The Silent Suspect by Nell Pattison (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .TXT) 📗

THE SILENT SUSPECT

Nell Pattison

Copyright

Published by AVON

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2021

Copyright © Nell Pattison 2021

Cover design by whittakerbookdesign.com © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover photograph © Rekha Garton/Trevillion Images

Nell Pattison asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008418540

Ebook Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008418557

Version: 2021-03-01

Dedication

For my parents, Glynis and Mark

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Tuesday 16th April

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Ten hours before the fire

Chapter 4: Wednesday 17th April

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Eight hours before the fire

Chapter 8: Thursday 18th April

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Six hours before the fire

Chapter 12: Friday 19th April

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Four hours before the fire

Chapter 15: Saturday 20th April

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Three hours before the fire

Chapter 19: Sunday 21st April

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Two hours before the fire

Chapter 23: Monday 22nd April

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Ninety minutes before the fire

Chapter 27: Tuesday 23rd April

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

One hour before the fire

Chapter 31: Wednesday 24th April

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Fifteen minutes before the fire

Chapter 34: Thursday 25th April

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

After

Chapter 37

Chapter 38: Friday 26th April

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

There was broken glass on the floor. Nadia paused in the doorway. The house felt empty, but she had to check every room before she was certain. Once she was sure she was alone, she breathed a little easier. After fetching a dustpan and brush, she cleared up the glass, straightening the furniture that had been moved. She noticed a couple of cigarette burns on the sofa but swallowed down her anger.

When she was happy the house had been returned to a more orderly state, she went through to the kitchen and flicked the kettle on. Tea was always a good idea – and making it would give her some time to think. Nadia felt better, talking to Karen and getting everything off her chest, and now hopefully something would change. It had to. She wasn’t prepared to just sit back and let herself be taken advantage of, not this time. There was too much at stake. She knew that people assumed she would be a pushover, because she was deaf, and because she liked to keep herself to herself. But that didn’t mean she was going to put up with this. She wasn’t going to let herself be scared any more.

By the time she felt the cord begin to tighten around her neck, it was too late. The cup of tea in her hand crashed to the floor, liquid seeping into her skirt when she fell. Within a few minutes, flames were licking at the back door, creeping across the cheap vinyl flooring. Smoke began to fill the room slowly but surely, a grey cloud hanging above the body lying there. There was a cracking sound as the heat from the flames split open something on one of the shelves, then a sudden shower of glass and liquid as a bottle of vodka exploded. The small rain of alcohol fuelled the fire further, making the flames jump and spread along the worktop. Below it all, Nadia lay, unmoving, the only light in her unseeing eyes the reflection of the fire.

Chapter 1

Tuesday 16th April

I stared at Max, my mouth hanging open. The bustling sounds of the restaurant around me seemed to fade away. What?

He swallowed. I asked if you would like to move in with me. His hands shook slightly with nerves as he signed the words again. Max was profoundly deaf, and we almost always communicated in British Sign Language.

It had been a nice evening, at first. I had arranged for us to have dinner together at a fancy Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Scunthorpe. It was Max’s birthday, and I’d tried to make the effort.

The meal had been fantastic, some of the best food I’d had in a long time, and the romantic atmosphere in the restaurant had been lovely. After we’d eaten dessert, we went to sit in the bar for a drink, and I had thought to myself how perfect it was – I was finally in a position where I could say I was happy with my life. I was enjoying my job, and was finally feeling financially stable with the regular salary from interpreting for Sasha, a profoundly deaf social worker. From Monday to Wednesday I worked with her, whether that was meeting hearing clients or interpreting for her in professional meetings, and sometimes supporting her deaf clients in meetings too. I had the rest of the week to take on any freelance jobs that came my way. My relationship with Max was perfect – we saw each other regularly, but still had our own separate spaces. We’d met when I first worked for the police just over a year earlier, and being with him had helped me to overcome my fear of being in a relationship, after what had happened before.

Max had reached over and taken my glass of wine from me, placing it carefully on the table.

I want all of your attention on me