Read Online Ghost Girl by Lesley Thomson - Free Book Online
Authors: Lesley Thomson
Tags: Mystery
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a thing about parents, probably because he didn’t have any. To top it off, this time Suzie had a genuine emergency. She had slipped and cut her arm on the door of the oven. Stella rushed out the office and Jack had come too.
Jack had been charming. Ridiculously, he had given a bow and then knelt at Suzie’s feet with a washing-up bowl of warm soapy water to sponge the graze on her arm. He had dressed the wound with gauze and cotton wool from the first-aid kit from the van and bandaged the whole of her forearm. Stella had been tasked with sifting the rubbish for Suzie’s reading spectacles, lost when Stella was ten. Jack had assured Suzie that if the specs were there Stella would find them. He had meant well, but set her up for failure because they were not.
For the first time in decades Stella spent a night in her old bed – Jack didn’t think Suzie should be alone after the shock. Unable to sleep, she had traced the pattern of luminous stars, stuck on the ceiling by her dad when they first moved in, as she used to do before falling into a sound sleep.
Suzie appeared to take Stella’s presence for granted and when Stella was leaving, had suggested they go to Richmond Park.
A horn sounded. A driver wanted her space. Stella swished down the seat belt and pulled out into the night-time traffic.
She found herself driving into King Street instead of taking the flyover to the Hogarth roundabout, the quicker route to her flat. She was accidentally following the route to Terry’s. Stella remembered that the last time she had seen Jack, when he had popped into the office a week ago, he had asked when she planned to sell Terry’s house. Stella had changed the subject because she didn’t know.
She hit a snarl-up outside Marks and Spencer’s. Jack would be the perfect cleaner for Suzie. He would amuse her and she might pay attention to his suggestions, which when it came to cleaning were all sensible. Jack seemed good with older women. She let the handbrake off and drifted the length of a car and then came to another stop. A witness appeal board was propped by the kerb, secured by sandbags. Jack once pointed out they looked like piglets. He felt sad for them lolling by the side of the road. He could also be absurd, she reflected. Jack and her mother would egg each other on. In the light from passing headlights, Stella suddenly saw what Jack meant – the two piglets hung over the metal strut of the notice board as if they had passed out. If he cleaned for her mum she would eventually find fault with Jack and Stella didn’t want that to happen. To stop the jangle of this problem she switched on the radio.
‘…a hit-and-run incident in which a seven-year-old boy was killed this afternoon in West London. Joel Evans chased a football across King Street in Hammersmith while out with his grandmother and was hit by a car travelling from the Broadway. He was killed instantly. The driver failed to stop. A workman on Chiswick High Road reported a man checking his vehicle soon after the time of the accident. He walked around it before driving off. The car may have been a Ford Fiesta and was white or a light blue. The police believe the incident may have been caught on the camera of a 27 bus and hope to identify the number plate of the car. They are appealing to the driver to come forward and to anyone who witnessed the incident to contact them…’
Alert, Stella edged the van up to the notice and sure enough it referred to the same incident: ‘16.32 p.m., 23/4/12’. In the gap between her van and the lorry in front her headlights cast a wash of light over a muffled sandy shape. It resembled the outline of a sprawling figure. It must be a trick of the light; the police would not have traced the boy’s outline on the road. A torn strip of blue and white police tape fluttered from a lamp-post. She took her foot off the accelerator and the van coasted past the notice. She needed to get to bed.
With Joel Evans on her mind,
Jack had been charming. Ridiculously, he had given a bow and then knelt at Suzie’s feet with a washing-up bowl of warm soapy water to sponge the graze on her arm. He had dressed the wound with gauze and cotton wool from the first-aid kit from the van and bandaged the whole of her forearm. Stella had been tasked with sifting the rubbish for Suzie’s reading spectacles, lost when Stella was ten. Jack had assured Suzie that if the specs were there Stella would find them. He had meant well, but set her up for failure because they were not.
For the first time in decades Stella spent a night in her old bed – Jack didn’t think Suzie should be alone after the shock. Unable to sleep, she had traced the pattern of luminous stars, stuck on the ceiling by her dad when they first moved in, as she used to do before falling into a sound sleep.
Suzie appeared to take Stella’s presence for granted and when Stella was leaving, had suggested they go to Richmond Park.
A horn sounded. A driver wanted her space. Stella swished down the seat belt and pulled out into the night-time traffic.
She found herself driving into King Street instead of taking the flyover to the Hogarth roundabout, the quicker route to her flat. She was accidentally following the route to Terry’s. Stella remembered that the last time she had seen Jack, when he had popped into the office a week ago, he had asked when she planned to sell Terry’s house. Stella had changed the subject because she didn’t know.
She hit a snarl-up outside Marks and Spencer’s. Jack would be the perfect cleaner for Suzie. He would amuse her and she might pay attention to his suggestions, which when it came to cleaning were all sensible. Jack seemed good with older women. She let the handbrake off and drifted the length of a car and then came to another stop. A witness appeal board was propped by the kerb, secured by sandbags. Jack once pointed out they looked like piglets. He felt sad for them lolling by the side of the road. He could also be absurd, she reflected. Jack and her mother would egg each other on. In the light from passing headlights, Stella suddenly saw what Jack meant – the two piglets hung over the metal strut of the notice board as if they had passed out. If he cleaned for her mum she would eventually find fault with Jack and Stella didn’t want that to happen. To stop the jangle of this problem she switched on the radio.
‘…a hit-and-run incident in which a seven-year-old boy was killed this afternoon in West London. Joel Evans chased a football across King Street in Hammersmith while out with his grandmother and was hit by a car travelling from the Broadway. He was killed instantly. The driver failed to stop. A workman on Chiswick High Road reported a man checking his vehicle soon after the time of the accident. He walked around it before driving off. The car may have been a Ford Fiesta and was white or a light blue. The police believe the incident may have been caught on the camera of a 27 bus and hope to identify the number plate of the car. They are appealing to the driver to come forward and to anyone who witnessed the incident to contact them…’
Alert, Stella edged the van up to the notice and sure enough it referred to the same incident: ‘16.32 p.m., 23/4/12’. In the gap between her van and the lorry in front her headlights cast a wash of light over a muffled sandy shape. It resembled the outline of a sprawling figure. It must be a trick of the light; the police would not have traced the boy’s outline on the road. A torn strip of blue and white police tape fluttered from a lamp-post. She took her foot off the accelerator and the van coasted past the notice. She needed to get to bed.
With Joel Evans on her mind,
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