The Silence Read Online Free

that we make a small bequest to Beth. I’ll ask Nell to look for something in the house that can be kept until she’s older. And we might set up a small savings account for her with a portion of the house sale proceeds.
    But I think you’re overreacting in saying Nell shouldn’t stay at the house after dark, and that Beth shouldn’t go to the house at all. But you were always given to dramatic behaviour – that’s not a criticism, dear, just a statement of fact. Nell and Beth will be perfectly all right.
       Margery

THREE
    M ichael Flint had had a mixed weekend. It was the last few days of Hilary Term, with all the end of term activities enlivening Oriel College. Students wandered in and out to say goodbye, or include him in various farewell activities.
    Owen Bracegirdle from the history faculty held a Sunday lunch buffet in his rooms, which had been intended to go on until a decorous mid-afternoon, but ended up lasting until six o’clock. Michael returned to his rooms to learn that Wilberforce had spent his own afternoon in pitched battle with the ginger tomcat belonging to Oriel’s chaplain, with whom he was currently conducting a territorial war. It was unfortunate that this latest battle had taken place in Oriel’s chapel, which, as the porter said, could not have been much more public, and it a Sunday, to boot.
    ‘And the yowls Wilberforce let out when we hauled him out, Dr Flint – well, you’d have thought he was being gutted for violin strings.’
    ‘I will gut him for violin strings if he does it again,’ said Michael wrathfully, and bundled the unrepentant Wilberforce into his rooms before seeking out the chaplain to apologize, during which he found himself agreeing to pay the vet’s bill for the ginger tom’s bitten ear.
    On the crest of this incident, he wrote a new chapter of the current Wilberforce book, in which the fictional Wilberforce signed up for a Japanese martial arts class, the better to deal with the ever-inventive mice who plagued his life, but found himself in the wrong schoolroom learning Oriental flower-arranging by mistake. Michael emailed this to his editor, intending her to deal with it on Monday, and was slightly disconcerted to get an almost immediate reply saying she was currently in America, but would read the new chapter that evening in her hotel because Wilberforce would make a welcome diversion after schmoozing book buyers and reviewers.
    After this he checked his voicemail and was pleased to hear Nell’s voice with a message timed just before ten that morning, telling him they were on the outskirts of Bakewell and they had had an uneventful journey, but the phone signal was getting a bit erratic, so she was sorry if she sounded crackly. She would try to phone again later.
    Michael was just relenting so far towards Wilberforce as to give him a bowl of his favourite tuna chunks, when the phone rang. He hoped it would be Nell, but it turned out to be Henry Jessel from the silversmith’s shop adjoining Nell’s.
    ‘Michael, I’m glad to catch you in,’ said Henry. ‘I looked into Nell’s shop earlier – she left me a key and asked me to check answerphone messages fairly often, because she’s hoping to hear from those Japanese customers who might buy that Regency desk. They haven’t phoned, but there’s a message on the machine that I’m worried about, and I don’t know what to do. I tried to phone Nell, but her mobile’s inaccessible.’
    ‘She left a message earlier saying the signal was erratic,’ said Michael.
    ‘I dare say there’s acres upon acres up there that are out of reach of a signal. I emailed her as well, but I don’t know if she’s taken her laptop – or if she’d check emails anyway.’
    ‘I think she was taking it, but she might not check emails until this evening, or even tomorrow,’ said Michael. ‘What’s the worrying phone message?’
    ‘I think you need to hear it,’ said Henry. ‘Is there any chance you could whizz