Read Online Keep Me Alive by Natasha Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

get checked out. It can go for the kidneys, you know. How did you get it?’
    Trish told him the story of the sausages and the disappearance of their packaging, adding, ‘And I was so angry at the idea that anyone could sell such dangerous food that I thought for a mad moment I might go chasing off after Caro’s dustbin men. I wanted to find the wrappings so that I could identify the suppliers and get something done about them. Then I remembered all those TV news shots of landfill sites, you know with tractors flattening the stuff and wild dogs eating it and seagulls pecking at it.’
    ‘I know what you mean. The kind of place where you could lose a dozen bodies. You’d never be able to find and identify one bit of packaging. But someone should find out where the sausages came from and get wherever it is cleaned up,’ Will said, his voice positively throbbing with sincerity.
    Trish forgot about not encouraging him and asked why he was so het up. After all, he hadn’t been poisoned.
    ‘Because I hate the bastards who peddle filthy meat products. Have you really no idea where these came from?’
    ‘None,’ Trish said, thinking of a way Andrew Stane might give her a quid pro quo for her help with his case. ‘Although I’m told my hostess used to pick up food for supper when she was out visiting people she had to interview. I could probably find out where she was on Monday afternoon, and then go into all the nearest shops to—Except that I haven’t got time.’
    ‘But I have. More time than I can fill.’ Will sounded eager. ‘If you find out roughly where she was, I can do the legwork.’
    ‘D’you really mean that?’
    ‘Sure. I haven’t got anything else to do now I’ve given my
evidence. And it’ll stop me trying to decide whether it would be better to jump out of the window now or wait till we’ve lost the case.’ He laughed to show that he wasn’t serious.
    ‘Oh, Will,’ Trish said, knowing that he was and longing to comfort him. ‘Whatever happens, it’s not going to be that bad. You’ll get back on your feet again, and …’
    ‘If you tell me what the sausages tasted like,’ he said briskly, as though he hated overt sympathy as much as he wanted it, ‘I’ll have a fair chance of identifying them when I see them.’
    ‘They were spicy; really spicy, I mean, not that over-peppery nastiness you get in some mass-produced ones. And the meat was chunky not smooth. I thought they were good, and I don’t usually like sausages at all. Especially not when the weather’s boiling like this.’
    ‘Spice can be used to cover every kind of disgustingness,’ he said. ‘Get me the relevant routes your friend might have walked and I’ll see what I can find.’
    If he were out hunting for contaminated sausages, he couldn’t be sitting in court, listening to evidence designed to show him up as a greedy fool. That had to be a good thing.
    ‘Would you?’ Trish said. ‘That would be terrific, Will. I know I could never do it on my own even if I had time.’
    She heard him breathe more deeply, as though he was already expanding into a bigger space than the one he’d been inhabiting for the past few months.
     
    Tim Hayleigh was sitting in his pyjamas, with Boney in his lap and an opened bottle of wine by his side, trying to concentrate on the sitcom he was watching. A character in it shouted at someone and threw a glass against the wall. With the crash ringing in his ears, Tim was whisked back to the night Bob had smashed the snooper’s face with his boot.
    At first he’d been terrified of the police coming to arrest him. Now he thought it might not be so bad. After all, if he were
convicted he could forget about his financial disaster for as long as the sentence lasted. He’d be fed and housed in prison. But then he might not survive long enough to be sent there. Bob would definitely try to kill him long before either of them got to court.
    ‘So why are you even thinking of going back to work