Read Online Bereft by Chris Womersley - Free Book Online Page B

a mass grave. In bloody France, of all places. Cold and alone. Quite dead. What would you say to her? What would you say to a woman like that, eh? What would you say to her husband?”
    The woman in question was perched in a green armchair. Her thin and restless fingers wrung a pair of black gloves in her lap, as if to death. Her husband stood at her shoulder and each of them wore a startled, pensive expression like they had steeled themselves for bad news so many times that their faces were permanently set thus.
    â€œThey are tired of sympathy,” Mrs. Cranshaw went on. “Of people’s kind words and the newspaper chatter about honour and bravery and sacrifice. They need a sign from their boys. Would you begrudge them that? Where should they go, these people? To church ?” And she let go of his arm as if ridding herself of an ungrateful child.
    Quinn felt humiliated and prepared to take his leave, but a warm hush descended on the gathering as three girls filed in with heads lowered. They took their places at a long table upon which were scrolls of paper, one before each girl. The girls were similar, aside from the fact that two were blonde while the last, the prettiest, had hair the colour of damp rust. Again he scanned the room, hoping to depart, but at that moment a maid had closed the door, trapping him in the parlour.

    Quinn heard a soft crack behind him. He leaped to his feet and fumbled with his revolver. He faced the direction of the noise. It sounded as though someone were stepping about in the darkness beyond the fire’s light. He aimed and cocked the weapon. “Who’s there?” he hissed. “Show yourself.”
    He angled his head to give his right ear—which he perceived to be less damaged—the chance to detect something but heard nothing more. He stayed where he was, just breathing. The sodden sponges of his damn ears. Again he moved his head this way and that, straining to hear. There was only the sputtering growl of the nearby fire.
    Then, to his right, in the fire’s flicker, he made out something gathered about a low bush. It was several feet away, unclear in the darkness. He stared until he could see the glint of silver or brass. He tensed. A piece of cloth. A torn piece of cloth. Now a button. Two buttons. A man’s uniform, English by the look of it. He blinked and peered further. A hand, unattached to any limb, the wrist a bloody tangle of wiry veins and gristle blackened where it had been ripped from the forearm. There was a muddy boot on the ground.
    Then the snap of a twig behind him. Without thinking he wheeled and fired his gun, always surprised at the weapon’s sullen buck. The revolver’s blue smoke hung in the night air. A whiff of gunpowder. He stood unmoving. Nothing.
    After several minutes, as he prepared to sit again, convinced he had imagined the entire thing, the crash of something thumping through the undergrowth some distance away, the noise of it growing ever fainter, retreating along the ridge. Quinn swore. Was it possible his sister’s murderer knew already he had returned, and sought to kill him? His heart quickened. He checked his revolver. He waited. He prayed.

Part Two
    THE GIRL

    8

    T he next morning, Quinn opened his eyes from a tangled sleep before dawn. The light was thin, aquatic. The air was fresh and cold. He was lying on his side beneath his trench coat, hands clamped between his thighs for warmth.
    The fire was now little more than a smoking pile of grey shards. Startled, he looked around. There, on the other side of the fire, squatted a rangy, blonde-haired girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old, who was watching him with frank interest. Quinn sat up and prepared to draw his revolver, but the girl didn’t move. She appeared to be alone.
    â€œWho are you?” he asked.
    The girl sniffed and wiped a hand under her nose. She wore a ragged dress that might once have been blue but had faded to the colour