After Brock Read Online Free Page B

good as to…?’ Nothing odd or suspicious about all that, was there? Anybody could tell he didn’t belong to a terrorist group, or form part of a perversion ring. Certainly the young man with the dog from the Oswestry end of Llanrhaeadr bought the story whole, didn’t even blink. Untruths can flow out of someone as easily as (more easily than) perfect truths…
    Nat’s silence impresses Luke. It speaks the volumes he’s been expecting and wanting from him.
    I’ve already wafted my trump card in the boy’s face, that journalist thinks, now I have to display it properly. A man has to do what a man has to do.
    â€˜The first Joel knew of your disappearance, Nat, was when he read my own piece last Saturday. As soon as he saw your photo, he knew what he must do, and he did it. He contacted me through the paper. Said he hoped what he had to say might prove helpful. You were still missing then, remember. You weren’t found till later that day. Still, what he said set me thinking, even when all the jubilation at your being found was at its strongest. And yesterday morning when I read the other papers, I thought some more. Mean-minded sods those reporters, I’ll grant you. Still they made some sound points… I’ll pay Mr Easton a little visit, I thought. His home is not exactly the other end of the world from me. I’ll see what joy I can get from him.’
    Nat still doesn’t speak. Judges it best not to.
    â€˜I guess you overestimated our wonderful, unequalled British mail services. Imagined – pardon the pun! – that what you sent would arrive in a jiffy ! Well, you don’t need to be told that it didn’t reach the Co-op until Friday, after several days of people going frantic about you. There was a near miss even then, as I understand. Co-op Manager Joanne Gladwyn opened the package all right, but would have thrown the whole thing into the bin for recycling, had she not seen the name inside the notebook. Your name! Then, bless her, she raced up here, to your dad, where the packet and its contents must have come near to giving him – and your mum too, because she was here also – massive heart attacks. Shock and awe on a Quentin Tarantino scale!’
    As if Nat hasn’t imagined the scene a billion times. As if (worst admission of all) he hadn’t taken it into consideration when he planned the whole thing. As if it hadn’t nagged at him since –
    constantly. What if Dad had had a heart attack, or Mum fallen down into a faint, and hit her head on some hard surface and cracked it open!
    Who does this smirking git think he is?
    Luke Fleming now leans forward on his chair. Automatically Nat tilts himself away from the man, so sinking his head into the mound of pillows. Spells of dizziness are a major legacy of what he’s recently been through. Whether or not he realises Nat is having a mild attack of these, this Marches Now writer is pleased to continue his pursuit. His tone is, if anything, lower and, more menacing, while paradoxically more relaxed than ever. ‘So let’s recapitulate, shall we, Nat?’
    â€˜If you must!’ he mumbles, half into the pillow but still keeping Luke in focus.
    â€˜You leave Lydcastle early Monday September 21, morning after the town’s Michaelmas Fair. Your dad’s kept his shop open all weekend and till later hours than usual, so he’s pretty shattered and is having a bit of a well-deserved lie-in, and might well not open up that morning at all. You leave him a note of what I would call the cryptic kind:
    Â Â 
    Dad, Heading for the Heights xx Nat.
    Â Â 
    â€˜Of course,’ Luke’s voice has a purring quality now – he’s so well pleased with himself he really does suggest to Nat the cat who’s swallowed the cream – ‘nobody knew what you could mean by your word “Heights”. Which was, I presume, why you chose it, eh,