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Dead Lucky. Matt Brolly
Читать онлайн.Название Dead Lucky
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781474046275
Автор произведения Matt Brolly
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Серия DCI Michael Lambert crime series
Издательство HarperCollins
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
He tried to stretch. His back was pushed tight against the wall, his covered head snagged between two coat hooks. Every other breath brought with it the stench of foot odour and moth bombs.
He’d been in the flat for three hours, the last two of which had been in the wardrobe. Preparation was important. The woman was predictable, she would return after work, the husband less so. His behaviour was erratic of late. He’d been spending more time at the bar than at work.
He stretched once more, savouring being alone, going over the plan again and again until it was so embedded in his mind that it was almost a memory.
The woman arrived on time. His pulse didn’t alter as he listened to her move around the room, the strange noises she made, thinking she was alone.
Eventually she left the room. Realising he’d been holding his breath, he let it out in a rush, his lungs filling with the trapped, musty air of his hiding cell.
It was another two hours before the husband arrived. He heard the front door click open, the heavy steps as the husband walked into the living room, the muted voices as the couple exchanged pleasantries.
He was about to leave his confines when he heard the woman enter the en-suite bathroom. He edged the wardrobe open. The bathroom door was ajar and he tiptoed across the bedroom floor in time to see the woman pulling up her garments.
As she left the room, he placed his right hand on her shoulder. She jumped, and rounded on him thinking he was her husband. She stared at him for a second, her mouth agape. A look of confusion crept across her face and for a heartbeat it was as if she’d been expecting his arrival. Then, realising what was happening was all too real, she went to scream.
With a practised move, he reached out and covered her mouth before she could give sound to her situation.
Lambert sensed the decay as he entered the building.
He’d been here before.
Inside, the cloying stench of antiseptic and bleach did little to mask the subtle odours of illness and death which permeated from the walls of the hollow reception area.
He knew where he was going, he’d visited the same ward on numerous occasions many years ago. His body guided him along the route without him having to think, a homing instinct he’d thought long extinguished. He tried to ignore the people he passed. An elderly man, wisps of dry grey hair atop a wrinkled skull, wheeling a bag full of yellowing liquid which seeped into his veins. An obese teenage girl, pushed along in a wheelchair by two similar sized youths, her plastered leg protruding in the air like a weapon. And finally a man he’d hoped to avoid, leaving the lift as Lambert was about to enter.
The man, immaculate in a pinstriped suit and coiffured hair, froze. Lambert had to suppress a smile as the colour literally drained from the man’s face. His healthy St Tropez tan faded into a ghost-like white.
‘Michael,’ said the man, holding out his hand.
Lambert ignored the outstretched limb, not yet ready to be fully grown up about the situation. He entered the lift and turned to watch Jeremy Taylor, partner of Price Barker Solicitors, shake himself as if from a daze and walk away.
‘Michael Lambert,’ he said, into the box outside the ward. ‘I’m here to see Sophie Lambert.’ He remembered a time twelve years ago when he’d said the very same thing into what looked like the very same box. Only then he’d been visiting on happier terms.
The screams started as soon as he was buzzed into the ward, the sound of tortured women, flesh being torn. The nurses’ desk was empty. Lambert considered walking the corridors in search of Sophie but didn’t want to risk intruding on the other patients. Eventually, a smiling nurse gave him directions to Sophie’s room. The woman beamed at him as if this should be the greatest day of his life.
He ambled down the corridor, debating whether or not to turn and flee the scene, until he reached the entrance to Sophie’s room.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped over the threshold. For a time he just stood there dumbstruck, forgetting to breathe. Sophie sat upright in bed, cheeks pinched red, a tiny figure clamped to her breast. Smiling, she beckoned him over.
It was too late to leave. He took a seat next to her bed. ‘How did it go?’ he asked, not knowing what else to say.
Lambert had been virtually estranged from his wife, Sophie, for the last three years following the death of their daughter, Chloe, though they had continued sharing a house together. During that time Sophie had had a brief affair with Jeremy Taylor, the solicitor Lambert had just encountered, who was the father of the child his wife was holding.
The child released itself from Sophie with a smacking sound and looked in Lambert’s direction. ‘Do you want to hold her?’ asked Sophie, as unsure about the situation as he was.
‘No. Thank you. I’m okay.’
Tears welled in Sophie’s eyes. ‘This little thing is Chloe’s sister,’ she whispered, stroking the baby’s head.
Lambert choked back his own tears. The baby was the closest thing there would ever be to Chloe but there was no avoiding the fact that she wasn’t his. He poured a beaker of water, taking some time to think. ‘Do you have a name for her?’ he asked, his voice coming out