Safe No Longer by Gayle Curtis

Author:Gayle Curtis [Curtis, Gayle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY

THE LESTER BARCLAY SHOW

FIVE YEARS LATER

Rita’s phone had buzzed with an unrecognised number during the break. Four times it rang, but whenever she answered it the line was quiet on the other end. She had switched it off before filming began again.

Lester continued.

‘There were two more people found dead on Blue Green Square and, sadly, they were your parents, weren’t they?’

Rita nodded, clenching her jaw.

‘Can you tell us about that? You were the one who found them. That must have been quite a shock?’

Working in close proximity to her parents’ house, Rita had noticed their curtains were closed in the afternoon. She’d just decided this wasn’t unusual in the heat – everyone was being advised to shut their windows and curtains, to keep their houses cool, with the summer being so unbearably hot – when she noticed the milk festering on the doorstep and newspapers hanging out of the post box.

Rita had known they were dead as soon as she’d stepped out of the unmarked police car. She ignored the front door, instead walking straight down the side of the large Georgian house, heading for the back to see if there was any sign of life. All the drapes were closed, as they were at the front. Through the thin glass of the windows she could hear a radio playing and Jade barking. This gave her some brief hope, but it was quickly dashed when she peered through a gap in the curtain of the old French doors in the kitchen and saw her father sitting in a chair, eyes wide and clouded like opals, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, with a book open and their tabby cat perched on the top. Hearing Rita outside, the cat woke up and ran to the door. It wasn’t until later that she realised how important the cat would be in the whole story.

The French windows had given way easily enough, and Rita had found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, also dead, the awful stench of decay hanging in the stifling air. She remembered there being something eerie about the high-ceilinged, echoey room, as if she were seeing it for the first time, and she didn’t know if it was because the windows were so narrow, giving the room a gloomy appearance, or if it was the cold, pastel blue gloss on the walls. The sills were covered in spider plants, brown and crisp from the heat. Rita had noticed how quiet it was, apart from the radio; there was a thick stillness in the air, making her feel nauseous, and she’d had to sit down before she passed out.

‘What was the cause of death?’ Lester brought her back into the studio.

‘Carbon monoxide poisoning.’ Rita leant forward and reached for her glass of water. ‘It was a very difficult time.’

‘You continued to work on Operation Ladybird though?’

‘I had to. In a strange way, work kept me sane. But it’s still very hard to talk about.’ Rita shifted uncomfortably.

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