Devil’s Breath by Jill Johnson

Author:Jill Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black & White Publishing

17

T

HERE WERE MANY EMOTIONS I didn’t understand but fear wasn’t one of them. I understood well the physical reactions it induced. The increased heart rate, the surge of adrenaline, the panicked and muddled thinking but for some reason I felt none of these when I heard Andreas’s death threat. It was as if my safety was of a lesser concern, compared with Simone’s. Matilde, however, turned white and her hand shook as she held the phone, but she said nothing, pressed the screen and continued her translation.

“The voices are clearer. The subject’s changed.” She furrowed her brow. “She’s saying something about a tutor, an English lesson, cooking a meal, she can’t afford to pay him, so cooks for him instead. He has a disabled wife . . .”

There was a silence, then Matilde whistled as a furious stream of Portuguese poured out of the phone.

“I’m sorry but I’m not going to translate this next bit. Let’s just say he’s angry that she’s been wasting time cooking meals when she should have been doing the other job.”

Suddenly, there was a loud crack, like a gunshot, making Matilde leap in her seat.

“What was that? Has he shot her? Did she shoot him?” she shouted.

I knew exactly what it was. It was my terracotta pot smashing on the paving stones.

“It wasn’t a gun.”

“It sounded like a gun.”

I glanced around and saw that the other customers were no longer pretending they weren’t listening. They were blatantly staring, wide-eyed, waiting for Matilde to continue. She pressed play.

There was the sound of knocking, then Andreas speaking English with an accent.

“Wait. Can you turn up the volume?” I asked, straining forward to listen.

It sounded as though Andreas was welcoming someone, possibly the English tutor. I heard . . . My wife telling me about you . . . Would you like wine? A pause followed by a different man speaking. Thank you but no. We can have the lesson another time.

I gasped. It had been years since I’d heard that voice, that irritatingly confident, entitled voice.

Then it was Andreas again, Stay. I will leave. Do not wait up, meu amor. I will be late home. The sound of a door closing, a silence and then Jonathan’s voice, louder this time, crystal clear and seething with anger. Why’s that man here? You said you’d divorced him. Then Simone’s quieter reply in English . . . will not sign the papers . . . being difficult . . . makes no difference to us . . . Why are you so upset? You have a wife. I have a husband . . . Nothing has changed. A loud thump, as if a wall had been struck, followed by Jonathan’s shout, Everything’s changed!

Simone was talking again. There was urgency in her tone and one very clear word – misunderstanding. I had no trouble hearing the reply. Jonathan shouted it so loudly that Matilde had to turn the volume down.

“There’s no misunderstanding. I’m not an idiot. I understand perfectly what you and your husband are doing, but you can fuck off.

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