Never Coming Back by Tim Weaver Page A

the front page of his pad. It had no notes in it at all, although slivers of paper remained in the spiral binding where he’d recently torn them out. Sometimes the clearest picture of a person came from the smallest things: the way he’d set his pen and paper down parallel to one another pointed toward a meticulous mind; the way he’d torn out the last notes in the pad—as if to keep them away from prying eyes—suggested a suspicious one too. He looked at me. “Could you tell me what you were doing on or around Monday afternoon this week?”
    It was Thursday now. Healy had found the body on Tuesday. So police obviously believed, probably on the advice of the pathologist, that ithad either washed up or been dumped twenty-four hours before that. He’d have had a hard job narrowing down time of death if the body parts had been in water for long; “immersion” meant skin started to wrinkle and loosen during the first week, and by the second week it started to detach completely. The fact he’d been able to be so accurate meant Healy’s theory could have been right.
    The body had been frozen.
    â€œI was here,” I said.
    â€œAt home?”
    â€œAll day. Healy can back me up on that.”
    Rocastle looked over his shoulder. Healy nodded.
    â€œWhy did you move down here?”
    â€œI like it down here.”
    â€œYou didn’t have any particular reason?”
    â€œMy parents lived in the village. This was their house.”
    He nodded, making more notes. I flicked a glance at what he was writing, but it looked like it was some sort of shorthand—except I knew shorthand and I couldn’t decipher it.
A system only he can translate: a way to disguise his thoughts
.
    â€œSo you weren’t down in the village at all?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t see anything?”
    â€œAs in?”
    â€œAs in, anything worth reporting.”
    I frowned. “Like I just said, I was here all day.”
    â€œSo that’s a no?”
    â€œObviously it’s a no.”
    He nodded, made some notes. “You don’t look bedridden.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œI’m just wondering why you stayed inside all day on Monday.”
    I studied him. I was tempted to say
Because I wanted to
, but it was best I kept him onside for the moment. “Some days I still feel tired.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    I lifted up my T-shirt, and for a moment Rocastle looked surprised. Then he saw the pink scarring on my stomach. “It’s been five months. Sometimes it’s still painful.”
    â€œI see.” He glanced at his pad. “So you’re sure?”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œThat you didn’t see anything?”
    He wrote something else down, on a fresh line and in a fresh jumble of words. I glanced at Healy for a moment, and in his face I saw the same expression I must have had.
He’s trying to lead me somewhere
. Finally, when Rocastle looked up, there was nothing in his face. An unreadable blank.
    â€œMr. Raker?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re absolutely positive you didn’t see anything?”
    But now he’d tilted the question in a different direction. No longer an attempt to bait me, or even really an accusation. Just an innocent point of clarification. I studied him for a second time, trying to decide exactly what his play was—and then it came to me.
    â€œMr. Raker?”
    â€œYou already knew I’d been stabbed.”
    â€œI’m sorry?”
    â€œYou already knew all about me.”
    A flash of something in his face—just a split second of reaction—but there long enough for me to see that I’d been right. He’d done background checks on all the people in the village—and I’d been the one with a file. The missing people I’d found, the killers I’d ended up hunting, the detectives I’d had to cross. All my