Read Online Good as Dead by Mark Billingham - Free Book Online Page A

eyes off the gun.
    ‘Can we have something to drink?’ Helen asked.
    Akhtar apologised again, the anger having seemingly given way to embarrassment and concern, and hurried back into the shop.
    ‘You should eat something,’ Helen said to Mitchell.
    ‘I don’t think I can.’
    ‘Just a bar of chocolate.’
    ‘I’d probably be sick anyway,’ he said. He blew out his cheeks and rubbed at his stomach. ‘Butterflies, you know?’
    ‘Yeah, I know.’ She reached across and laid a hand on his arm.
    Akhtar came back in with three cans: Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. He held them up so that Helen and Mitchell could take their pick.
    ‘I’ll have the Diet Coke,’ Helen said, ‘if that’s all right. Probably wasting my time worrying about calories while I’m stuffing my face with chocolate, mind you.’ She tried to smile. ‘Might as well make the effort though.’
    Akhtar nodded and laughed. He opened the can and laid it down within Helen’s reach, then he raised up the other two, one in each hand. ‘Mr Mitchell?’
    Mitchell said he was happy with either.
    ‘You can have the Coke,’ Akhtar said. He opened the drink and placed it on the floor, then sat back down at the desk. He laid the gun on the desktop and popped the ring-pull on his own can. He looked across at Helen and patted his paunch. ‘I gave up worrying about weight a long time ago,’ he said. ‘All that ghee in everything my wife cooks.’
    ‘I can’t afford to give up,’ Helen said. She looked at him and swallowed hard. ‘Been struggling with it ever since Alfie was born. Can’t seem to get rid of those few extra pounds, even though I spend half my life running round after the little bugger like a lunatic. Well, you’ve seen how much energy he’s got.’
    Akhtar looked away and took a long swig from his can.
    Helen was happy to see that Akhtar was feeling uncomfortable. Had she managed to provoke a pang of guilt, or remorse? Perhaps she had simply succeeded in reminding him of his own son. She decided that this could not be helped, that whatever she said, the man would not need to be reminded of the child he had lost.
    It was the reason they were there, after all.
    She finished the chocolate and started on the crisps. ‘Where did you get the gun, Javed?’
    ‘What?’
    She asked again, kept it nice and casual, as though she were enquiring where he had bought his shoes.
    Akhtar reached for the gun and picked it up, felt the weight of it as if holding it for the first time. It looked old. A revolver. ‘A man who came into the shop,’ he said.
    Helen waited.
    ‘I knew he was involved in certain sorts of business, you know? The way he looked and some of the things he said. Same way I got to know the business you were in.’ He slowly turned the gun over in his hand, as though curious himself as to how it had got there. ‘I told this man some made-up stories, told him I was having real trouble with kids in the shop, all that kind of nonsense. He said there were things I could do to protect myself, that it would be easy to get what I needed if I was happy to pay for it. He said there was a pub I could go to, people I could ask. So, for several nights, when I had told my wife I was at the cash-and-carry, I sat in this pub that stank of God-knows-what, trying to look as though I had a good reason to be there, and I asked questions. Eventually I found a man who was keen to take my money and give me what I wanted.’
    ‘You must have been frightened,’ Helen said.
    ‘I was terrified , Miss Weeks, I don’t mind telling you. More scared than I have ever been. But in the end it was so easy, that is the terrible thing. Those boys who were in my shop this morning? They can get guns any time they want.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Like that .’ He shook his head. ‘I thought it would be difficult and dangerous, but it was really no different to buying anything else. No different.’ He nodded down to the floor in front of Helen. ‘Like buying