Killing Rachel Read Online Free Page A

as well,’ he said, throwing an arm around her shoulder and giving her a swift hug.
    He went out of the gate at the bottom of the garden and Rose waved at his disappearing back. It was quarter to eight. She wondered if he was going back to the flat or if he was heading off somewhere else. The blonde girl, Clara, came into her head. She was a friend from uni, he’d said. Was Joshua heading off to see her? The thought of it made her throat dry.
    The music was still playing in the studio and she slumped down for a moment on the sofa where Joshua had sat. On the floor she saw the envelope that his letter had come in. She picked it up. His name and his uncle’s address were on the front. At the bottom right-hand of the envelope, in italics, was the name of the solicitors, Myers and Goodwood .
    It wasn’t exactly an unforgettable name and yet it was one that Rose had heard often over the years. Myers and Goodwood . They had a will that her mother and Joshua’s father had made. This had been explained to Rose in the early days of living with her grandmother. Two years or so before they disappeared her mother and Brendan had made a contingency will. It stated that should anything happen to them then the financial affairs and well-being of their children would be dealt with by the solicitors. It wasn’t unusual, a solicitor had told Rose, for officers involved in dangerous work to make provisions for their families in case anything unexpected happened.
    And something had happened. They had vanished into thin air.
    There’d been a babysitter that night, a girl from along the street, Sandy Nicholls. Rose was allowed to stay up and wait for her mother’s return and she’d sat next to Sandy on the sofa, linking Sandy’s arm as they watched programme after programme. From time to time Sandy pressed the Mute button and told Rose some gossip from her college and some story about a boy she loved who was treating her badly. Sandy also spent a good bit of the evening tapping out texts on her phone. Eventually, as the evening got later and later, Sandy rang Rose’s mother’s mobile but it just went to voicemail. Rose remembered her leaving a message. Hi, Mrs Smith! It’s just me, Sandy. Nothing wrong here. I just wondered when you were planning to get back. Only it’s 11.15 now and it’s a little later than you usually stay out?
    Joshua came down from his room where he’d been for most of the evening. He avoided making eye contact with Sandy and gruffly asked, ‘Where are they?’
    Rose watched Sandy walk back and forth to the window, pulling the curtain to the side and looking out. Joshua sat in a chair in the corner staring at his mobile and looking up now and then, his face turning towards the door expectantly.
    After midnight Sandy rang her parents. At one o’clock Sandy’s father came round. Mr Nicholls had a wobbly stomach and a loud voice and he sent Sandy home and told Rose and Joshua to go to bed. He said he’d wait up for their parents.
    There was nothing else to do but go to bed. Rose got under her duvet and called out to Joshua. He came to her room.
    ‘Do you think they’re all right?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘You don’t think they’ve been in an accident?’
    ‘Nope. The car’s broken down most probably.’
    ‘Why haven’t they rung?’
    ‘Probably both their phones have run out of charge. They know we’ll be all right. You go to sleep. When you wake up they’ll be here.’
    She went to sleep almost immediately. When she woke it was early morning, still dark. The clock on her bedside table showed the time as 6.27. From downstairs she could hear murmuring. A low conversation was taking place in the room below her. She got up and went to the door of her room. She opened it and saw Joshua sitting on the top step dressed in the same things that he’d been wearing the previous night.
    ‘Are they back?’ she said.
    He didn’t look round at her. He just shook his head.
     
    Rose found herself gripping the edge