Read Online The Bamboo Mirror by Faith Mortimer - Free Book Online Page B

herself go. The slovenliness and the weight gain. She seemed far older than her years; she was younger than Rebecca but acted ten years older. She wasn’t the woman I’d married and I’d tried. Oh God how I’d tried! But I wanted nothing of her now.
    Rebecca had given me a new purpose in life. She’d put a ‘spring’ in my step. I knew she was the reason I had a certain look in my eyes. Had Susan noticed? I doubt it; she noticed nothing else about me these days. And thinking about it, there was nothing for her to notice anyway and maybe never will be. We had never discussed leaving our spouses, nothing even remotely like that.
    I turn over, thinking about tomorrow. I feel a shaft of fear go through me. Will she be there?
    Leaving the house the next morning, I hasten to the park. All is quiet and lonely. There is no sign of either Rebecca or Megan. I let Bomber sniff around his favourite haunts, my hands deep inside my pockets, my back hunched over.
    Is this what it is like to lose someone? Will it always be like this from now on? My heart aches to hear her voice. My mobile rings.
    Feverishly dragging it from my pocket, I punch in the receive button.
    ‘Hello.’ Hoping, praying that it is Rebecca.
    ‘Is that John?’ A masculine voice enquires.
    I am snapped back to normality in a trice.
    ‘Detective Inspector Roberts here,’ he carries on. I am instantly alert.
    ‘I gather you knew Rebecca Chalmers?’
    I freeze at his words. Knew?
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’m afraid there’s been a terrible accident. We need to speak to you. Can you come down to Guildford police station?’
    I whisper a ‘yes’ down the phone. I am numb all over.
    ~~~~~
    ‘Hit-and-run,’ he says later. ‘Poor woman didn’t stand a chance. She was crossing the road with her dog.’ I look at him blankly. He returns the stare. ‘Did you know her very well?’
    I swallow; it’s painful to speak with a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg in your throat. ‘No, not well. We both have dogs you see. We sometimes met and the dogs would play together.’ I stretch the truth a little, hating myself in doing so. For some reason guilt hangs over me.
    ‘I see. I guess that is why you rang when they didn’t turn up?’
    My mind was in a whirl. They?
    Finally I found my voice. ‘Megan, Rebecca’s dog was there. I saw her – I said so on the telephone.’ I blurted out.
    He gives me a sad and thoughtful look. ‘They were both killed outright.’
    ‘No, no! That can’t be true! Megan was there. She was with me. That’s how I could ring Rebecca; her number was on the dog’s collar.’
    Shaking his head, Inspector Roberts looks down at his report. ‘Couldn’t have been, the dog was hit first. Mrs Chalmers walked out to help her dog and was then driven over afterwards – a second hit. Our witness says he couldn’t see the number but he recognised it as a green Mini. There can’t be too many registered around here. I don’t suppose you saw anything?’
    Shocked, I shake my head, a numbness creeping over my body.
    ‘Megan was there.’ I repeat in a whisper.
    Walking home, my eyes are misted with tears. How had Megan come to be there? I’d stroked her glossy coat; I’d seen the light shining in her eyes. Had Rebecca sent her? As a vision to tell me, to warn me what had happened? Were our feelings so strong that even in death she could reach out to me? Reach out to me, yet when alive it had been forbidden? I’d never have known her phone number or spoken to the police if I hadn’t seen it on Megan’s collar last night.
    I haven’t spoken to Susan yet. I know she’s visiting a neighbour this morning. Arriving home, I go straight to our garage and stare at Susan’s green Mini. Nausea washes over me as I see the huge dent in the bonnet. I catch a gleam of gold and I realise that dog hair is trapped in the dent.
    Tears roll unchecked down my face as I stand there shaking. Susan has known all along. But what has she known? There was nothing to know,