Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Dead of Night

After his meeting with Calhoun, Bond went back to the motel where he was staying and made a phone call to the local police station. He was interested in Thomas Keller and wanted to know more. He arranged to meet an officer later that evening and went out to have an early supper of steak and fries in a nearby diner – a chilly little place called Lucie’s. The waitress poured him coffee, which he hadn’t asked for and didn’t drink. American coffee, the standby of every diner, was barely more than brown water as far as Bond was concerned. But the food was good and after a cigarette – a Chesterfield, which made him think briefly of Pussy Galore – he paid and left. The car he had rented was parked outside. He checked the map, then drove up to Salisbury.

The burned-out remains of Keller’s house were particularly shocking, an insult to the whole neighbourhood. It was as if a truck had come in the middle of the night and unloaded a great pile of charred wood and twisted metal. It had no right to be here. Bond drove slowly past the surrounding houses, all bright colours and perfect lawns. He could imagine children playing in each other’s backyards, watched over by grandparents sitting out on the porch, the whirr of a lawnmower on a warm summer’s evening. And if there were fights, if there was violence, it would be done quietly, behind drawn curtains. 1261 Rainbow Lane gave the lie to all that. It was a black, ugly advertisement for hatred, violence and desperation; all those things that had no place in the American dream.

There was nobody in sight as Bond climbed out of his rented car and stood there, taking in the charred, sooty smell that lingers long after a fire. The grass had already begun to grow wild, the weeds gleefully grabbing the opportunity to break out. Someone had put up a sign: KEEP OUT. But there was no point in going any further. Bond could see at a glance that all the furniture and anything of any value had been removed. Eventually the bulldozers would come and remove the rest and soon Thomas Keller and his wife, along with all their secrets, would be forgotten.

A car pulled in behind him. Bond turned and saw that it was a Chevrolet Cruiser with the words ‘Salisbury Police Department’ printed on the door. A stolid, round-faced officer got out, wearing a shirt and tie with his badge pinned to his breast. He seemed to exude reliability and experience. He was exactly the sort of man that law-abiding citizens would want to have around.

‘Mr Bond?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. Thank you for coming out.’

‘That’s all right, sir. How can I help you?’

‘Did you investigate what happened here?’

‘Yes, sir. The Kellers . . . Thomas and Gloria. They’d been here quite a while. Kept themselves to themselves, but even so, plenty of people knew them. Met them in church or down at the mall.

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