Read Online The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd - Free Book Online

your description, will do for now.’ She stood up. ‘This is my card, with my direct phone number. I’ll leave it here on the mantelpiece. If Salim comes home or gets in touch, or if you have any further thoughts, call me.’
    Aunt Gloria shrugged and said nothing, but Dad said we would. Then he showed her and the other policeman to the front door and they left. I watched from the window as they got into a white and blue police car and drove away. Mum asked Kat to help her prepare some sandwiches. Aunt Gloria had another brandy. Dad came back and opened a bottle of wine. That made it just like Christmas evening except it was getting late and it was still light outside and nobody was telling jokes or acting jolly.
    ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ said Aunt Gloria. Nobody answered. She took the silence as permission and lit up a cigarette and sat puffing in silence, even after Kat put a plate with cheese and lettuce sandwiches on her lap. She stared into space, inhaling and exhaling. Apart from her arm travelling with the cigarette holder up to her lips on average every twelve seconds, she was still. It was a strange silence. I realized that ever since Aunt Gloria had arrived in our house she’d hardly stopped talking or moving.
    ‘Well,’ said Mum, after everybody had munched what they could of their sandwiches. (Me: two. Dad: two. Mum: one. Kat: a half. Aunt Gloria: none.)
    ‘Well,’ said Dad. I almost expected him to say
    ‘Another fine mess’ again but he didn’t.
    ‘How was work today, Ben?’ Mum said. It was a question she asked him every day.
    ‘Work?’ said Dad. He shrugged. ‘OK. The Barracks is empty now and all locked up. The concrete crushers go in on Thursday. I’ve a new job on now, down Peckham way.’
    ‘Peckham way?’ said Mum. She didn’t look that interested. Her eyes stared off into space.
    ‘Peckham Rye.’
    There was another long silence. Kat kept winding a strand of hair around her little finger and then unwinding it. I wanted to ask her what she was trying to achieve but she saw me looking at her and scrunched up her face, so instead I said, ‘About Salim . . .’
    Everyone started.
    ‘I’ve some interesting theories, which might—’
    ‘Hush, love,’ Mum said. ‘This isn’t the time for your theories.’
    A deep silence fell on the living room after that. I heard the whirr of the central heating. A kitchen tap dripped. Dad jangled some change in his pocket. I wondered what the silence was in weather terms. It was hardly the calm after the storm. Perhaps it was a calm in the centre of a storm: the eye of the hurricane. I imagined a whirlwind, dark and swift, and in the middle of it a gentle oval-shaped stillness, shaped like a bicycle wheel seen from an angle: the London Eye. Mum shuffled her feet. The central heating stopped whirring. Mum said it was time to go to bed.
    ‘It’s only nine o’clock,’ Kat protested. ‘Anyway, I’m here, on the couch, remember?’
    ‘That’s enough, Kat.’ Mum got up and walked over to the window and looked out. She drew the curtains. ‘This once, you can sleep in Ted’s room, on the lilo where Salim—’
    She didn’t finish her sentence. But we all did in our heads. Where Salim slept last night . Aunt Gloria gave a low moan and leaned over her drink as if she felt ill. We were all thinking the same thought. Where in this big, dark, dangerous city was Salim going to sleep tonight?

FOURTEEN
    Eight Theories

    I lay on my bed that night, trying to ignore the shuffling coming from less than a metre away. I could smell shampoo and hear breathing that reminded me of a restless panther. It was Kat, on the lilo where Salim had been the night before. The city noises came through the open window. Lorries pounded down the main road. Aircraft droned overhead. I imagined a great anvil-shaped cloud forming over southeast London and hot air rising in convection currents. There was an instability in the upper atmosphere.
    I often don’t sleep at