Dying Flames Read Online Free Page B

given as August twenty-first, 1984.”
    â€œThat’s what she told me.”
    â€œAnd that makes any involvement of yourself unlikely?”
    â€œInconceivable…. Sorry. Couldn’t have chosen a worse word.”
    They laughed men-together laughs.
    â€œWell, really, all the information I can give you, you have,” said the director. “So far as we here can tell, she is who she says she is and was born when she says she was born. What does the mother say?”
    Graham shifted uneasily in his chair. “She hasn’t said anything to me. I haven’t contacted her.”
    â€œI see. That seems to be the next step then, doesn’t it?”
    â€œYes…. I’m reluctant to do that.”
    He felt himself being looked at hard.
    â€œYou knew a woman called Webster in the past?”
    â€œSomers. The girl said that was her mother’s maiden name. But that was much further in the past.”
    â€œYou didn’t meet up with her in Mali?”
    â€œCertainly not. But the fact that I did once know someone who may be her mother makes me reluctant to contact her. I’m afraid of involving myself in something that really has nothing to do with me.”
    â€œI can see that. Well, it would be impertinent for me to advise you what to do. Me a microbiologist, you a novelist with a grasp of motives and character. And you now have all the information that we have here.”
    â€œYes, and I’m grateful for that,” said Graham, standing up. “And grateful to you for your time.”
    â€œOh, don’t mention it. It has provided a much needed change from adolescent angst. Though perhaps if I knew all the facts, it wouldn’t seem so much of a change, eh?”
    Graham was aware that his face gave him away, and he merely murmured, “Maybe not.”
    â€œI said I wasn’t going to advise you, but the habit is ingrained, with a job like mine. Shouldn’t you make a decision: either get to the bottom of this, or get out of it as quickly and completely as possible?”
    Graham kept his face as blank as possible and said, “Thank you again.”
    But in his heart he was wondering if Christa would allow him to get out of this quickly and completely. He rather thought that Dr. Warhope’s choice was no choice at all.

Chapter 3
Peggy
    Graham dithered sadly before fixing on a date for a return to Romford. It wasn’t as though he were in the middle of a book. The next novel was mulching away in his mind, at the stage where all the crucial events and characters were open to question and revision. Truth to tell, the book was contending with real life: nothing that had happened in Colchester or since could be incorporated into Events and Their Shadows (provisional title), so in a sense it was either/or: life or novel. Graham told himself it would be a disaster (artistic and possibly legal) to build a novel on recently experienced events and emotions. And yet—how he was tempted to do just that!
    In the end he made a decision about Romford. He remembered Lucetta and Elizabeth in The Mayor of Casterbridge agreeing to meet to discuss an important matter “the first fine day next week.” How sensible! How right for the English climate, which most years offers few and isolated fine days—days that should be chosen to do anything interesting in. Hardy was always good on weather. He would go to Romford on the first fine day of next week.
    Thursday was fine. It was fine when he got up, and it had been predicted as fine the night before. There was no getting away from it. There was excitement in him, but it contended with fear of disappointment. Nothing was ever uncomplicated and “straight on” with Graham. Meeting up with an old girlfriend was a sort of emotional minefield. The possibilities for disillusion were limitless. Then another thought struck him: had Peggy even been a “girlfriend,” in the usual meaning of the