Slipknot Read Online Free

all that crap and you’d believeJack the Ripper was a Sunday school teacher. He was beating the shit out of me a couple of times a week.’
    The policeman leaned forward and locked eyes. ‘Prove it,’ he said.
    And Shelley watched her son wither.

    Martha was driving north out of Shrewsbury, along the A49, towards Whitchurch. It should have been a fast road but there seemed always to be a slower car in front of them holding them up so Martha barely touched 45mph. When a tractor pulled out right in front of them Sam became impatient. ‘They said to try and get there before nine,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be late. It wouldn’t
look
good.’
    ‘We’ve got ages.’ Martha’s eyes left the road for a split second to look at him. How young he seemed. With more than a little essence of Martin. She steadied herself and gripped the steering wheel. ‘When do you come home next?’
    ‘There’s a couple of days off next month.’ Sam spoke nonchalantly, kicking the floor with his trainers.
    Martha rose to the bait. ‘Oh, that’s good. I can come and get you. It’s not far anyway.’
    ‘It’ll just be for a weekend,’ Sam warned. ‘I expect I’ll have to come back on the Sunday night.’
    ‘You can have a late lunch with us, maybe a bit of a walk with Bobby. You know.’
    ‘Mum,’ he said, suddenly urgent, ‘what if I don’t like it? What if I absolutely hate it? What if the other guys are beasts? What if I want to come home?’
    ‘Then we shall have to discuss it,’ Martha said, eyes now fixed firmly on the road. ‘But you have to give it a chance. Ihave an idea,’ she said, as she paused at the roundabout, ready to take the A49 north. ‘What about if we have a secret code?’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Sam sounded far from convinced.
    ‘Well,’ she said, warming to her subject. ‘I read somewhere that Wilfred Owen, the poet,’ she glanced across maybe Sam wouldn’t appreciate the analogy, ‘you know that he went away to war – the First World War?’
    ‘Ye-es?’
    ‘He wasn’t allowed to tell anyone where he was or where he was going’
    Sam was watching her.
    ‘In case his letter fell into enemy hands.’
    ‘You mean the Germans?’
    ‘Yes. So he and his mother devised a Mistletoe code. If he used the word mistletoe the letters of the next few lines spelt out where he was going, like
Serre
, in France. So how about if you text me to say that you hope Bobby is fine
I
know that you’re OK. If, on the other hand, you say that you hope he isn’t catching too many mice then I know there’s a problem and I should either give you a ring or pop up sooner rather than later.’
    ‘Ace,’ Sam said, with satisfaction, sinking back into the seat, a wide grin across his face. ‘It can be our own, special private mistletoe code so we can communicate and no one will know what we’re really saying.’
    Isn’t it strange how most young males love their spot of intrigue?
    She looked at him, suddenly swamped with a wave of affection.
    Courage was mine, and I had mystery
    Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery.

    ‘Tell me about the knife.’
    It was the younger, skinny policeman who asked this. PC Gethin Roberts, according to the taped introductions. ‘Where did you buy it from?’
    ‘At Birch’s – the shop on the corner of Roushill and Smithfield Road.’
    To the right of Callum, Stephenson started rubbing his neck. He always did this when he didn’t like the answer his client was returning. And Hughes’s answer couldn’t have been worse. He knew the shop. It was not a busy, bustling supermarket store where Callum Hughes might have slipped in, made his purchases and slipped out again without anyone remembering, but a family-run business which prided itself on personal service. The name was painted in huge, black letters on a whitewashed wall, C.R.Birch&Son. They would remember the boy and they would also remember that at the same time as he had bought the knife, he had purchased a sharpening