it.
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’
‘No. I’m not. You can get it for me if you wish.’
She plucked the old-fashioned receiver from its cradle on the table between them. ‘Hello?’ She listened. And then she held out the white ivory of the instrument to Mark Hunter.
He shook his head. ‘I’m taking no calls tonight,’ he said.
‘You might want to take this one, Mark,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It’s a man, wishing to speak to you. He says his name is Mr Mallory.’
Chapter Four
He took the phone from her. She got up and went to check on Adam. It required nerve to do so after the ordeal of her last audience with the boy. But she did not feel she could eavesdrop on Mark’s conversation with the cold caller. He had confided much in her but had done so through choice, not circumstance. He deserved his necessary privacy now. And he needed no distractions. The call, unexpected, might be vital. The stakes, she knew, were very high. She had believed that after her ordeal earlier in the night in Adam’s bedroom. What Mark had told her only reinforced the conviction. And she had a duty of care to her patient. His father had been right to remind her of that. Mark Hunter was an attractive man and his mystery compelling. But he was not really the point. The boy was the point. He was tormented and she wanted and needed to do everything she could to ease his torment and then rid him of it for good. So she climbed the stairs, filled with trepidation that became a sort of dread as she ascended and the strength and safety of Mark’s orbit, the mundane sanity of the sitting room, the fading comfort of the fire, all receded further from her. She stopped outside Adam’s door. She could hear nothing from within. She extended her fingers towards the door handle. It was iron and tarnished with age and felt icy to the touch. She was not sure if that was just the chill of the fear she felt. She was not sure of very much at all, just then. Downstairs, she could hear Mark’s raised voice as he made some emphatic point to his caller. The substance of the call
was genuine. He would have hung up straight away on a crank. And Elizabeth was certain he had mentioned the name of Mallory to no one since his confession to his dead wife on his return from Bolivia a decade ago. That was the only certainty in her mind, as Elizabeth pushed the iron door handle down and entered Adam’s bedroom.
He slept soundly with his duvet pulled up around the knuckles of the small fist he held to his face. His expression looked untroubled. The temperature in the room seemed normal. It was cold, but no colder than it should have been in Scotland in the late autumn in an old stone house high on a remote hill. By the light on the landing, through the open bedroom door, she looked at his things on their shelves; at his collection of Alex Ryder novels, his jigsaws and assembled Airfix kits, a scale model tank that worked by remote control, and his Eye Witness series picture books on the Titanic and the Victorians and the Glory of Ancient Rome. There was a jar of marbles and some AAA batteries and half a tube of Maynards Wine Gums. It was the innocent paraphernalia of a ten-year-old boy. And she thought that Mrs Mallory, whoever or whatever she was, must be a creature of infinite cruelty and spite. And she wondered, was the caller on the phone downstairs claiming to be a widowed husband or a motherless son? She did not think he would claim to be Mrs Mallory’s father. Mark had put the woman’s age at about thirty-five. But listening to his description of her, Elizabeth had suspected she was a great deal longer in the tooth than he supposed.
She thought his powers of description extraordinary for a common soldier. But then he had not really been a soldier of the common sort. None of them had – not him nor Rodriguez nor Peterson. Special Forces required special men and they had all clearly been remarkable in their way. And the experience he had survived,
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’
‘No. I’m not. You can get it for me if you wish.’
She plucked the old-fashioned receiver from its cradle on the table between them. ‘Hello?’ She listened. And then she held out the white ivory of the instrument to Mark Hunter.
He shook his head. ‘I’m taking no calls tonight,’ he said.
‘You might want to take this one, Mark,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It’s a man, wishing to speak to you. He says his name is Mr Mallory.’
Chapter Four
He took the phone from her. She got up and went to check on Adam. It required nerve to do so after the ordeal of her last audience with the boy. But she did not feel she could eavesdrop on Mark’s conversation with the cold caller. He had confided much in her but had done so through choice, not circumstance. He deserved his necessary privacy now. And he needed no distractions. The call, unexpected, might be vital. The stakes, she knew, were very high. She had believed that after her ordeal earlier in the night in Adam’s bedroom. What Mark had told her only reinforced the conviction. And she had a duty of care to her patient. His father had been right to remind her of that. Mark Hunter was an attractive man and his mystery compelling. But he was not really the point. The boy was the point. He was tormented and she wanted and needed to do everything she could to ease his torment and then rid him of it for good. So she climbed the stairs, filled with trepidation that became a sort of dread as she ascended and the strength and safety of Mark’s orbit, the mundane sanity of the sitting room, the fading comfort of the fire, all receded further from her. She stopped outside Adam’s door. She could hear nothing from within. She extended her fingers towards the door handle. It was iron and tarnished with age and felt icy to the touch. She was not sure if that was just the chill of the fear she felt. She was not sure of very much at all, just then. Downstairs, she could hear Mark’s raised voice as he made some emphatic point to his caller. The substance of the call
was genuine. He would have hung up straight away on a crank. And Elizabeth was certain he had mentioned the name of Mallory to no one since his confession to his dead wife on his return from Bolivia a decade ago. That was the only certainty in her mind, as Elizabeth pushed the iron door handle down and entered Adam’s bedroom.
He slept soundly with his duvet pulled up around the knuckles of the small fist he held to his face. His expression looked untroubled. The temperature in the room seemed normal. It was cold, but no colder than it should have been in Scotland in the late autumn in an old stone house high on a remote hill. By the light on the landing, through the open bedroom door, she looked at his things on their shelves; at his collection of Alex Ryder novels, his jigsaws and assembled Airfix kits, a scale model tank that worked by remote control, and his Eye Witness series picture books on the Titanic and the Victorians and the Glory of Ancient Rome. There was a jar of marbles and some AAA batteries and half a tube of Maynards Wine Gums. It was the innocent paraphernalia of a ten-year-old boy. And she thought that Mrs Mallory, whoever or whatever she was, must be a creature of infinite cruelty and spite. And she wondered, was the caller on the phone downstairs claiming to be a widowed husband or a motherless son? She did not think he would claim to be Mrs Mallory’s father. Mark had put the woman’s age at about thirty-five. But listening to his description of her, Elizabeth had suspected she was a great deal longer in the tooth than he supposed.
She thought his powers of description extraordinary for a common soldier. But then he had not really been a soldier of the common sort. None of them had – not him nor Rodriguez nor Peterson. Special Forces required special men and they had all clearly been remarkable in their way. And the experience he had survived,
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