The Follower Read Online Free Page A

managed to drag Corey fully on to the floor of the back seat. He himself was squashed up, somehow, on the seat itself. He crawled over the body and out of the car. If there had been a rug in the station wagon it would have been better. But, crammed down on the floor, Corey certainly would not be visible from outside. No one would find him unless, for any reason, they looked inside the car itself.
    He knew he had already spent too much time up here, but he lingered, reviewing every move he had made, assuring himself that nothing had been overlooked. Satisfied, he slipped out of the Dead Storage room and, turning up his coat collar, walked through the central aisle past the cars and down the ramp.
    As he reached the foot of the ramp Joe was coming through the cars towards him carrying a spanner. Mark suppressed an impulse, born of physical debilitation, to run out of the garage. It didn’t matter very much now whether Joe saw him or not. So many other patrons would have come in and out so many times before the body was discovered.
    The attendant’s young face, beneath tousled red hair, was sleepy and bored.
    ‘Hiyah, Mr Liddon. Thought I heard a car just come in. Cold enough for you?’
    ‘Hi, Joe.’
    ‘Personally I like a White Christmas myself. Nice for the kids.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Well, good night, Mr Liddon.’
    ‘Good night, Joe.’
    ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Liddon.’
    Mark went out into the falling snow.
    A few minutes later he was back in the apartment. He went straight up to the bar. He found that there wasn’t much blood and what there was had missed the central rug and merely stained the marbleized floor. He wiped it up with a wet rag, rinsed the rag out in the kitchen and dropped it in the trash can.
    He poured himself a drink of water from the tap and sat down on a white enamel kitchen chair. He was feeling lightheaded from fatigue, but the almost automatic calm had not deserted him. Okay, he had carried out the first half of what had to be done. The body was safely stowed away until he chose to have it revealed. Now it remained to find Ellie.
    He tried gropingly to project himself into her mind. After something so terrible had happened, what sort of place would have meant safety to her? Some friends’ house, maybe? But he didn’t know her friends. A threatening blank wall seemed to loom in front of him. If only he knew Ellie better! That was the ironical part of it. He loved her, he thought he understood her, he knew every nuance of her body, the little mole under her left shoulder blade, the pattern of white and golden suntan on her skin. But he didn’t really know her as a husband can know a wife. How could he? He hadn’t had the time.
    Suddenly his mind wouldn’t function. If he tried to think any more now he might panic. It was better to put everything off till morning and get some sleep.
    He was half-way through the living-room on his way to bed when he thought of Corey’s overcoat. Obviously Corey would not have come here through the snow without a hat and coat. He opened the hall closet and saw there an unfamiliar snap brim brown felt hat, a Burberry and a small black briefcase. The sight of them as nearly defeated him as anything that had happened that evening. He knew that they would have to be disposed of. Now that he was irrevocably committed to the course of obliterating all connection between Corey and the apartment, it was far too dangerous to leave things here. He picked up the briefcase and unzipped it. It was full of papers. Almost certainly they would make a direct link with Corey. He tossed them on the hall table. He would burn them later.
    He put on Corey’s Burberry over his own coat. He tried on the hat. It was too small. He squashed it into a ball and pushed it into a pocket.
    With the briefcase under his arm, he made his third trip by way of the service elevator into the desolate world outside. It was after four; the dead hour of New York. He didn’t pass a soul as