Post Mortem by Gary Bell (free children's ebooks pdf .TXT) 📕

Delroy checked his watch. ‘We’ve got a couple of MOTs in this morning but, as my sister’s future rests squarely on your shoulders … Come inside and I’ll get you a coffee. Leave your keys with the Pinball Wizard over here.’

I removed the car key from the ring and Danny caught it one-handed.

Inside a back office, Delroy poured us coffees from a twenty-year-old machine that sounded like a circular saw. There was a simple desk on a carpet that was blackened and greasy with boot prints, and a shelf of motoring manuals. The place smelled of oil, iron and leather, the perfumes of hard graft. There was an interior window overlooking the garage floor. I watched Danny, who was down on one knee peering up at the bottom of my raised car. He was shaking his head. His face was almost ageless; he could’ve been anywhere between twenty and fifty.

‘Here,’ Delroy said, handing me the coffee.

‘Appreciate it.’ The cup was thin white plastic; I used my cuff to shield my palm from the heat.

‘Hope this has got nothing to do with your job?’

‘Mindless vandalism, that’s all.’

‘Huh.’ He cocked his head. ‘You take it to the police yet?’

‘No. The police and I have a turbulent relationship at the best of times.’

Delroy sipped his own drink, oblivious to the scald, and watched Danny work. ‘We have a bit of banter, me and him, but he’s a good lad. Came here a couple of years ago, recommendation from one of them communication charities, and never left. Like a partner to me now. The guy’s a genius with a spray gun.’

‘He looks like he knows what he’s doing. Have you always known sign language?’

‘Few phrases, that’s all. It looks as if I know a lot more than I really do. I went to – shit, I don’t even know what you’re supposed to call it these days – a special school. Had a couple of deaf kids in my class. I wasn’t the brightest boy. Suppose that’s why I get a little bitter with Charli sometimes. She must’ve got the bigger slice of brains when we were in the womb, but she’s never done anything with them.’

I froze, with the coffee at my lips. ‘I didn’t realise you were twins.’

He shrugged. ‘Since before we were born.’

I was quiet for a moment, reflecting on what Patch had told us about Roy Macey and his mysterious twins. The Meadows twins? It seemed highly unlikely, not least on the incongruity of race. Adopted? Equally unlikely … Wasn’t it? I must’ve been staring quite intently because Delroy rolled his eyes and shook his head.

‘Before you ask,’ he said, ‘the answer is no.’

‘No?’

‘No. We can’t read each other’s minds and we don’t share bruises or none of that.’

‘Oh.’ I smiled. ‘Well, I did wonder.’

He took another long sip of coffee, breathing heavily through his nose. ‘Look, if I came across a bit abrupt the other morning …’

‘It must be a stressful time.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. It’s like your car over there, in a way. To me, that car’s just another job on the worksheet. For you, those wheels are your way of life. Vice versa – to you, my sister is another couple of weeks in the courthouse. For her, for us all, it could be her life. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘She’s not a bad woman by any means. She’s a great mum. Just got herself a habit for making crap decisions. Men, mostly.’ Over his cup, he gave me a shrewd look; so he knew about my visit to the allotment last night.

‘She lied about him,’ I said. ‘Deacon. You both did.’

‘Her decision.’

‘Doesn’t look very good from where I’m standing.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘I suppose it doesn’t.’

I had half an urge to seize him by the overalls, to scream all manner of obscenities regarding what I would like to do to his prospective brother-in-law. ‘She said nobody else had access to that car,’ I managed coolly. ‘I can’t see it being too difficult for this Deacon to have got hold of her keys.’

Delroy shook his head. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. At the time it happened, it would’ve been pretty damn difficult for him to get anywhere near that car.’

‘Why’s that?’

He swirled his coffee, contemplating. ‘She didn’t tell you how they met?’

‘No.’ It took another few seconds for the pieces to come together. ‘Not the Scrubs?’

He nodded regretfully. ‘Deacon only got out last month.’

‘Drugs?’

He blinked: yes.

‘That explains her reluctance to introduce him from the beginning,’ I said.

‘Can’t blame her, can you?’

I shrugged. ‘Financially, he appears to be doing rather well since his release. Would it be so unreasonable to suggest that she might’ve been taking the Spice in to him all along?’

He turned his whole body to lean back against the window. ‘What do you expect me to say to that? She’s my sister.’

‘She doesn’t seem to be demonstrating much caution towards their relationship. I’ve only been up to her home once and I’ve already met him by chance. There’s no mention of him in the prosecution’s case, nothing that has been disclosed so far at least, but if they do become aware of this relationship, well, I’d say it writes a rather convincing story.’

‘And are you obliged to tell them?’

I met his eye. ‘Is that a legal question? Or an ethical one?’

He bowed his head over his drink, preparing to take another mouthful, then a sharp knock on the glass behind caused him to jump and spill coffee onto his overalls. He spun round so that his employee could read his lips when he shouted. ‘For fuck’s sake, Danny!’

Danny was standing on the other side, looking deeply concerned. With his left hand he was holding up a mass of twisted metal that dangled from his grip like a pheasant’s carcass. It took me a second to recognise what it was: a mangled fusion of exhaust pipe, chain and a single bicycle pedal.

‘Jesus,’ Delroy said. ‘We’re not going to find one of these kids