Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Alexandra Connor 2001
Alexandra Connor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780006513520
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007400911
Version: 2016–01–13
It took a moment for him to realise what he had done. A second spent staring at the dead woman, then a quick glance upwards to the bedrooms. Outside the sky was coming into moonlight, a horse stamping its feet in the driveway and whinnying with impatience. He turned down the gaslights. Then he saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway.
Panic made him fling open the window next to him and climb out, then run down the lawn towards the drive without daring to look back. Breathing heavily, he headed towards the road leading down to Oldham. A couple of men passed him and nodded automatically. He was known, a man of importance. Their superior. They would remember seeing him … He stopped, watched them pass. Then as soon as he heard their footsteps die away he started running again.
The moon – a hunter’s moon – had now risen and he thought fleetingly how it would sneak under the blinds back at the house and fall across the carpet. It would glow, melancholic, on every surface, wiping its yellow feet on everything it touched.
He stopped; looked round. He would get away. But where? He had nowhere to go. This was his town, his home. This was where his family was … Sweating, he leaned against the wall of an alleyway, limp with terror. Calm yourself, he thought, be calm. It was a mistake, a mistake. You can get over this, you can live with this. Unexpectedly, an uncanny peace came over him. He could do it, he would blot it out, put it up on a shelf at the back of his memory and leave it there.
He began to walk again. Yes, he could live with it. All he had to do was to close down his conscience, find a way to stop the sickness welling up. He had thought fleetingly of giving himself up – but how could he explain what he had done? How he had lost control and hit out – and then kept hitting.
They would go to the house and see that it had been no accident, no random blow, but a concentrated violence of blows. A determined intent to kill.
At first, they wouldn’t believe it of him. Not him.
You have to forget it, he willed himself. But the calm had gone and in its place was the knowledge that he could never forget it. Oh Jesus, he breathed, oh Jesus …
