Never Coming Back Read Online Free Page A

two-room building with pebbledash walls and a thatched roof. A fire was going in the corner and locals were lining the bar, perched on stools. They all had their backs to him, which he liked, and there was no music being played or TV on—just the murmur of conversation—which he liked even more. Nothing made him more depressed than being forced to listen to some landlord’s CD collection. When he looked up from the paper he was reading, he could see the regulars were all in; a mix of old sea dogs, their skin etched and weathered like the rocks on the beach, and younger couples in their thirties, part of the new money that the affluent surrounding areas had brought in. Healy was neither, but he had fitted in pretty well here by keeping himself to himself and only speaking when he was forced to.
    About ten minutes later, as he sank the last of his beer, a man in his fifties entered the bar. Healy recognized him, just from having been in and around the village for the last four months, but he didn’t know him. Didn’t know his name, or what he did. The man was wearing a green waxed jacket—soaked through from the rain—and had wild, grubby hair, and a beard like coils of twine. As he came in, his Wellingtons slapped against the stone floor, puddles of water and mud following in his wake as he moved first to the bar, eyes scanning the locals, and then out into the middle of the room. A couple of the regulars greeted him, but the man didn’t respond in any way; instead he continued looking around the bar, into the barely lit coves, where other regulars—alone, like Healy—were hunched over their drinks, either reading or just staring into space.
    Then the man locked eyes with Healy.
    He came over, stopping in front of the table Healy was sitting at, and stood there, rain dripping off him. The locals had all turned on their stools. There was no gentle hum of conversation anymore. Just silence.
    Healy closed his newspaper. “You all right, pal?”
    â€œYou the copper?” the man said.
    â€œNot anymore.”
    â€œYou used to be, though, right?”
    Healy looked out beyond the man. All eyes were on him.
    â€œI used to be.”
    â€œYou need to come and see this.”
    â€œSee what?”
    For the first time, the man seemed to realize everyone inside the bar was listening to their conversation. He turned back to Healy. “It’s better if you see it yourself.”
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    Three of them climbed up over the rocks and down toward the cove. The boy followed behind, reticence in every step, as if he were returning to a place he’d vowed never to go again. Healy followed the man who’d come to get him, and behind them both was the boy’s father, still suited and booted, having just returned home from work. He’d wanted to come out here to prevent his son having to see anything more than he already had. Healy knew less than anyone. He hadn’t got much out of any of the locals—many of whom he could see behind them, watching from the other side of the sea wall—but he doubted anything he was about to find was good. He’d worked murders at the Met long enough to see the connections, however small, between crimes; he knew that people handled death differently, but once you’d discovered a body—bereft of life; hollow and empty—it always left something of itself in the person who’d found it. Some held it together, some broke down, but everyone had that same look; a memory, deep and resonant, that would never fade.
    When he’d left the pub, he’d told the landlord to call the police, but he and the villagers seemed reluctant, as if inviting the police in would shatter the equilibrium. Healy could understand it on some level: one of the reasons he’d come here in the first place was because he’d had enough of the city; its darkness and corruption. The people in the village