Read Online Thunder in the Blood by Graham Hurley - Free Book Online

said at last. ‘How come we’ve ended up this way? What’s he
done?’
    I stayed another hour, before phoning for a taxi that took an age to appear. I asked her about Priddy, the kind of relationship he’d had with her husband, trying to determine what she hadn’t told me, but the deeper I probed, the more I realized that she knew very little about Priddy and probably cared even less. Her real concern was Clive. Her husband’s safety. Her husband’s sanity. When I tried to assure her that he was in no danger, she shook her head.
    ‘He’s spying,’ she said flatly.
    ‘He’s giving us information. Keeping his eyes open. Keeping us in touch. If I tell you he’s a brave man, you’ll get the wrong idea. He isn’t at risk. He’s simply doing …’ I hesitated.
    ‘He’s spying,’ she said again. ‘He’s a spy.’
    ‘OK.’ I nodded. ‘He’s a spy.’
    Beth was silent for a moment, staring at the wall. ‘And me?’ she said at last, then, gesturing upstairs: ‘Us?’
    ‘You’re his wife. You come before everything.’
    She nodded, gazing round the room, thinking about it, her eyes moist again. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I think that’s his problem. If I didn’t love him, it wouldn’t matter.’
    The taxi arrived soon afterwards. I stood in the pool of light beneath the porch, thanking Beth for her time, looking back at the chilly chaos that was all she had left of the marriage. The rapport we’d established earlier had somehow gone. I was, by the evening’s end, just another messenger from that other world that had taken her husband away.
    Turning up my collar against the driving rain, I fumbled in my pocket and scribbled the number of my Fulham flat. It wasn’t much, but it was the closest I could get to telling her that I really wanted to help. In truth, I hadn’t a clue about the small print, about what her husband was really up to, but in the parlance of my new trade, that was strictly irrelevant. What mattered, in professional terms, was trying to insulate her against further contacts. I hoped that I’d done that. I hoped she wouldn’t talk to the media, or discuss it with friends. More important, I hoped she trusted me and would feel confident enough to pick up the phone if things got really bleak.
    ‘My home number,’ I said, giving her the already sodden piece of paper.
    She looked at it for a moment, quite blank, then mumbled her thanks. I kissed her on the cheek, wished her luck and ran to the waiting taxi. Looking back, starting to wave, I was surprised to find the front door already shut. As the taxi began to move away, I looked back again, watching her shadow move across the curtains, reaching for the light switch, returning the cottage to darkness and the rain.
    I was back in Stollmann’s office three days later. Getting an appointment had been far from easy.
    ‘She’s frightened witless,’ I said. ‘She thinks he’s going mad.’
    Stollmann looked at me woodenly. His eyes were blacker than ever. ‘We knew that,’ he said.
    ‘But she’s half mad herself. Truly. She’s out of her mind with it. Worrying about him.’
    Stollmann nodded and reaching for one of his Biros added a line to a list of notes on a pad. I wondered for a moment whether the note had anything to do with Beth. Somehow I doubted it.
    ‘She going to talk to anyone else?’ he said at last.
    ‘No.’
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘As I can be.’ I nodded. ‘Yes.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I told her she’d be putting him in danger,’ I lied. ‘I told her it wouldn’t be a clever thing to do.’
    Stollmann said nothing for a moment. Then he looked up. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t.’
    There was a long silence. Stollmann’s eyes were back on the pad. Our conversation was evidently over. I got up. Then sat down again.
    ‘About Priddy,’ I began. ‘Remember you asked me to take a look at him?’
    Stollmann glanced up. ‘Yes?’
    I shrugged. ‘What did you have in mind?