LITMIR.BIZ

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      How he would laugh! He’d laugh as violently as he was weeping now.

      When at last he could control his sobs he took the bits of paper to his room, stuffed them into an envelope and put it in a drawer by his bed. There it had stayed until he’d moved out. Then he’d hidden it away in the little attic, asking his mother to be sure never to touch his things.

      As the years passed he’d sometimes thought of the day that would come when he could read her pathetic words and jeer at her memory. Now that day was here.

      He worked feverishly, fixing the pieces together. But gradually his tension increased. Something was wrong. No, it was impossible. Be patient! It would come right.

      But at last he could no longer delude himself. With every tiny wisp of paper scrutinised to no avail, with every last chance gone, he slammed his fist into the wall again and again.

      When there was no word, and her calls went unanswered, Cassie came to a final reluctant decision. As she packed she chided herself for imagining that things could ever have been different. Her flesh was still warm from their encounters the night before, but she should never have fooled herself.

      He was punishing her by abandoning her in the way he felt she’d abandoned him. The generous person he’d once been would never have taken such cruel, carefully thought out vengeance, but now he was a different man, one she didn’t know.

      She called the airport and booked herself onto the evening flight to London. There! It was done.

      ‘You are leaving?’ asked Vera, who’d been listening.

      ‘Yes, I have to. Would you please give this to Marcel?’ She handed over a sealed envelope. Inside was a small piece of paper, on which she’d written: ‘It’s better this way. I’m sure you agree. Cassie.’

      ‘Can’t you wait just a little?’ Vera begged.

      ‘No, I’ve stayed too long already.’

      Take-off was not for three hours but she felt an urgent need to get away at once. She took a taxi to the airport and sat, trying not to brood. She should never have come to this place, never dreamed that the terrible wrongs of the past could be put right. How triumphant he would feel, knowing his snub had driven her away! How glad he would be to be rid of her!

      At last it was time to check in. She rose and joined the queue. She had almost reached the front when a yell rent the air.

       ‘Cassie!’

      Everyone looked up to see the man standing at the top of a flight of stairs, but he saw none of them. His eyes were fixed only on her as he hurled himself down at breakneck speed and ran to her so fast that he had to seize her in order to steady himself.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded frantically.

      ‘I’m going home.’

      ‘You’re staying here.’

      ‘Let go of me.’

      ‘No!’ He was holding her in an unbreakable grip. ‘You can either agree to come back with me, or we can fight it out right here and now. Which?’

      ‘You’re impossible!’

      ‘It took you ten years to discover that? I thought you were clever. Yes or no?’ ‘All right—yes.’

      ‘Good. Is this yours?’ He lifted her suitcase with one hand while still holding her wrist with the other. Plainly he was taking no chances.

      In this awkward fashion they made it out of the building to where the car from La Couronne was waiting for them. While the chauffeur loaded the suitcase Marcel guided her into the back and drew the glass partition across, isolating them. As the car sped through the Paris traffic he kept hold of her hand.

      ‘There’s no need to grip me so tightly,’ she said. ‘I’m hardly going to jump out here.’

      ‘I’m taking no chances. You could vanish at any time. You’ve done it twice, you won’t do it to me again. You can count on that.’

      ‘I went because you made it so obvious that you wanted to be rid of me.’

      ‘Are you mad?’ he demanded.

      ‘I’m not the one who vanished into thin air. When a woman awakes to find the man gone in the morning that’s a pretty clear message.’

      ‘Tell me about vanishing into thin air,’ he growled. ‘You’re the expert.’

      ‘I left a note with Vera—’

      ‘I didn’t mean today.’ The words came out as a cry of pain, and she cursed herself for stupidity.

      ‘No, I guess not. I’m sorry. So when you left this morning, that was your way of paying me back?’

      ‘I went because I had to, but … things happened. I never meant to stay away so long. When I got back and Vera told me you’d left for England I couldn’t believe it. I tried to call you but you’d turned your phone off—like last time.’

      She drew a sharp breath. Something in his voice, his eyes, revealed all his suffering as no mere words could have done.

      ‘But why did you have to dash off?’ she asked.

      ‘To read the letter you wrote me ten years ago.’

      ‘But you said you never got it.’

      ‘No, I said I never read it. I was so blazing mad I tore it up without reading it.’

      ‘Then how could you read it now?’

      ‘Because I kept it,’ he said savagely. ‘Fool that I am, I kept it.’

      She could hardly believe her ears. ‘And you never—in all these years—?’

      ‘No, I never read it. But neither did I throw it away. Today I went to my mother’s home where it’s been stored, meaning to fit it together. But it isn’t all there. Some of the pieces are lost. I came straight back to find you, and you were gone. Vera heard you booking the flight so I had to act fast.’

      ‘You only just got there in time,’ she murmured.

      ‘Well, actually—I have a friend who works in airport security. I called him. You wouldn’t have been allowed to get on that plane.’

      ‘What? You actually dared—?’

      ‘I couldn’t risk you getting away. It’s too important.’

      ‘And suppose I want to get away?’

      He looked at her in silence. Words could never have said so clearly that what she wanted played no part in this. This was a man driven by demons that were too strong for him, and perhaps also for her.

      ‘So you want me to explain the missing pieces?’ she guessed.

      ‘If you can remember them.’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. ‘I can remember everything.’

      They had reached La Couronne. Marcel hurried her inside, his hand still on her arm. Several people tried to attract his attention, but he never saw them. Only one thing mattered now.

      As soon as they were inside his apartment he locked the door. She almost told him there was no need, but then kept silent. Marcel was in the grip of an obsession and she, of all people, couldn’t say it was irrational. She knew a burst of pity for him, standing on the edge of a dangerous pit. If he fell into its fearsome depths, wouldn’t she be at least partly to blame?

      He held out the letter, where she could see tiny scraps stuck onto a base sheet, but with gaping holes. ‘Do you recognise this?’ he demanded. ‘Yes, of course.’

      He thrust it into her hands and turned away. ‘Read it to me.’ It felt weird to see the words over which she’d struggled so hard and wept so many tears.

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