Read Kennedy 02 - A Darker Side for Free Online

yet, they’d found no one who had seen him since. On the half-mile walk from the end of the farm’s drive to the bus stop, Martin had vanished. But boys didn’t vanish. The road in question was a winding, narrow B-road, but someone must have seen him.
    How long would it take him to walk that half-mile? Ten minutes? His mother had said he’d left in good time to catch the bus, and it hadn’t been raining then. They had several centimetres of rain yesterday, but it hadn’t started until after ten o’clock. According to his mother, he often listened to music on his MP3 player as he walked. He wouldn’t have been rushing.
    George Hayden wasn’t behaving like a distraught father. Why? Because he knew, or thought he knew, where Martin was? Had there been a family row? Was that what Josie Hayden was hiding?
    Jill’s phone rang and she saw from the display that it was either her mother or father.
    ‘Hello, love, I wondered if I’d catch you. Not out tonight then?’
    ‘Apparently not, Mum,’ Jill replied, amused. ‘How are things in Liverpool?’
    ‘Oh, all right. What about you?’
    ‘Busy,’ Jill told her, as she always told her. It was usually true, but she knew she should make more time to visit her parents. ‘Dad OK?’
    ‘Ha! And how should I know? He’s been fishing every night this week. I tell him, I don’t know why he bothered to marry me. But then, he wouldn’t have a resident skivvy if he hadn’t. And you’ll never guess what the devil did oh, that reminds me, you know Tom Peters who lives at number four? He married that flighty piece with the red hair?’
    ‘Nope, means nothing to me.’ Mum forgot that she hadn’t lived on the estate for seventeen years.
    ‘Well, it seems as if he’s giving her a dose of her own medicine. He’s carrying on with oh, I don’t suppose you’d know her. She only moved in a few months ago. All tits and arse, your dad described her. And he’s probably right at that. She’s got a couple of kids and not a sighting of the father. Name’s Tracy.’
    ‘It’s all happening on River View then,’ Jill said with amusement.
    ‘We certainly see life,’ Mum agreed. ‘And then there’s well, well, well! Look what the cat’s dragged in.’
    Jill assumed that her father had returned from his fishing trip. Rain or shine, day or night, he and his mates hauled fish from the water, congratulated each other, and then threw them back. Pointless!
    She waited for the inevitable bickering between her parents. Devoted to each other they were, but outsiders would never know it.
    ‘You daft bugger,’ she heard her mother say softly.
    No wrangling?
    ‘Here, Jill, talk to your dad a minute.’
    ‘Hi, Dad. Catch a big one?’
    ‘I caught nothing,’ he said with disgust. ‘Not a bite all night. That pike was hanging around, though. I’ll have him one of these nights. Anyway, how’s my girl?’
    ‘Your girl’s wondering how you’ve managed to escape a lecture from your wife.’
    ‘Easy,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I stopped at the filling station on the way home and bought her a half-price bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates.’
    ‘Ah!’ Jill laughed. ‘What woman could resist such sophistication?’
    ‘I had a couple of quid on Starlight in the 1.30,’ he explained the reason for such extravagance, ‘and it romped home at sixteen to one.’
    ‘I thought of backing that, but I didn’t get a chance to look at the runners properly. However,’ she added, enjoying the chance to gloat, ‘I did manage to put a few quid on Pigeon Post.’
    ‘Eh? Never! God, that was a good price, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Thirty-three to one. It won by a short head.’
    ‘Well I never! A pity you didn’t get a good look at the runners. The way your luck is at the moment, you’d be quids in. So what kept you busy?’
    She explained about Martin Hayden’s disappearance. ‘So I’ve been to see his family. I’m unofficially helping the police.’
    ‘Oh?’ he said knowingly.