Keep Me Alive Read Online Free Page B

garage forecourt, feeling sick. The smell of petrol stuck in his throat and made it worse. It had taken him weeks to summon up the courage for this encounter and it wasn’t going the way he’d planned.
    ‘What are you so scared of?’ Ron said. He had at least half his attention on the clicking figures on the pump, as he filled up his battered blue van. ‘If there was going to be trouble about the body it would’ve happened ages ago, and definitely before the inquest. You’re safe, the pair of you. Stupid, but safe. No one’s going to go back on a suicide verdict now.’
    ‘But the man had a camera.’ Tim’s voice was shaking. He was pleading as abjectly as if he’d fallen on his knees in front of everyone, but it didn’t have any effect on Ron. ‘There must be other people out there who knew what he was doing. They’ll have been watching us ever since. It’s a miracle we haven’t been caught yet, but it’ll happen one day. I know it will.’
    ‘I doubt it. Not now. But if you’re that worried, just tell my big brother you won’t fly for a bit. There’s nothing he can do to you.’
    ‘You didn’t see what he did to that snooper,’ Tim whispered, wiping his hand over his mouth and feeling his lips mash against his palm. ‘I keep thinking of the way the poor bugger’s cheekbone went. It kind of split and things burst out. He was still alive then.’
    ‘Bob’s not going to do anything like that to you.’ Ron looked into Tim’s face, as though searching for something he needed. ‘He knows you’re the only one of us who can fly. Just say no. It’s easy enough.’
    ‘What about the people on the other side?’
    ‘What about them? There’s nothing they can do to you if you’re not there.’
    ‘W-will you tell Bob for me?’
    Ron shook the petrol nozzle, like a man in a urinal determined to make sure the last drop doesn’t fall on his trousers, and stuffed it back into the side of the pump. Then he looked Tim full in the face.
    ‘Can’t you even do that much for yourself?’
    ‘You didn’t see him that night.’
    ‘I know what he’s like.’ A faint smile softened Ron’s expression. ‘I was five when I worked out that the only people he never hurt, even when he got into one of his rages, were the ones who could give him things he couldn’t get for himself. You can, with the flying, so you should be OK so long as you don’t cringe. That always gets him going.’
    ‘Oh, God.’
    ‘And don’t forget to take the plane up sometimes. You need to keep your neighbours remembering the noise is normal for when you find the guts to start again.’
    Ron hoisted himself into the van and slid the door shut with a decisive crunch. Tim was left on the forecourt, still sick and wishing he’d brought Boney with him.
     
    Trish paused for a moment in front of the mirror to make sure her wig was straight. The voluminous black gown made her seem even taller than usual and accentuated her pallor. Luckily her dark eyes and high-bridged nose were dramatic enough to stop her looking washed out. As she left the robing room, she saw that she’d have to run the
whole length of the nave-like hall to catch up the rest of the team.
    The sound of her heels clacking against the marble floor echoed up in the stone vaulting of the roof. The building was more like a vast church than anything else. Dating from the height of the Victorian passion for Gothic architecture, it provided a suitably awe-inspiring setting for the administration of justice.
    She reached Antony’s side just as he was making his silk gown swish with extra vigour as he passed Sir Matthew Grant-Furbisher, the chairman of Furbishers Foods. Sir Matthew didn’t react, but when he caught sight of Will the two of them flashed such hatred at each other that Trish flinched.
    Why had Grant-Furbisher come to court today, when he wasn’t likely to be called to give his evidence for a long time yet? Was he trying to spook Will into even more of a turmoil