Reeves The Weatherman

A fast paced, tense thriller that you won't be able to put down
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-915798-56-5
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

'I'm going to tell you about the worst thing that ever happened to me.' Will's a nice guy. So when he takes a shortcut to the tube station after a few beers with his mates from work, he steps out of the way of the fellow who's staggering towards him. But he - deliberately - moves back into his path. They knock each other as they pass. Moments later one man is dead and another's life is changed forever. Or is it? There are no CCTV cameras. There was no one else in the out-of-the-way alley. Maybe the world doesn't have to end for Will after all. But there's always someone watching . . . and Will's life is about to implode.

Royston Reeves is a psychological thriller writer from Essex, England. After spending years in advertising writing TV scripts, newspaper ads and billboards, Royston's first novel, The Weatherman, will be published in November 2023. Reeves is the Head of Strategy for JOE Media and he currently lives in the Kent countryside with his wife, Carly, and daughter, Hunter-Rose.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reeves, Royston

Leseproben

One of them glanced up and locked eyes with me. Instinctively, I ducked down. She’d seen me.

I went back to my desk, inexplicably clutching a wad of blank paper from the machine. My mouth had gone dry. As I tentatively sat down, the boardroom door swung open. My boss leaned around the corner and gestured me in with a wave.

I swallowed hard and got up; my heart beginning to pound in my chest. I needed to get ahead of the sweat beads that would inevitably start emerging from my forehead in there, so I went to the bathroom first. I let the tap run for a good thirty seconds to let it go really cold, before scooping a few handfuls straight onto my red-hot face. I scooped a final handful of water into my dry mouth and grabbed some hand towels.

.

Would the police find it weird if I wore sunglasses to this meeting? I had an overwhelming urge to hide behind some sunglasses. I pushed the boardroom door open and there they were. My boss Julia, the Finance Director Brian and two police officers, one male, one female.

‘Hello,’ I croaked, ‘what’s going on?’

For a few horrible moments they all just stared at me in silence.

‘This is Will,’ announced Julia, pulling out a chair next to her. The female police officer looked up at me, blankly. The male one, wearing an expensive looking pair of silver-framed glasses, gestured with his palm towards the chair Julia had pulled out.

‘Hello, Will. My name is Detective Inspector Matt Probert, this is Police Sergeant Sara Kane.’

I nodded at Kane and forced a smile at Probert.

‘So, what’s going on?’ I blurted with feigned intrigue. In my effort to pretend I was finding the drama exciting and a bit fun I half-shouted it. Probert opened a pocketbook in front of him and took out a photograph, sliding it towards me.

‘You may have heard about an incident on Wednesday night, up near the train station? We’re trying to get a picture of the events going on around there at that time.’ I blinked at the inspector, emotionless as possible. My mouth and throat felt like they’d been densely packed with cotton wool.

‘Sorry… incident?’

The police officers looked at each other and Kane answered. She had a hard, fucking face, oh my goodness. Those oddly angled, sarcastic eyes that let you know someone’s going to be hard work. She was attractive, no doubt about it. Probably early or mid-thirties I thought.

She had lovely fresh-looking skin and shoulder length dark blond hair that curled a little at the bottom. Her mouth was perfectly formed, with a straight top lip framing a beautiful row of straight, white teeth.

‘There was a fatal incident in the alleyway leading up to the train station on Wednesday night between 21:15 and 21:50,’ she said. Her studious, brown eyes went right through me. She had a tone like an old schoolmaster, impatient and superior.

‘Oh yeah! I saw the sign up next to—’

‘Next to Limon café,’ she interrupted. She must have known I was going to pretend to claw for the name of the café. Somehow I thought pretending I couldn’t remember the name of the place might detach me further from the inquiry. She seemed to be ahead of that, however.

Probert nodded towards Brian. ‘You guys were in the pub across the green that night? Your colleague here mentioned you were there. Do you mind if we have a chat?’

‘… yeah, ok! Not sure how much help I can be though.’ I smiled awkwardly and glanced around the table for water or something. Both Probert and Kane had glasses of water sitting in front of them, untouched. I imagined just grabbing one and taking a long sip from it. I could pretend I thought it was a spare glass. I could hear my own mouth clacking open and closed and I assumed everybody else could, too.

‘Anything you can remember about that evening could be helpful,’ Probert continued. He pulled a biro from the chest pocket of his jacket. ‘Do you know what time you left?’

I puffed my cheeks out and raised my eyes to the ceiling. ‘Ahh, half ten-ish?’ My mind was whirring. Why hadn’t I worked up a narrative yet? What was my ?

Probert glanced at Brian. Brian squinted at me slightly before looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. He wasn’t going to correct me, but his expression seemed to ask,

I resolved to get in there first. ‘No, wait, hang on, it must have been earlier than that. The football was still going, so it must’ve been earlier. It must’ve been closer to half nine, quarter to ten.’

Probert nodded; Kane wrote something down.

‘Yeah, because I left before you didn’t I,’ I said, nodding towards Brian as if I’d just remembered.

‘Yeah, I think left the pub at half ten,’ replied Brian.

‘Which route did you take home?’ asked Kane. ‘Do pass through Farringdon?’

Probert intervened. ‘Sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing, by the way. Won’t take long, we’re just trying to piece things together and get a picture of everything that night. The landlord at The Three Kings said you lot were in around that time, so we just need to know if anyone saw anything out of the ordinary, and if you’re able to point us in the direction of anyone else who was in the pub… any details you can think of might help us build a better picture.’

My whole mood suddenly lightened. I felt liberated.

‘Out of the ordinary…’

I rubbed the sides of my head and pretended to rack my brain.

Kane stuck her oar back in. ‘What would really help is if you could just retrace the walk for us. Did you go through Farringdon?’

‘Yes, I did.’ I replied. ‘I go through there on my way home.’

I resolved to explain my entire journey back to the station, just as it had happened, but without the banker. I told them about the shortcut; I told them I’d cut through there and I’d been chatting to a mate on WhatsApp. To show how helpful I was, I went back to my desk and got my phone. I showed them the conversation Jack and I had been having, pointing out the exact times of the messages, all the while knowing that this conversation had taken place minutes from the death of the banker. It’s pretty much an alibi. Nobody ever killed anyone while they were having a light-hearted chat with a mate on WhatsApp.

Julia’s mobile phone rang. She apologised as she got up to answer it, explaining that someone was coming to fix the printer later that morning. I continued my story; told them I hadn’t seen anyone or anything, but that I hadn’t been particularly vigilant because I was texting and listening to a podcast.

I was in proper storytelling mode now, embellishing my story with little details to build out this parallel version of the truth.

With every passing second, I was growing in confidence. We’d reached the end of my usefulness to them. I began showboating a little, probing with questions like a curious, innocent person might:

‘How about DNA and all that? Could you get anything? Sorry, I watch a lot of documentaries.’

Probert smiled awkwardly, but neither he or Kane answered. Kane just continued staring at me, unwavering. I smiled at her.

Julia re-entered.

‘Is it this printer that’s broken?’ asked Kane, gesturing towards the huge printer-photocopier whose form you could vaguely make out through the frosted glass.

‘Yes,’ replied Julia. ‘And it’s becoming the bane of all our lives, I’m afraid. It’s been broken for nearly a week and it’s supposed to be fully serviced.’

We all started to rise and collect our bits and pieces from the table. But not for Kane. She remained seated, still looking bemused.

‘Weren’t you printing something over there this morning, Will?’ She half-smiled and motioned at the printer through the frosted glass.

Everyone looked at me.

‘No,’ I said.

She continued staring.

‘Oh! Well… yeah. I sent something to print and then it was broken.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Kane.

For a few moments, everyone looked at everyone else. Eventually Kane came back.

‘But it’s been broken for a week?’

This weird stillness had come back into the atmosphere.

‘Yeah, something like that,’ I said, glancing at Julia.

Kane was still seated, still staring at me. ‘Would you like some water?’ she asked, pushing her untouched glass of water towards me.

I shot a bemused look at Julia and Brian. ‘I’m good...