Dying Flames by Robert Barnard Page B

become.”
    â€œI was just a snotty-nosed schoolboy,” said Graham, with that false self-deprecation that gushing speeches often elicit from their victims.
    â€œIf you had been a snotty-nosed schoolboy, I wouldn’t have been interested, darling,” said Peggy. “And I definitely was interested. What we had was short, but it was very beautiful. We weren’t children, but we were young: we were starry-eyed, impulsive, and ill-prepared.” There was a little laugh, Graham thought from Vesta Halliburton. “I am sometimes surprised by how often girls get caught out these days, after all the education, and all the awful warnings in the soaps, but still they do. We—genuinely—knew nothing. Soon after the lovely, brief romance was over, I found I was pregnant. And I think all of you bright, intelligent people will have guessed what I am going to say. It seems like magic—the best, most lovely sort of magic. Suddenly my Terry here has not only a new mum, but a new dad.”
    Graham had been transfixed by Peggy, by the awfulness of the speech, and dread of what was coming. Now he looked at Terry—something Peggy had not done during the entire speech. Terry’s face was fixed on her, but imprinted on it was not joy or euphoric surprise. It was stupefaction, disgust, revulsion. Was it real emotion? Graham wondered. Or acting? Terry was after all Peggy’s son. “Yes, the boy I had by that unexpected pregnancy was Terry, and Terry’s natural father is, happily, with us tonight. It’s a wonderful feeling at last to reunite father and son.”
    There was a clatter. Terry had stood up with a vengeance, his chair flying behind him. The American tourists, perhaps thinking this was a rehearsal for a play, or perhaps that this was a family row involving one of Britain’s foremost actresses, were taking snaps. Terry’s face was certainly a picture—beetroot with rage.
    â€œWhat is this crap? You’re talking fucking nonsense—taking me for a fool. This man’s not my natural father. I don’t need a natural father. I know my natural father already.”

Chapter 8
Into Thin Air
    For the second time that evening an exit was made.
    Like the first one, it was the exit of a pride-injured male, and it therefore had a similarity—it seemed to the watchers in the nature of a replay. What was quite different was Peggy’s reaction to it. She gazed at the door shutting behind Terry, then looked distractedly round, first at one face, then at another, then to her various “things”—handbag, purse, makeup bag—on the table around her, then to her coat hanging on a stand by the door.
    â€œI must go after him,” she said, seeming worried and upset. She gathered up the various receptacles, then put them back in a heap while she fetched her coat and put it over all the billowing voile. It was a light coat, in an interesting green, and it suited her. She knew it, and she posed while she looked round to see if there was anything she had forgotten.
    â€œAdam didn’t get this kind of concern from her,” whispered Graham to Ted Somers.
    â€œAnd he’s only fourteen,” said Ted. They watched as Peggy, without good-byes, sailed out of Luigi’s and into the night.
    â€œI think we’d better go after them,” said Graham. “Have you got your car?”
    â€œYes. I’m an old garageman, remember. Driving skills are the last things to go.”
    â€œIt seems like overkill: two perfectly capable young males. Still, Adam at least is still very much underage.”
    â€œIt’s only Adam I’m worrying about. And Christa.”
    â€œMe too. A twenty-five-year-old male should be perfectly safe in Romford on a Monday night. Still, it seems to be Terry that Peggy is looking for. We’ve got four people looking for two. Surely one of us must strike lucky.”
    â€œYou’d think so. But I’m