LITMIR.BIZ

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think you were right.’ Eddie’s voice was thick and his tongue felt a little too large for his mouth. ‘I mean, it didn’t hurt anyone.’

      Briefly she patted his hand. ‘Exactly. In a way, quite the reverse: I like to think I take my job very seriously, that I’ve made a difference for a lot of children.’

      ‘What was your real name, then?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter. I gave it to Angie, and it’s buried with her. Look forward, that’s my motto. Don’t look back. After the funeral I just waited until the dust had settled, and then I wrote to Mrs Hawley-Minton. And from there everything’s gone like a dream.’ She broke off and rested her head in her hands. ‘Until now.’ Her voice was almost inaudible. ‘It’s such a shame – just as everything was going so well.’

      ‘I’ll talk to my mother. I’ll make her see sense.’

      ‘You’re a darling. But I don’t think you’ll succeed.’

      ‘Why not?’ He was almost shouting now and heads turned towards him.

      ‘Hush, keep your voice down.’

      ‘She wouldn’t like us both to go away. She’d be lonely.’

      ‘She’s jealous of us. Don’t you see? I wish I were richer – then we could get somewhere together, just you and me. As friends, I mean, just good friends. Would you like that?’

      ‘Yes. Oh God, yes.’

      There was a long pause, filled with the noise from the rest of the restaurant.

      Angel picked up the bottle. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

      Eddie said, elaborately casual, ‘What sort of children do you look after? You could always bring them to the house if you wanted. For tea, I mean. Make a sort of treat for them.’

      ‘They often want to see where I live. But I don’t think the idea would go down very well with your mother.’

      Another silence stretched between them, heavy with silent suggestions and questions. Angel refilled their glasses.

      ‘Drink up.’ She held up her glass and clinked it against his. ‘This may be our last chance of a celebration, so we’d better make the most of it.’

      They finished that bottle before they left. By now Eddie was very drunk. Angel had to support him up the stairs. In Frith Street the fresh air made his head spin and the light seemed very bright. He vomited partly into the gutter and partly on the bonnet of a parked car.

      ‘There, there,’ Angel said, patting his arm. ‘Better out than in.’ Later he heard her calling out in her patrician voice: ‘Taxi! Taxi!’

      Eddie remembered little more of the evening. Angel took him home. He could not remember seeing his mother – it was very late, so perhaps she was asleep.

      ‘Come on,’ she said when they got home. ‘Up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire.’

      In his mind there was a picture of the palm of Angel’s right hand extended towards him with three white tablets in the middle of it.

      ‘Take these. Otherwise you’re going to feel terrible in the morning.’

      He must have managed to swallow them. After that he fell into a dark, silent pit. The first thing that made an impression on him, hours later, was the pain in his head. This was followed, after an immeasurable period of time, by the discovery that his bladder was extremely full. Later still, he realized that if anything the headache was worse. He dozed on, reluctant to leave the peace of the pit and physically unable to cope with the complicated business of getting out of bed.

      The next time he woke the light on the other side of the curtains was much brighter, and the sight of it made his headache worse. Someone was shaking him.

      ‘Eddie. Eddie.’

      Shocked, he turned over. As far as he knew Angel had never been in his room before. What would his mother say when she found out?

      Daylight poured through the open door. Angel shimmered so brightly that he could not look at her. She was wearing her long white robe and, though her face was immaculately made up, her hair was still confined to its snood. His eyelids began to droop.

      ‘Eddie,’ Angel called. ‘Eddie, wake up.’

7

      ‘… we are somewhat more than our selves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul.’

      Religio Medici, II, 11

      Sally had not expected to sleep on Saturday night, the second since Lucy’s disappearance. Part of her was determined to stay awake in case Lucy needed her. When David Byfield rang with the news that Michael was safe, however, tiredness dropped over her like a blanket.

      Judith, the policewoman who had been on duty on Friday, and who had relieved Yvonne in the early evening, took advantage of this weakness. She persuaded Sally to go to bed, brought her a cup of cocoa and cajoled her into taking another sleeping tablet.

      ‘It’ll just send you to sleep,’ Judith said, her Welsh voice rising and falling like a boat on a gentle swell. ‘It’s not one of these long-term ones that knock you out for ages. There’s no point in you flogging yourself to keep awake.’

      ‘But what if – ?’

      ‘If there’s any news, I promise I’ll fetch you straightaway.’

      Sally took the tablet and drank her cocoa. Judith lingered for a moment, her eyes moving round the room.

      ‘Do you want something to read? A magazine?’

      ‘Could you pass me the books over there? The ones on the chest of drawers.’

      Judith brought them to her. ‘I’ll look in a little later. See how you’re doing.’

      Sally nodded. The door closed behind Judith and she was at last alone. Lucy. Her eyes smarted with tears. She wanted to bang her head against the wall and scream and scream.

      Miss Oliphant’s books lay before her on the duvet: unfinished business that would normally have nagged Sally until she had dealt with it. She touched their covers one by one with the fingertips of her right hand. The Bible. The Prayer Book. The Religio Medici. The first two were bound in worn black leather, dry with age, their spines cracking and in places breaking away from the covers. Sally knew without looking that the paper would be so thin that it was almost invisible, and that the type would be so small that even someone with 20:20 vision would have an effort to read it. The Religio Medici had a larger typeface but the book was as battered as the others. All three smelled musty: tired, repulsive and unwashed. Sally shivered, reluctant to open any of them. Each book might be a miniature Pandora’s Box full of unexpected evils.

      ‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ David Byfield had told her on the telephone.

      ‘Then who else do you suggest? God?’

      There was a silence at the other end. Then David said dryly, ‘The person who took Lucy, perhaps.’ He had overridden her attempt to interrupt. ‘Concentrate on this: you mustn’t worry about Michael. He’ll sleep it off tonight and be with you tomorrow. You mustn’t blame him, either, or yourself. Do you understand, Sally? It’s most important. Nor must you stop hoping and praying.’

      ‘I can’t pray.’

      ‘Of course you can.’

      ‘Listen,’ Sally began, ‘I don’t like –’

      ‘Don’t argue. Pray, go to bed and try to sleep. That is the best thing you can do.’

      David Byfield’s voice had sounded unexpectedly youthful over the phone. Like Derek Cutter, the old man had been in full pastoral

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