Free Truth Dare Kill by Gordon Ferris Page B

offer her the advance back. Maybe half of it.
    It was day two and I was like a squirrel in a cage. I paced the floor and nibbled everything I could find: mouldy cheese, fish paste on toast, and fritters I made from the shavings of gangrenous spuds. I didn’t dare go out in case I missed a call. I checked my phone five times in case it was broken, until the operator began to get cranky. On top of everything, Valerie hadn’t shown again and I didn’t know how to find her. As a detective I was a joke. But I kept that thought to myself during discussions with a prospective client.
    She must have been 60 or so. My mother’s age. But she didn’t have my mother’s neat white hair and carefully cleaned and pressed clothes. Mrs Warner was on the grubby side of careless; her hat was bashed on to her head and nailed there with a huge bobby pin as though she slept with it on. Instead of an overcoat she wore a worn Paisley-pattern housecoat over a thick calf-length skirt and misbuttoned cardigan. I was surprised not to see old slippers on her feet, but she’d managed to find a pair of scuffed boots with ankle-high laces. Her ensemble was completed with a sorry string bag containing papers of some sort. She sat quivering in my chair while I made her a cup of tea.
    “So, tell me Mrs Warner, what can I do for you?” I was treating her as a potential paying customer but knew from looking at her she hadn’t a bean. Still, age deserves respect. And some of these old dears can hardly get to sleep for the lumps of cash under their mattress.
    She fixed me with her watery eyes, both yellow with cataracts.
    “I want you to find my son, Charlie.”
    I pulled my pad closer and poised my pen. “When did you last see him?”
    She thought for a moment then reached into her string bag and pulled out a thin sheaf of blue letters held together with three elastic bands. She rummaged again and came up with a spec case and put on some glasses. She gazed at the envelopes for a bit, trying different distances to find a focus that worked.
    “Here. That’s the one.” She handed me a well thumbed forces air mail envelope. I knew what was coming. “Go on, open it,” she said.
    “Are you sure, Mrs Warner?”
    She waved her hand, and I unfolded the single sheet of thin blue paper. It was dated 12 June 1943. The hand was big and childlike. I could almost see Charlie’s tongue gripped between his teeth as his pencil sprawled across the page. It read: Dear Mum,
    never felt so hot in my life. But they give us plenty of water and tucker so dont you worry none. Cant tell you nothing really but just wanted to let you know I was ok. Hope you and Deke are ok too. Love Charlie. Xxx “Deke?” I asked, stalling for time.
    “His dog. Charlie loved that dog. It’s got fat. I can’t walk it much like I used to. Me legs.” She pulled up her thick skirt and I could see the ridges of varicose veins all round her calf and ankles.
    “Mrs Warner, this is the last letter you got from Charlie. But didn’t you get a telegram or a letter from the Army?”
    “Oh yes. Yes, I did.” She said eagerly, as though I was on to something. “Said he was missing. That’s why I’m here. I wants you to find him.” She stared at me defiantly. “I can pay, you know. I always pays my way.” She rumbled in her string bag again and pulled out a worn purse.
    I didn’t know what to say to her. Couldn’t tell her that I’d seen blokes like her Charlie blown into so many pieces there was nothing to put in a coffin. I was as gentle as I could be. But she needed a padre.
    “Mrs Warner, I suspect your son was killed in action somewhere in the desert.
    See, he says how hot it was. I know where we were then. If he’d been taken prisoner then he’d have come back by now. You see?”
    She saw all right. But she wasn’t going to believe it. She was shaking her old head. “Charlie’s dad died in the last one. He never saw Charlie. They can’t take him too. It’s not fair, you see. It’s not fair.” It was a simple statement of