The Silent Suspect by Nell Pattison (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

a look that told me not to get ahead of myself. I got it – he was the professional detective; I was the interpreter. Still, I was confident he’d agree with me.

‘Okay, this has been really useful, thank you,’ he told us once we’d finished telling him everything we knew, or thought we knew. ‘For now, I think it’s a good idea if you stop trying to convince DI Forest of Lukas Nowak’s innocence and leave the police work to us. If you carry on, you risk jeopardising our case, which could be worse for him in the long run.’ There was a warning note in his voice, and I wondered if Forest actually knew he was here with us. Was this just an attempt to get us to back off, by making us think they were looking further into it? I couldn’t see Singh doing that to us, although I wouldn’t have put it past DI Forest.

As we were leaving, Singh pulled me aside again.

‘I mean it, Paige. If you want to talk about what happened,’ he said, looking pointedly at my grazed cheek, ‘then give me a call.’

I knew it didn’t make any sense to keep it from him, especially now he was going to be looking further into other potential suspects and motives, but I still didn’t tell him. For a start, I had no idea who had attacked me the previous night, or who might have sent them. It might not even have anything to do with Lukas, though it seemed that it was connected to him somehow. And if I was honest, I was embarrassed, because it was my own actions that brought it on myself.

‘Are you okay?’ he added. ‘With the thing with Max, I mean?’ He looked a bit shy as he asked, and I smiled.

‘I’m okay,’ I said with a nod. ‘It’s strange, but I think I’m okay.’

He nodded and smiled, then turned to leave. A moment later, he glanced back at me, then looked embarrassed when he realised I’d noticed.

Chapter 25

Sasha’s meeting was with one of her deaf clients and she told me she wouldn’t need me, so after we’d seen Singh we went our separate ways. On my way home, I found myself sitting in traffic for ages due to roadworks on Brigg Road. It gave me time to think, although that wasn’t necessarily a positive thing at the moment.

I hadn’t checked my phone much all day, not really wanting to hear from Anna, who would be checking up that I’d made the police report. I was also trying very hard not to think about Max and our chance encounter in the Deaf club yesterday. Unless I was going to start socialising in completely different places, it was inevitable that I was going to bump into him sooner or later, but I hadn’t expected it to be so soon. I had hoped we both would have had a chance to get used to the situation, to our change in circumstances, before we had to face each other again.

The more I thought about Max, the more anxious I felt. I couldn’t stop second-guessing myself, wondering if I’d done the right thing. The change was still too new for me to be happy with it, and I knew I was in danger of going back on what I’d said, just to find some stability again. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that even positive change could be very uncomfortable to begin with, and that I just needed to ride it out.

As I crawled through the traffic queue, I drove level with a side road, and made a split-second decision to turn off. I could find a short cut and avoid the worst of the traffic. It took me on a winding route, but it was better than sitting still for ages. One side street I turned down was parked up with cars on both sides, so there was only room for one vehicle to pass between them at a time. Seeing a car at the other end of the road, I pulled in when I saw a gap, to let them pass. As I waited for the road to be clear again, I glanced at one of the houses to my left, where I could see a lot of activity.

The house was set back a little from the pavement, with a messy front garden surrounded by a rotting wooden fence. Several people were hanging around outside the house, and I could see they were mostly teenagers, with a couple of young adults. Two of the lads were sitting on bikes, and another was on the ground, his back against the front wall. In his hand, his phone blared loud music. I assumed it was some sort of party, but then as I watched the front door opened and a man in his thirties stuck his head out and spoke to one of the lads on bikes. The boy nodded, took something from the man and slipped it into his pocket, then set off on his bike. I watched him leave, zipping down the pavement, weaving around a lamp-post then disappearing round the corner. The others at the front of the house hadn’t moved from their positions.

It seemed a little strange, but I didn’t really think anything of it until the teenager who was sitting on the ground stood up, brushing down his tracksuit bottoms and taking a cigarette off the boy next to him. It was Mariusz. What was he doing hanging around outside a house in a dodgy area of Scunthorpe during the day? Shouldn’t he be at school? He might have taken some time off, considering what had happened to his dad and stepmum, but this probably wasn’t how his school thought he was spending his time.

The other bike had now been handed over to one of the young adults, who was riding it round the front yard of the house, standing up on the pedals