Free Dead Silent by Mark Roberts Page A

side?’
    ‘Oh, no! It’s a home for disabled men. They couldn’t come to me, not at this hour. Imagine! They’d all be asleep. Even Gideon who was on duty last night. How could I drag anyone from their beds to this? It’s a nightmare. And it’s my nightmare. But it’s real, isn’t it? And it’s mine. You should never ask for help. It’s a sign of weakness.’
    ‘Louise,’ said Clay, ‘we all need help. You’re going to need help now.’
    ‘ Only accept help when it’s willingly offered . That’s what Father taught me. And my father was right, don’t you agree?’

21
5.50 am
    ‘The old boy’s been murdered?’ PC Stephen Rimmer, six feet four, twenty stone and without a single hair on his head or face, looked genuinely upset. He looked around Leonard Lawson’s study and pronounced, ‘Bastard. How...?’
    ‘Constable Rimmer,’ said DS Stone. Keen to press on, he shook his head. ‘One thing at a time, eh? So why does Leonard Lawson have your contact details in his desk?’
    Stone showed him the piece of paper.
    ‘I gave them to him last Thursday, didn’t I? After the incident in Sefton Park. I was on a routine patrol round the park in the car, with Constable Tom Donovan. It was just an ordinary, quiet middle of the day and we were about to skid back to Admiral Street for a bite...’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘There was a bit of a crowd forming over the road from the Alicia Hotel, so we pulled over and got out to take a look. As soon as we got out, we could hear different voices, all like raised and well pissed-off. Leave him alone! Don’t you talk to him like that, y’weirdo! So we waded in and told everyone to shut up and calm down. And everyone did exactly that except for one person. This tall, strange-looking bloke starts jabbing his finger in the direction of Mr Lawson – I didn’t know his name at this point, but I did know him by sight because he’s always walking round the park – and going, like, Sinner, repent! Repent of your sins, weep and beg forgiveness of the Lord or suffer the eternal pains of damnation. It would have been laughable, but you could see Mr Lawson was really distressed. And the Bible-basher? His eyes were wild but he was as cold as ice. I told him to can it or face arrest for breaching the peace. He looked at me and said, Do you know what I am? Dead serious. Dead cold. Dead calm. He pointed at Mr Lawson and said, Do you know what he’s done? Mr Lawson started walking away, but he was sweating, his breathing was all over the place and he looked like he was about to keel over, so Tom took him to the car and got him to sit in the back while I dealt with the religious nutcase.
    ‘I asked who saw what and a couple of people said they’d seen the lot, so I told the rest of them to beat it. The Bible-basher clammed up, went off slowly into this trance-like state. According to the witnesses, he was standing on a sandstone plinth by the grass on the edge of the park, staring into space. Mr Lawson was walking in his direction. The witnesses were walking behind Mr Lawson. The Bible-basher sees Mr Lawson and bam! walks right up behind him, following him and whispering in his ear. Mr Lawson starts walking faster and faster, but so does the Bible-basher, and the whispering grows louder and he starts going on, all cold and calculating, about Mr Lawson’s sinful ways. Starts calling him the Devil’s child, at which point the witnesses start intervening, telling him to back off. Then Mr Lawson falls over, falls over his own feet, and that’s when the crowd forms, apparently. People stop to help Mr Lawson up and the Bible-basher starts laughing at him, coldly laughing his head off and talking about the chamber of hell that Mr Lawson is going to go to. Really soon. His time is up. So we’re getting into death threats now.’
    ‘This piece of hell that’s been reserved for Mr Lawson – tell me about it, Constable. What did the Bible-basher say?’
    ‘He said, in front of