Page 33 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘There’ll be some simple, rational explanation,’ he said shortly. ‘Which is more than can be said for you … although you reallydidn’tseem to recognize me when we met. But then, you’ve probably seen me on the TV or read about me in the papers and forgotten about it, except in your subconscious.’
‘I only watch horror films and videos on my TV, and I don’tread newspapers,’ I told him. ‘What were you in the news for?’
I sincerely hoped it wasn’t wife-murder.
‘I was a foreign correspondent for a newspaper,’ he said tersely. ‘Got caught up by FARC guerrillas in Colombia about eighteen months ago and held hostage with another man – a photographer. I made it back out, he didn’t.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘No, you don’t,’ he said tightly. ‘He – Paul – wasn’tjust another man, he was my oldest friend.’
His deep-set eyes weren’t looking at me, but at something hellish only he could see.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said inadequately.
‘And you were right about my wife, Emma: she was pregnant when I left for the trip, and dead when I got back.’
‘Then it wasn’t your fault she died, was it?’ I said, relieved.
‘According to her mother it was,’ he said bitterly.‘Because I might have got her to hospital in time to save her if I’d been there. Emma thought if she got pregnant I’d give up the foreign trips and work closer to home instead, but she was wrong: so you see, I’m not a lucky person to have around.’
I eyed the distant door longingly.
‘Don’t worry, you’re safe enough with me,’ he said sardonically. ‘Only people close to me seem to meet a suddenend.’
He appeared to have forgotten he was still gripping my wrist, and my fingers were now turning an interesting shade of blue.
‘You know why seeing you gave me such a shock? I’ll tell you: Emma was so convinced there was life after death that she even made me swear when we married that if she died first I’d call her back – and she’d come. I knew it was all rubbish, but I promised anyway,and for a minute there I actually thought I’d got it all wrong.’
I eyed him narrowly, which he didn’t notice because all his thoughts were turned broodingly back into some dark place. He must really have loved his Emma.
His guilt had been strong enough to send me running: but then, everyone whose loved one dies feels guilty to some extent, or blames themselves, and coming straight after thehostage thing where he’d lost his friend, his wife’s death must have knocked him for six.
He wasn’t a murderer anyway, even if he looked infinitely capable of being one. (And had he really been a psychopathI don’t suppose he’d have been bothered about my having concussion.)
I sat up and got interested rather than witless with panic. ‘So you’ve tried to call Emma back, like she asked you?’
‘Oh yes! I gave my word, so I tried every charlatan I could find, including her mother, who calls herself a psychic and medium.’ He laughed shortly. ‘But there were no messages from beyond the grave, of course – except patently bogus ones. The dead don’t come back.’
‘That’s what Keturah thought too, but she was wrong. Mind you, she wasn’t just trying to contact her lover, but raise his physicalpresence!’
He ignored that, still locked away in some dark memory of his own, to the extent that he didn’t even seem to notice when I pried his fingers off my wrist one by one until I was free.
‘They said it was because I didn’t believe, that she couldn’t return and contact us. Her mother said that I’d failed her again,’ he added bleakly.
‘Yes, you did,’ I agreed, ‘and it’s so amazingly likeKeturah and Sylvanus that it’s uncanny!’
‘Who?’ he said, suddenly focusing on me again, which was a bit unnerving, especially since he was still sitting on the edge of the bed within pouncing distance.
‘Characters in my next book. Keturah tries to raise her dead lover through magic spells, but she’s afraid that what comes back won’t be quite Sylvanus – and she’s right too, as it turns out. Itisn’t.’
‘I don’t think I’d like your books,’ he said shortly.
‘Probably not. Well, it’s been an eventful night, but I really ought to be going. I meant to spend the whole night here, because my next chapter’s a take on the Haunted House Gothic and I always write better when I scare myself into it,’ I said regretfully, because now he didn’t appear to want to kill me, it seemed a pity to leave.
‘Haven’t you been frightened enough for one night?’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘You nearly ripped that cupboard door down, and that was just a bat.’
‘But I didn’t know that, I thought it was a bird. I have a fear of cupboards and birds.’
