Thieving Fear Read Online Free Page A

said. 'I was the one who did it, after all, just that once.'
    'I'd have expected you of all people to care about words.' With no lessening of reproachfulness Ellen said 'I was the one who looked after you. Shall we walk?'
    Charlotte couldn't help peering at the grass as she followed Ellen. She recalled how a slab of it had risen in her dream, and felt as if the memory wouldn't go away until she identified the spot. Of course she was on edge only because of the funeral, and at first she was glad to be distracted when Hugh spoke. 'We had a bad night too.'
    'He means we kept waking each other up. We were asleep when you girls were on the wander, though.'
    'Good gracious,' Ellen said as their aunt used to. 'What were you boys up to in your bags?'
    'Just dreaming,' said Hugh.
    'Nothing to blush about, then.'
    'It wasn't,' he said, though her question had mottled his cheeks. 'Just I couldn't find my way somewhere.'
    'I couldn't see where I'd got trapped somehow,' Rory offered. 'Might have been a house with no lights in.'
    'It's not like you to be so unobservant.'
    'He said I was asleep,' Rory retorted, though Ellen's comment had been affectionate. 'Your turn.'
    'I was saving Charlotte, if you remember.'
    As Charlotte thought the answer had been too quick and glib, a mass of blackness seeped out of the earth all around them. Although it was the shadow of a cloud, it made her feel shut in. 'We're heading back, yes?' she said and set out for the gate through the distant hedge. Even when sunlight washed away the shadow, she could have fancied that darkness was pacing her and her cousins under the earth.

TWO
    'You may call your witness, Miss Lomax.'
    Just one, Ellen thought as she pushed back her chair – just one former inmate of the Seabreeze Home had agreed to testify on her behalf. She didn't blame the others for refusing. They'd been through enough, and so many were living on little but memories that she didn't want to make them recollect the bad ones. At least they weren't speaking up for the Cremornes as Peggy appeared to have promised she would, if she wasn't playing one of her wily games. As Ellen opened the door of the committee room she was eager to read her face.
    Six straight chairs kept company in the corridor, beneath an interbellum photograph of Southport Pier, but only two were occupied, by Muriel Stiles and a nurse. 'Thanks so much for coming, Muriel,' Ellen said.
    The old woman took some moments to tilt her head up, which failed to unwrinkle her neck. Her wide loose faded face was so preoccupied that Ellen had the fleeting fancy that the crowded photograph of sedate revellers, an image of enjoyment curbed by moderation and flanked by wars, could be a childhood memory that Muriel was reliving. It reminded Ellen of a flashback inset in a panel of a comic. She would have scribbled down the image if she'd had a notebook, but Muriel was giving her a shaky smile. 'Don't worry, Muriel,' she said. 'I won't let anyone upset you. Just say what you remember.'
    She held the door open as the nurse ushered Muriel into the room. The tribunal was seated at the far end of the long table, on the left side of which the Cremornes guarded their lawyer. To Ellen's and quite possibly to Muriel's dismay, the nurse steered his charge in that direction. 'This side,' Ellen told him in less of a murmur than she would have preferred.
    Virginia Cremorne interlaced her fingers and sat forwards with a prayerful expression on her small sharp face as Muriel sank onto the chair opposite. 'How are you keeping, Muriel? You're looking as fit as ever.'
    Jack Cremorne pinched his shiny brown moustache between finger and thumb as if he meant to remove a disguise from his large perpetually suffused face, then fell to gripping his chin as he said 'Nice to see you again, Muriel. A pity you felt you had to leave us, but we hope you're managing to settle in where you are now.'
    Surely they shouldn't be allowed to speak to her that way. When Ellen sent the