Chasing the Dark by Sam Hepburn Page B

time I got to London I only had three quid left of the twenty George had given me. I knew I should have saved the fare and walked from the tube to the Trafalgar Arms but I took the bus, reckoning it was the best way to avoid the crash site. Wrong. When the driver pulled up at the stop before the pub, my gaze had already clamped on to the manky bunches of flowers hanging off the lamp post in crinkly cellophane wrappers. Even when I wrenched my eyes away they flew straight up the narrow concrete column to the CCTV camera that had videoed the accident. The old couple standing beside me stepped back as if I’d made a weird noise or something so Igrabbed Oz, got off and ran the rest of the way.
    I’d sat on the steps of that pub enough times as a kid with a Coke and a bag of crisps waiting for Mum and Eddy, but I’d never been inside. I hadn’t missed much: red vinyl seats, a sad-looking stage, a few old codgers sitting round the telly watching darts and a fat landlord with dark wiry hair and small suspicious eyes who looked like a bear that’d just been woken up from hibernation and wasn’t too pleased about it.
    â€˜No kids or dogs in the bar,’ he grunted, without taking his eyes off the TV.
    I was shaking and it was making me stammer. ‘S . . . sorry . . . I . . . my mum . . . I’m S . . . Sadie Slattery’s son.’
    His little eyes slid round to look at me. ‘I’ve already paid Eddy what she was owed.’
    No danger of the old sorry-for-your-loss arm-squeezing routine then.
    I couldn’t let him get to me. ‘I . . . I’m not here about money. I . . . I want to talk to whoever was behind the bar the night of the crash.’
    His eyes swivelled back to the TV. He opened his mouth and bellowed, ‘Shauna!’
    A voice yelled back that she was busy. He shouted again, crosser this time, and kept it up until a fair-haired woman, younger than him but not by much, wearing a red dress, a lot of make-up and yellow rubber gloves stuck her head through the door behind the bar.
    â€˜Someone to see you,’ the landlord said, working a cocktail stick between his front teeth. ‘Sadie’s kid.’
    It was the woman’s turn to look at me. Her face softened.
    â€˜Can I have a word?’ I sounded like a detective off one of the cheesy cop shows Mum used to watch.
    She nodded towards the back. I whistled to Oz and squeezed past the landlord, who barely shifted his baggy backside to make room.
    â€˜Don’t mind Don,’ she said, leading the way upstairs. ‘He’s always in a mood in the mornings. Cuppa?’
    â€˜Thanks.’
    The kitchen in their flat was bright and cheerful after the gloom of the bar, and loads cleaner. Oz was squinting up at her with his tongue hanging out. As she filled the kettle she poured him a bowl of water.
    â€˜What’s this about, Joe?’
    â€˜How do you know my name?’
    â€˜Sadie’s been singing here for years. Course I know your name, she talked about you often enough. I’d have come to the funeral only Eddy left it to the last minute to tell me when it was and Don couldn’t spare me from the bar.’ She took a couple of tea bags out of a jar. ‘She was a good woman, your mum. A good friend and a good singer.’
    I could see she was about to get teary so I said quickly, ‘I want to know about that bloke Lincoln who was driving the car. What happened? Did he just go up to her after the gig or had they been chatting before?’
    â€˜Why do you want to know?’
    I gave her the line I’d prepared. ‘It’s weird she was in his car when she never got lifts from strangers. I just wondered if there was anything . . . going on.’
    She closed the door. ‘How do you get on with Eddy?’
    â€˜I don’t.’
    She curled her lip. ‘He’s big