Читать книгу Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood - Stuart MacBride - Страница 58

‘Hello?’ A voice in the darkness. Small and hesitant.

Heather rolled over onto her side. ‘Duncan?’

‘What?’ Definitely not Duncan or Mr New. She was hearing things again.

She sat up, peering into the Dark. Trying to pick out a shape to go with the voice coming from the other side of the bars. ‘Are you real?’

A pause.

‘Am I real?’ It was a woman.

‘Or are you dead like the others?’

Silence.

And then the voice said. ‘I’m cold.’

Heather gripped the duvet closer around herself.

‘Heather –’ Mr New stepped through the bars – ‘share, it’s only fair.’

‘But what if she dies?’

‘Dies?’ The new voice tried again: ‘What if who dies?’

‘Heather…’

Sigh. ‘I’ve got a duvet.’ Heather clambered out of bed and dragged the mattress over to the bars, then poked half the duvet through a gap between two of them. ‘Happy now?’

She’d been talking to Mr New, but it was the woman who answered. ‘Thank you.’ A scuffing sound, then Heather heard her settle back against the bars. There was a tug as the new girl wrapped the other half of the duvet around herself.

A long pause.

‘My name’s Kelley… Kelley Souter.’ A shaky hand was extended between the bars, brushing Heather’s shoulder.

‘Heather Inglis.’

‘I… I read about you in the papers.’

Silence.

The new girl, Kelley, said, ‘You have a little boy.’

‘Justin. He’s … he was three …’ She bit her lip to hold back the tears.

‘I had a little boy too. They took him away from me in the hospital … said I was too young.’ And so it all came out: how she was only thirteen, but it didn’t matter because her boyfriend promised to stand by her. How he was nearly twenty years older than her. How one day he just vanished, never to be heard from again…

Heather listened quietly, then told Kelley about how Justin was born four and a half weeks early. ‘He was so small, like a tiny doll, all purple and red … They let me hold him for a minute before he went into the incubator. Lying there with all those tubes and wires …’ She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Mother told me he’d never survive and I shouldn’t get too attached. That it was probably Duncan’s fault because he smoked pot.’

‘What a bitch!’ Duncan paced back and forth, the blood light pulsing from the hole in his head.‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘But Justin showed her – grew up into a big strong boy… I miss him so much.’

Kelley’s hand wriggled through the gap again, taking hold of Heather’s. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

Two living people, in the kingdom of the Dark.

‘You shouldn’t get too friendly with her,’ said Duncan, still pacing. ‘She’ll die, and then you’ll have to eat her, and you’ll feel guilty about it.’

‘Go away, Duncan.’

‘I’m just saying, OK? It’s for your own good.’

‘Who are you talking to?’

Heather didn’t really want to go through it all again. ‘My husband. He’s dead. And a selfish arsehole.’

The grip on her hand tightened: ‘You can speak to the dead?’

‘Thanks. That’s very nice. Selfish arsehole. Jesus, Heather, after everything I’ve done for you!’

‘Piss off, Duncan. I’m not in the mood.’

‘Look – you know I’m right. She’s going to end up on a plate.’

‘I… I wish I could talk to the dead. I’d tell my mum and dad how much I loved them.’ Kelley’s voice broke. ‘It was my twelfth birthday… The lorry was on the wrong side of the road and… The firemen couldn’t… They had to cut us out. Mum and dad were …’ She shuddered into silence.

Heather sniffed back a tear. ‘I lost my dad when I was fifteen. He jumped off Union Bridge. I hated my mother for that … hated her. All those years.’

Kelly gripped her hand so tight it hurt. ‘I wanted them to love me so much …’

Heather sat in the darkness, head back against the bars, holding onto Kelley’s hand. Knowing that everything was going to be all right, because the Flesher would be back soon with his tin bath. And make Kelley’s pain go away.