The Innocent: The New Ryan Lock Novel Read Free

forgotten to activate the alarm.
    He kept walking. He pushed open a set of double doors that opened straight onto the court and walked to the center. He looked at his watch. It was a minute to midnight.
    As the seconds fell toward twelve, he closed his eyes. That was when he heard it. At five seconds to midnight.

Three
    For the first few seconds Malik thought it was the dog whimpering. But Flint was right there, tucked in next to him in the middle of the court. He must have heard it too, because first he cocked his head, and then he stood up, front legs spread out, lips peeled back from his teeth, a ridge of hair standing up all the way down his back.
    ‘Hey!’ Malik yelled. ‘Who’s in here?’
    He waited as the echo of his own voice died away to silence.
    ‘I said, who’s in here?’
    He scanned the empty bleachers. He looked down at Flint. When Malik used to play hide-and-go-seek with the kids, he’d sometimes use the dog to flush them out. Flint loved the game even more than the kids did. He’d chase furiously around the house until he tracked them down, showering them with slobbery kisses when he found them.
    ‘Go on!’ Malik said to the dog. ‘Go find them.’
    Flint took off. Malik followed, breaking into a run as the dog headed straight for the locker area.
    Malik pushed through the double doors, Flint squeezing ahead of him, almost knocking him over as he shouldered past his legs. ‘I know you’re in here,’ said Malik.
    The dog hung a left into the locker room reserved for the visiting team. Malik followed.
    Before he made it into the room, he heard a car engine start outside, quickly followed by the squeal of rubber as the vehicle took off at speed. Malik changed direction, hurtling down the corridor, his long, lean, basketball-player legs eating up the distance to the side entrance door. He pushed it open just in time to see the lights of the grey sedan sweep past his truck, heading for the exit.
    Turning back, he heard Flint barking from the locker room, a yelping sound, the kind he made when he’d cornered a squirrel up a tree and the terrified creature wouldn’t come down to resume the chase.
    All of a sudden the realization of what was happening came to him. It was so obvious he felt like an idiot. He even laughed at his own stupidity. The car might have belonged to an alumnus, but Malik was pretty certain it was being driven by a couple of kids. Maybe the janitor had been in on the prank, hence the alarm being switched off, or maybe the kids had just gotten lucky or had found someone who knew the code to switch it off.
    It was obvious now what was going on. The tip-off was the visitors’ locker room. Someone had probably snuck something in there to unsettle tomorrow’s opposition. A skunk, or a couple of rats stolen from one of the college labs, something like that.
    Malik called the dog back to his side. Whatever was in there, he didn’t need the dog in the mix. He walked outside and put Flint back in the pick-up. Then he went back.
    Bracing himself, he pushed open the door into the visitors’ locker room. He’d been partly right. Something was huddled in the far corner. Only it wasn’t a prank.
    The small naked white figure of a young boy, aged no more than twelve, looked up at Malik, a long brown fringe masking tear-filled brown eyes.

Four
    Once he had checked that the boy wasn’t injured, or not in any life-threatening way, Malik stepped out into the corridor and called the campus police, wishing now that he’d taken up the young security officer on his earlier offer. ‘This is Coach Shaw. I’m down at the stadium, and …’
    And what? He didn’t know how to describe what he’d found, or what had just gone on while he was yards away. Worse, he didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t been there.
    ‘Listen, get someone down here. Now. We have a situation. I found … Just get someone down here, okay?’
    He finished the call, and walked back into