A Ghost in the Machine Read Online Free

a stack of wooden crates. Both cat and carrier were absolutely filthy. Carey had described later how the half-starved creature had sat upright and with great dignity in piles of mess, looking hopefully about him and mewing.
    After raging at the station staff for ten minutes without repeating herself Carey took a cab to the town centre, bought a basket, food, a dish and some towels, cancelled the rest of her journey and took the cat home. Cleaned, it proved to be extremely beautiful, with a cream and amber freckled coat, a reddish orange ruff and huge golden eyes. It proved as grateful as a cat could be – which admittedly isn’t saying a lot – purring extensively and sitting on her lap whenever she wanted to work at her tapestry or read the papers.
    Kate bent down and stroked Croydon. She said, “Don’t be sad,” but the cat just yawned. It was hard to know whether it was sad or not. Cats’ faces don’t change much.
    Kate pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, squirted some washing-up liquid into the sink and turned the taps full on. The glasses were rather beautiful and she didn’t want to risk them in the machine. When the sink was half full she placed them gently into the sparkling suds and carefully washed them up. There was no sign of Polly. Kate had never really thought there would be. So, why offer? And what was Polly doing instead?
    Even as she chided herself at the pettiness of such an exercise, Kate retreated to the dining room and through it to the terrace steps. She saw Polly straight away, sitting on a low wooden stool, talking, laughing, tossing her hair back from her face. She was with Ashley Parnell, Appleby House’s nearest neighbour. He was in a green and white striped deckchair; resting as he always was, his state of health not being conducive to leaping about. But even at a distance, and not at all well, his beauty was still remarkable. Kate watched as he replied to Polly, who immediately became gravely attentive, locking her glance into his. Resting her chin in the palm of her hand and leaning forward.
    Kate saw Ashley’s wife, Judith, moving towards the couple, walking rather urgently as if in a hurry. She stood over them, brusquely interrupting their discourse and gesturing towards the lane. Then, half helping, half tugging her husband up from his chair they walked away, Ashley turning to smile goodbye.
    Polly waved, then immediately got up and lay back in the deckchair he had just vacated. She didn’t move for a long while. Just sat and sat, as if in a daze, gazing up at the clear blue sky.
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    Half an hour later and Judith Parnell was just beginning to recover, though still feeling somewhat shaky.
    â€œSorry about that – dragging you away. I really felt quite strange.”
    â€œAre you all right now?”
    â€œFine. Just needed a rest.”
    Judith looked across to where her husband was sitting in a high-backed wicker chair, an angora blanket thrown across his knees despite the heat of the day. He was gazing, rather longingly it seemed to her, across their front garden in the direction of Appleby House.
    Judith observed his shining dark blue eyes, the elegant plane of his cheek and perfect jaw and momentarily felt sick in earnest. So far the ravages of this mysterious illness were slight. But these were early days – only three months since the first symptoms appeared. Unable to help herself Judith crossed the room and laid a hand on his soft, pale yellow hair. Ashley jerked his head away.
    â€œSorry, darling.” Lately he had begun to hate being touched. Judith frequently forgot this and now recalled that she had also tried to hold his hand at breakfast.
    â€œNo, I’m sorry.” He wrapped her fingers round his own and squeezed them gently. “My scalp hurts today, that’s all.”
    â€œPoor Ash.”
    Could that be the real reason? Was a tender scalp a symptom of his illness? As they had still not discovered