Palette of Secrets by Joan Fallon

Author:Joan Fallon [Fallon, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scott Publishing
Published: 2018-06-30T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Martin switches off the car radio and parks his car as close to their house as he can. The boot is full of shopping he has picked up from Mercadona. This is not his usual task, but Sara is having a hard time with her pregnancy and has been told to stay in bed for at least a week. He can’t help thinking about the previous miscarriages. Her gynaecologist, a good friend of his, has told them to be very careful this time. Although he didn’t say in so many words, the look on his friend’s face when he learned Sara was pregnant again told Martin how risky he thought it was. Martin is fully aware of this, but Sara has been very insistent that this time everything will be fine. Nevertheless, he has insisted that she give up her job as a dentist’s receptionist and that her mother come to stay for a while. ‘It will be good for your mother,’ he argued, ‘and you will be forced to take things easier with her around.’ To his surprise she has agreed to both.

Her mother arrives later this evening and has asked him to pick her up from the bus station at eight. She refuses to travel by train since her husband died ten years ago. His death affected all the family very badly. He had been on train 21431, pulling into Atocha Station on 11th March when three consecutive explosions blew up the train, killing him and a number of other passengers. Martin remembers with horror listening to the news that morning and learning of the dead and dying in Madrid, one hundred and ninety-one passengers, one of them his father-in-law.

‘Isn’t that the train your father takes?’ he had asked his wife as they stood, glued to the television, unable to believe what was unfolding before their eyes. Four trains and ten explosions in less than five minutes. It was like something in a horror film. When they rang her mother, she was still asleep in bed, unaware of the tragedy. They tried ringing his father-in-law’s mobile, but there was no reply. They tried ringing his office, but the stunned secretary knew no more than they did. Still they waited and hoped that he was among the lucky few, the injured rather than the dead, or the traumatised who staggered from the twisted carriages unable to believe they were still alive. The day dragged on, carrying no more than a shadow of normality, and that adopted only for the sake of the children. Martin had attended his patients at the hospital as usual, but his receptionist cancelled his evening clinic. Sara called the dentist’s surgery and said she was sick. All day she sat by the phone, waiting to hear from her mother, ringing and re-ringing her father’s mobile and listening to the stomach-churning message that the number was unavailable.

When the news finally came that her father was one of the casualties and that his body had been

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