Running Girl Read Online Free

face.
    â€˜There’s someone here who wants to ask you some questions.’
    A policeman in a turban stepped forward. He looked small standing next to Mrs Smith, almost dainty. There was nothing you could call an expression on his quiet face. But he looked at Garvie steadily, sizing him up.
    â€˜What about?’ Garvie said.
    â€˜About last night.’ The policeman’s voice was quiet too, and careful, giving nothing away.
    â€˜Yeah? What about last night?’
    Garvie’s mother frowned at him. Still standing, the policeman took out a notebook and leafed through it. Looking up, he said, ‘At eleven o’clock you were with a group of boys in the Old Ditch Road play area.’
    (‘That’s interesting,’ Garvie’s mother said.)
    â€˜Says who?’ Garvie said (avoiding looking at his mother).
    The policeman looked at him silently for about a minute. Something new registered on his quiet face: a dislike of Garvie. No stranger to this expression in the faces of officials he encountered, Garvie looked back until, finally, the man lowered his face to his notebook again and read out half a dozen names, including Ryan ‘Smudge’ Howell, Ben ‘Tiger’ McIntyre and Liam ‘Felix’ Fricker.
    â€˜So?’ Garvie said. ‘It’s not illegal.’
    The inspector’s eyes hardened. After a moment he said, in a voice of barely restrained contempt, ‘Do you want to have a conversation with me about what’s illegal?’
    Garvie’s mother opened her mouth. ‘Well, Inspector, I hardly think—’
    He said, ‘We can do one of two things, Mrs Smith. I can conduct this interview with your son here, in my own way. Or we can all go down to the station.’
    Garvie’s mother’s eyes narrowed, but she gave a brief nod.
    â€˜Sit down,’ the inspector said to Garvie.
    Garvie sat in a slouch at the table, hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets, while the inspector continued to stare at him. Garvie knew what the man was doing. He was trying to intimidate him. Some policemen shouted and threatened. Some just stared. Singh was a starer.
    Garvie stared back, coolly.
    â€˜Perhaps, Inspector, you could explain what this is about,’ Garvie’s mother said.
    â€˜A girl has gone missing.’
    â€˜Missing?’
    â€˜She left her house yesterday evening and didn’t return. There’s been no sign of her since.’
    â€˜What girl?’
    â€˜Her name is Chloe Dow.’
    Mrs Smith put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Chloe, Garvie!’
    A flicker of something crossed Garvie’s face, then it was gone. He turned to his mother and frowned at her.
    â€˜You know her?’ the inspector said in his quiet, cold voice. It was a question, but it sounded like a statement.
    They were both looking at Garvie now, his mother’s face worried and cross, the inspector’s face hard and accusing.
    â€˜I know of her,’ Garvie said at last. ‘She goes to my school. She’s in my year. I see her, I talk to her. I don’t know her.’
    There was a silence.
    â€˜Define “know”,’ Garvie said.
    Singh said nothing, just stared. It was easy to see what sort of a man he was. Uptight. Ambitious. The smudge on his turban suggested long hours, dedication. An exam passer, Garvie thought. A disciplinarian. A man disliked by his colleagues.
    His mother didn’t like him, either; he could tell that. Garvie settled himself back in his chair and waited.
    The inspector said, ‘You’re acquainted with her, then. And what sort of girl is she, in your opinion?’
    â€˜Not the sort who disappears.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜You must have seen a photograph of her.’
    Raising an eyebrow slightly, Singh said nothing.
    â€˜Anyway,’ Garvie added, ‘what’s all this got to do with me?’
    After explaining that Chloe had gone jogging and that Old Ditch Road