The Echo by Minette Walters

Author:Minette Walters [Walters, Minette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

It was six years since Deacon had last visited the Red Lion. It had been his local when he and Julia had lived in Fulham and Hugh had been in the habit of meeting him there a couple of times a month on his way home to Putney. The outside had changed very little over the years and Deacon half-expected to find the same landlord and the same regulars inside when he pushed open the doors. But it was a room full of strangers where the only recognizable face was Hugh’s. He was sitting at a table in the far corner, and he raised a tentative hand in greeting when he saw Deacon.

‘Hello, Michael,’ he said, standing up as they approached. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d come.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It might be the only chance I ever get to flatten you.’ He beckoned Terry forward. ‘Meet Terry Dalton. He’s staying with me for Christmas. Terry, meet Hugh Tremayne, my brother-in-law.’

Terry gave his amiable grin and stuck out a bony hand. ‘Hi. How ya doing?’

Hugh looked surprised but shook the offered hand. ‘Very well, thank you. Are we – er – related?’

Terry appraised his round face and overweight figure. ‘I don’t reckon so, not unless you were putting it about a bit in Birmingham fifteen years ago. Nah,’ he said. ‘I think my dad was probably a bit taller and thinner. No offence meant, of course.’

Deacon gave a snort of laughter. ‘I think Hugh was wondering if you were related to my second wife, Terry.’

‘Oh, right. Why didn’t he say that then?’

Deacon turned to the wall and banged his head against it for several seconds. Finally he took a deep breath, mopped his eyes with his handkerchief and faced the room again. ‘It’s a touchy subject,’ he explained. ‘My family didn’t like Clara very much.’

‘What was wrong with her?’

‘Nothing,’ said Hugh firmly, afraid that Deacon was going to embarrass him and Terry with references to tarts and sluts. ‘What are you both having? Lager?’ He escaped to the bar while they divested themselves of their coats and sat down.

‘You can’t hit him,’ said Terry. ‘Okay, he’s a pillock, but he’s about six inches shorter than you and ten years older. What did he do, anyway?’

Deacon propped his feet on a chair and laced his hands behind his head. ‘He insulted me in my mother’s house and then ordered me out of it.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I swore I’d deck him the next time I saw him, and this is the next time.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t do it if I were you. It don’t make you any bigger, you know. I felt well gutted after what I did to Billy.’ He nodded his thanks as Hugh returned with their drinks.

There was a painful silence while Hugh sought for something to say and Deacon grinned at the ceiling, thoroughly enjoying his brother-in-law’s discomfort.

Terry offered Hugh a cigarette, which he refused. ‘Maybe if you apologized, he’d forget the beating,’ he suggested, lighting his own cigarette.

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