people in front of me as I crossed the square.
They were clinging to each other, and it was only when
one of them glanced over her shoulder that I realised it
was Elisha. The man didn’t look like Alan from behind,
though; he was shorter and slimmer. I realised it was Rick
Lombard, the man she couldn’t seem to keep away from.
She didn’t notice me, and turned back to snuggle in
closer to her companion. They were walking in the direc-
tion of the car park, so I told myself I wasn’t following
them, they just happened to be going the same way as me.
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They got into a grey Golf parked two rows away from where I’d left my car, and I pulled out after them. At the
roundabout, they turned right, which was the direction I
was taking to go home. I wasn’t following them, I told
myself again. It was coincidence that I’d ended up behind
them.
As we drove in the direction of the steelworks, an
unearthly glow lit the rapidly darkening sky – coke being
pushed out of the ovens and flaring in the cold night air.
It was a sight you grew up with around Scunthorpe, but
today something about it made me shiver. A couple of
cars had moved between us at a junction, but ahead of
me I saw Lombard indicate and turn into an industrial
estate. I knew I shouldn’t follow them and it could get
me into trouble, but curiosity got the better of me, and I
did the same.
I pulled into the estate to see the car turning behind a
warehouse, but I hung back and slowed down. Driving
past the turning, I saw their car stop next to a small hut,
so I carried on up the road and pulled into the kerb by
the next warehouse. Before I got out, I grabbed a torch
from my glove compartment, then shut the door as quietly
as I could and walked back up the road.
Peering around the corner, I could see a light on in the
hut, so I hugged the fence and walked nearer, keeping the
torch in my pocket for now. The outside of the warehouse
wasn’t lit, and I wondered what they were doing there at
this time. As I got nearer, I could see the hut was some
sort of office, with a bank of CCTV screens flickering
with grainy images. The sight made my heart sink, realising
I’d been caught on camera, but neither Lombard nor Elisha
were looking at the screens. He was sitting in a chair with
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her on his lap, and they might not have noticed if I’d walked in the door.
Elisha pulled away and stood up, so I backed away,
hoping to still get a view through the window whilst
remaining hidden in the darkness outside.
Come on, show me the new stuff, she signed.
Lombard rolled his eyes, but he got up and took a
bunch of keys off a hook on the wall, and the two of
them walked to the door. I scuttled back against the fence,
out of sight of the door, and waited for them to pass.
They came out of the office and crossed over to the ware-
house, pushing the door closed behind them. I didn’t hear
the sound of a key turning, and I only hesitated for a
moment before creeping after them.
The door creaked as I opened it, and I held my breath,
but nothing happened. Inside a warehouse, I knew the
acoustics would play havoc with Elisha’s hearing aids, so
hopefully she wouldn’t be able to pick out the sound of
the door amongst other noises. The place was stacked
with huge shelving units from floor to ceiling, full of
pallets and wooden packing boxes. I could see a light
down the end of one aisle, so I headed towards it, keeping
to the shadows as much as possible.
As I got closer, I could see Lombard and Elisha leaning
over a packing case. They both had their backs to me,
and he leaned over to show her something in the case.
Is that everything? she signed, frowning.
No, there are more in those three, Lombard replied,
indicating the other boxes on the end of that row.
Can I see?
He thumped the lid down. Why? Trust me, it’s all there.
It won’t be a problem.
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She looked like she was going to argue, but before she did he came up to her and wrapped his arms around her,
lifting her up onto the packing box. Within seconds, they
were tearing at each other’s clothes, and I started to back
away. I had no idea what was in those boxes, but I didn’t
want to stick around for the show.
Hurrying back the way I’d come, I felt my way along
the shelves. My eyes hadn’t readjusted to the darkness
after watching Lombard and Elisha, and I couldn’t
remember where I needed to turn to get back to the door.
My heart hammering, I picked up speed as I hurried along
the aisles, but then my foot caught on a stack of pallets.
They wobbled precariously, and for a second I thought
I’d been lucky, but then they started to fall. I ran out of
the way just in time as they clattered to the ground, shat-
tering the silence in the warehouse.
Would they have heard that? I wasn’t sure if Lombard
wore hearing aids, but Elisha couldn’t have missed such
a commotion. Sure enough, I heard movement behind me
and threw caution to the wind, switching on my torch
and sweeping it around until I spotted the door, then
lunged towards it.
As I burst out into the night air I didn’t stop to look
back, racing across in front of the warehouse and back
up the road to where I’d left my car. I leapt in and threw
it into gear, turning around with a screech of tyres as
Lombard raced around the corner after me. He tried to
get in front of the car but I steered around him and raced
back to the main road, tearing through the traffic lights
as they turned red and heading for home and safety.
I’d been so stupid, following them in there. Had they
recognised me? What would I do if they reported me to
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the police for trespassing? Losing my job would only be the start of it. Then a worse thought struck me – what if
one of them had killed Lexi and was now threatening me?
What lengths would they go to in order to keep me quiet?
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