Murder in Doubt by Rodney Strong

Author:Rodney Strong [Strong, Rodney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LoreQuinn Publishing
Published: 2019-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

(What’s after school care?)

He placed the lawnmower down and went back into the garage and picked up the power cord. Plugging one end into the wall socket, he fought and muttered and somehow tied his hand up as he attempted to unroll the long cord.

‘The school has a service where you can leave your kids in the hall and someone will supervise them. You have to pay for it, but it really helps if both parents work fulltime.’

(More school work!)

‘Not quite. They play games with their friends, and play computer games and Reed especially never wants to come home.’

Further conversation was drowned out by the noise of the mower. He found the rhythmic movement of walking back and forth quite soothing, and satisfying as the long bits of grass came down to meet their shorter compatriots.

A short while later he rubbed the sweat off his forehead and put everything back into the garage. Then he went and had a shower, with his eyes closed, and groped around to dry himself and pull some clothes on. Even in the short time that Debbie had been around, he had learned to put his clothes at the end of the bed before jumping in the shower. It was better than attempting to extract clothes from the drawers in the walk-in closet. The first time he’d done that, he found that he was wearing his underwear backwards and had accidentally put on one of Jennifer’s old T-shirts. A sight that was both embarrassing and a relief, as for a moment he’d thought his weight had rocketed up overnight and none of his T-shirts fit anymore.

He pottered around the house for a little while, eyeing up the laptop, before resisting the idea of turning it on. Christmas wasn’t far away and after that was four weeks of school holidays, involving bored children demanding to be entertained. It was never a productive time for writing, but it did mean he had a holiday, of sorts.

He had arranged to meet Reed and Rose at the main school gates after the bell, but when he arrived only Rose was there.

‘Where’s your brother?’ he asked as she climbed into the car.

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

His first reaction was irritation, then an uneasy feeling came as he considered Debbie and what had happened to her.

(I’m sure he’s okay. Maybe his class got held back. I remember this one time we were naughty, well it was only Christine but we all got punished and the teacher made us wait for ten minutes after the bell rang.)

Oliver fought his way through painfully slow-moving parents and snagged a carpark around the corner. When he got up to Reed’s classroom it was empty and his feeling of unease ramped up.

‘Maybe he’s on the playground?’ Rose suggested helpfully.

‘Let’s go and look.’ He took her by the hand and they walked between buildings in the direction of the playground. Before they could get there Reed popped out of the door to the administration office.

(See, I told you.)

‘Hi, Dad,’ Reed said glumly.

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