The Silence (Dc Goodhew 4) Read Free Page B

carriageway. She’d been run over. More than that, actually, but I think, to explain it all . . . I just can’t do that right now.
    Can I just say ‘multiple injuries’ and tell you the rest some other time? The press referred to it as suicide.
    The police were more cautious and listed other factors: bad weather, poor visibility, heavy traffic and so on. The A14 is notorious for its high accident rate. They never found out what had really happened. At least that’s what they told us, but I have a feeling that they did know. They just couldn’t prove it, and in the end, the verdict was left open.
    I couldn’t grasp it at first. It didn’t seem possible. Even at Rosie’s funeral it didn’t seem real, then finally, when I understood that she really was dead, the questions started to form in my head. Little things at first.
Had she ever made it to the cinema? Which film had she seen? Who had she gone with?
    I asked myself:
what was it that had prompted her to drive out anywhere near the A14?
    I also wondered how long it’d taken for her to die. I didn’t go to the inquest, Mum and Dad were there, but I could hardly ask them. It’s questions like that which make me worry that I have become overly morbid.
    My list of questions grows, and I can’t stop it. And when I don’t have proper explanations, I start to invent the answers. It’s a bad habit and I feel like my life is only half lit now, and instead of looking to the light, I’m turning towards the darkest corners. I’ve got it into my head that there is some evil lurking just out of sight. And I’m straining to see it.
    You see, I thought things couldn’t get worse, and that losing Rosie was enough.
    In fact, it was enough. But what has happened since is too much.

THREE
    Charlotte Stone knew the history of the Regal Cinema. She knew that it had opened in 1937 and managed to survive for sixty years, through the Second World War, a name change, and even a fire in the mid-1980s. Competition from new movie houses had come and gone, with their rise, demise and conversion into bingo halls. In the end it was the opening of the multiplex in the Grafton Complex that led it to closing its doors in 1997. However, the Regal was a survivor, and re-emerged two years later with its lower floors turned into the Regal pub, and the upper floors converted into the three-screen Arts Picture House.
    Charlotte Stone loved the old building’s interior – the curved staircases and the grand Art Deco light-fittings – but most of all she loved it because it was situated slap bang in the middle of St Andrews Street, not too far from her bakery counter job at the town centre branch of Sainsbury’s, but also near the shops she liked to browse, the busiest bars and her favourite pizzeria.
    She and Holly left the auditorium and returned to the bar for a post-movie drink, picking a small table halfway along the lounge, with a black-and-white poster of Vivien Leigh looking down on them. Vivien’s eyes were dark and clear, defined by perfectly separated long lashes. Charlotte looked at her friend and, despite the subdued lighting, she could clearly see dark smudges round her eyes.
    ‘Forgot your waterproof mascara?’ she asked.
    ‘It’s a good film.’
    ‘
The Notebook
’s a classic, made even better because we’re here, right?’
    ‘Okay, okay, I can see that watching it here has more atmosphere than seeing it on DVD. But I’d still have cried at home. I like films wherever I watch them – even on a plane I still enjoy them.’ Holly smiled. ‘I already know what you’re going to say next.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘What your dad always says.’ Holly slouched back in her chair, with her arms lying along the armrests and her fists planted squarely one on each side, “‘It’s like drinking a good beer from a plastic cup”.’
    Charlotte giggled at the accuracy of the vocal impression.
    As Holly’s mobile started to vibrate, she picked up her shoulder bag and reached for her