Revolt by Vernon Coleman

Author:Vernon Coleman [Coleman, Vernon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780953506163
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2014-06-16T04:30:00+00:00

Chapter 19

There are, Tom realised, different types of silence. This was the deepest, quietest silence he had ever heard. Some silences aren’t really silences at all. People stop talking but they do other things that make other noises. They clink teacups, they rustle pieces of paper, they blow their noses, they clear their throats, they scratch their heads, they recross their legs.

This was a true silence. A time without sound. The room was so silent that Tom could hear an alarm clock ticking in the house next door. He could hear four people breathing. He could feel his heart beating so fast he felt sure that it would explode. He laughed nervously and waved a hand, as though to suggest that this was just his aunt’s craziness talking.

‘Both of them,’ said Tom’s aunt, who seemed unaware that her words had had such an effect. She lowered her voice, as though about to share a secret. ‘It’s very easy,’ she added, confidentially. ‘You just hit them with a frying pan.’

Everyone in the room looked at her. Two of the people in the room didn’t really believe what they’d heard. The other two didn’t want to believe that they’d heard it.

‘You hit them with a frying pan,’ she repeated. She made a hitting movement with her right hand; her fingers formed into a fist as though holding the handle of a frying pan. She looked around at the open mouths and bewildered, slightly frightened faces. ‘One just fell down the stairs so we didn’t really kill that one. But we finished him off. And we killed the other one with the frying pan,’ she said. She turned to Tom. ‘We should put two notches in the frying pan handle,’ she said.

Dalby looked at Tom and then at Dorothy. He sat down again. Gladwys sat down too.

‘She’s not joking is she?’ said Dalby. He looked first at Tom and then at Dorothy.

‘No,’ said Tom very softly. This was, he felt, the moment of truth. They were about to find out just how much they could trust their visitors. He took a deep breath. ‘No, she’s not joking.’

‘What did you do with the bodies?’ asked Gladwys.

‘We took them to the hospital,’ said Dorothy. ‘We put them on gurneys, those flat half-stretcher half-trolley things they have in hospitals, and left both of them in a corridor.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last Thursday.’

‘Five days ago?’ Tom nodded.

‘And nothing has happened?’

He shook his head.

‘The police haven’t been round?’

‘No.’

‘Do you think you got away with it?’

‘Hope so,’ said Dorothy.

‘Why haven’t we heard anything about it?’ asked Gladwys. ‘Has it been on the Telescreen?’

‘Maybe the police are stupid,’ said Dalby.

‘Maybe they are,’ said Tom firmly. ‘They rely on sneaks and computers to do everything for them. Most of them never leave their offices. But unless computers are programmed they don’t think round corners. No sprout has been murdered for years and so my guess is that they wouldn’t consider it as a possibility.’ He hesitated. ‘The only other explanation I can think

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