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

She shrugged. I know, but I meant what I said the other day. I don’t feel like I’m getting anything from the group now. And Jon is so supportive. He’s been there with me for every session, and it got to the stage where I felt like I was talking to him about everything, not the rest of the group. Does that make sense?

I nodded. I think so. Well, as long as you’re happy.

I am, I really am.

I smiled, but still felt a little pang of jealousy that she’d found happiness just as I’d thrown my own love life under the bus.

Do you want me to call Max? Anna asked gently, correctly interpreting the look on my face.

No. I don’t want to confuse things. It would have been nice to have someone there for me the way that Singh was last night, and I knew if I hadn’t broken up with him, Max would have been pacing the corridor until he was allowed in to see me, but the fact remained that we weren’t together any more. If Anna called him, it would muddy the waters.

He would want to know that you’re in hospital, she persisted. I know you’ve broken up, but he still cares about you.

I know, but I don’t want to call him. I’ll be home soon, anyway. I looked up at the clock on the wall. Don’t you need to go to work?

Yeah, probably, she replied. I moved my tutorials this morning, but I need to go into the department. Are you sure you’re going to be okay?

I was about to reassure her when the door opened and Sasha walked in. She and Anna greeted each other, then my sister said her goodbyes as Sasha settled herself in the chair by my bed.

Tell me everything, she said. And I mean everything.

I could see her trying to keep her annoyance from showing as I told her about my plan to follow Mariusz, but once I explained his behaviour around the two houses I’d seen him looking at, her interest took precedence.

So whoever mugged you knew exactly what they were looking for, she signed. I’m surprised your DS Singh didn’t give you some police protection.

He’s not my anything, I told her, earning a pair of raised eyebrows from Sasha. I’m fine. I don’t need protecting. If they’d wanted to hurt me more they could have done. They wanted that notebook, and now they’ve got it.

But why would someone want it?

To see how much we know, I suppose. Someone must be worried that we’re getting close to the truth. I’d been thinking about this while I’d lain awake in the early hours of the morning, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what might have made someone scared enough to attack me. If we’d found out something that someone didn’t want us to know about, neither Sasha nor I had made the connection yet.

How much can you remember of what was in the notebook?

I screwed up my face and looked up at the ceiling, then shook my head. I don’t know. I think I can remember all of it, but I’m not completely confident.

Tell me as much as you can remember, then, she said.

For the next fifteen minutes we went over what we’d talked about over the last week, including the conversations we’d had with people like Lukas’s neighbour, Jill Adams, and Caroline.

What are we missing? she asked, giving me a searching look, as if I was keeping something from her. Why did someone want that notebook so badly?

I don’t know, I told her. I honestly don’t. Someone must have thought there was something in it that would incriminate them, or they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble to get it.

Could it have been Mariusz? she asked.

I don’t think so. I was following him and he ran past me before it happened. I don’t see how he could have crept up behind me. As I told her this, something niggled at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t work out what it was. Had I seen someone, and now I couldn’t remember? Did I get a glimpse of the person rifling through my pockets for my keys before I lost consciousness?

What do you think he was doing? Sasha was now sitting forward in the chair, her brows knitted in thought.

Who, Mariusz? I have no idea. I was worried at first that he was breaking into those houses, but I couldn’t see any evidence that he’d taken anything, unless whatever it was was so small it fitted in the pocket of his jeans.

Mariusz doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid who’d be breaking into houses, she said, shaking her head. Could it be something to do with Lukas, and Nadia’s death?

I don’t see how, I replied.

Can you remember where the houses were?

I made a note of the addresses on my phone last night when I couldn’t sleep, I told her, pulling up the document and emailing it to her. Do you think they could be significant?

Well, there must be some connection between them if Mariusz was at both houses last night. I’ll have a look for the addresses on our databases, see if anything pops up. I had a message from Lukas this morning, she continued. He’s moved into Paul’s mum’s old house. I think he wanted some privacy, after everything that’s happened, but I am worried about him being on his own.

Where is the house? I asked, thinking it was important that we kept an eye on where he was. She pulled out her phone and brought the address up on the screen, showing it to me. I paused for a moment; I knew exactly where that road was. It was in the same area as Lukas’s house, and the two other houses that had had fires.

Nice for him that he’s back in the same area, I said, but Sasha looked sceptical.

Quite a few people round there know him, and think that he killed Nadia, she