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Back Scared to Live Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Dedication
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. About the Author
  43. Also by Stephen Booth
  44. About the Publisher

‘Witnesses, that was it. They said the police were looking for witnesses. And they particularly wanted to speak to the bloke in the parka, with the blue Astra.’

Darren didn’t reply. She glanced at him, and saw that he’d gone pale. He still wasn’t fully dressed, and the water was drying in patches on his arms. He shivered, like somebody had walked over his grave. She remembered him saying how much he hated being next to a graveyard, and all those dead bodies and stuff.

‘A witness, that’s what they reckon you are. Maybe the police think you might have seen something important. Did you see anything, Darren?’

Darren was silent for longer than she thought was natural. For him, anyway. He wasn’t the sort of bloke to be stuck for a word, even if it was to tell her to ‘eff off’. He was staring at the TV screen, though the news had long since finished, and there was some football match on.

‘Did you, Darren?’

‘No,’ he said finally. But he didn’t sound too sure.

Stella touched his chest, then flinched away at the coldness of it.

‘No,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t see anything.’

‘Was there anybody about in the village when you left that night?’

‘I just told you, I didn’t see anything.’

‘You might be able to help the police find who did it.’

He grabbed her arm then, and for the first time Stella felt a chill of fear. He was stronger than she thought, and he had that possibility of violence in him, after all.

‘Get it into your head right now,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see anything that night. Got it, Stell? I didn’t see a bloody thing.’

Cooper always woke automatically to the sound of sirens, even when he was in unfamiliar surroundings. He listened for a few moments, until he recognized the distinctive rasping bullhorn of a fire tender approaching a road junction somewhere to the north. So it was nothing to do with him – not for a while, at least. At this time of year, the call-out was probably to a bonfire that had been prematurely set alight. It happened every year; some people just couldn’t wait for the fifth of November. Soon there’d be fireworks, too. Night after night of explosions over the town. Complaints to the police about youths pushing bangers through pensioners’ letter boxes.

The sirens receded gradually into the distance. Cooper remembered where he was, sighed, and turned over again. He felt the comfort of a warm body beside him in the bed, the reassurance of steady breathing that meant he wasn’t alone in the middle of the night.

It made a big difference, not to be alone. And for once, it wasn’t the cat.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Wednesday, 26 October