Charley by Tim O'Rourke Page B

Charley’s. The early December sky was gunmetal grey. It was bitterly cold. I switched on the heater, but it just blew more cold air into my face. There was no rain though, and for that I was grateful. I passed houses already decorated with Christmas trees and lights and they looked warm and inviting.
    My mother and father’s house always looked inviting at Christmas. But I wouldn’t be going home. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see them, it was the thought of my father leading me into his study and trying to persuade me to leave the police and join his law firm, again. I didn’t want to spend my Christmas arguing with him.
    As I drew closer to Charley’s house, the realisation of what I was about to do hit me. To take a civilian – a seventeen-year-old girl – to a potential crime scene was madness. And it wasn’t just me who’d think so. DI Harker and all my other colleagues would be aghast if they ever found out. But what if Charley was right? What if Kerry Underwood had been taken against her will up to the railway tracks and killed? That would be a murder, right?
    Nevertheless, if it were ever discovered that one of the investigating officers had taken a young woman out to the crime scene on the off-chance she had received premonitions in a series of flashes, they’d be lucky if they spent the rest of their career slopping out the custody block.
    ‘I must be mad!’ I said aloud and sped up.
    But who would ever know that I had taken Charley there? No one would. And what if she was right and the flashes were true? What if Charley saw some clue – something that would explain what had really happened to Kerry Underwood? What did I do with that information? I wouldn’t be able to hide it, especially not if the girl had been attacked – murdered. I’d terminated the interview with Lane because of what Charley had already told me. And ending that interview had got me into a whole lot of shit with Harker.
    Half of me just wanted to stop, reverse and head back to bed, pull the duvet up over my head and go back to sleep before I didsomething I might later regret. But the other half wanted to know what had really happened to Kerry Underwood. With Jackson desperate to stamp ‘Death by Misadventure’ all over the case file at the earliest opportunity, I couldn’t get what Charley had told me out of my head. I couldn’t ignore it.
    Besides, by taking Charley to the scene I was hoping she’d reveal more clues, and those and her behaviour might show me whether the flashes she saw, were a glimpse of real events or just a figment of her imagination. I pressed down on the accelerator.
    I parked the car at the kerb and got out. Charley’s father was on the drive again, and was checking out what looked like a dent in the boot of his car.
    ‘Problem?’ I asked, walking towards him.
    ‘No problem,’ he said glancing at me, then back at the dent.
    ‘Reverse into someone?’ I asked, not because I was really interested, I was just trying to make conversation with the guy. I’d got the feeling the day before he didn’t like me much. Was it because I was a copper or because he thought I might be dating his daughter?
    ‘Someone reversed into me,’ he said.
    ‘I hope you exchanged details,’ I joked.
    ‘No,’ he sighed and his hostility appeared to soften. ‘It happened in Sainsbury’s car park. Came out with the shopping to discover someone had hit the car. They never do leave their details, do they?’
    ‘I guess not,’ I shrugged. ‘Is Charley in?’
    ‘Where else would she be?’ he muttered, and I detected that coolness towards me again.
    I didn’t want to fight with him. ‘I thought I might take her for a bite to eat – you know, breakfast.’
    He shot me a distrustful look but before he could say anything, Charley appeared at the front door.
    I looked at her and smiled. She had done as I suggested and was wearing a thick warm-looking coat. The collar was pulled up abouther throat. Her auburn