The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill

Author:Susan Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Overlook
Published: 2011-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

An hour and a half later, Freya had talked about herself and her past life more intimately than she had ever talked to anyone. Simon was a listener, prompting only occasionally and then with nothing more than a word or two, looking at her all the time as she spoke. She found herself talking about her family, her training, the Met, her marriage and its breakdown, and wanting to go on and on, wanting him to know her and everything about her. After a while, she was able to glance at him, to look at his face in the light from the angled lamp behind his chair, in profile, as he drank his whisky, as he faced her again.

She was absolutely in love with him, she knew that now, but tonight had changed things. She no longer wanted to reject this, to swear it away, no longer said Damn, Damn, Damn at the thought and the sight of him and the acute awareness of her reaction. She had never known a man who had given her such full and concentrated attention, who had listened to her and looked at her in this way, as if she were important, what she said mattered and there was nothing else and no one else of interest to him in the world.

The cathedral bells chimed midnight, making her aware of how long she had talked, how much of herself she had yielded up. She fell silent. His room, this flat, in this corner of the quiet close was the most beautiful, tranquil place she had ever been in, with an atmosphere like no other. Just to sit here, in the silence opposite him, made her tremble.

‘Goodness,’ she said now.

‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’

He smiled. ‘Telling me so much. People are not often so generous with themselves.’

It was a unique, extraordinary way of putting it. But he is unique, she thought, there can be no one else like him in the world.

‘I have to go.’

He neither tried to stop her nor leaped up, eager to see her out. He simply sat on, relaxed and still in the light of the lamp.

‘Thank you for this,’ Freya said. ‘I went to choir so that my mind would stop spinning the case round and round, and singing and then coming here really have given me what I needed.’

‘Rest and refreshment. It’s important to get as far away as possible from this sort of case . . . if not physically, then spiritually, mentally. It can drain you otherwise.’

Then he did get up and stroll across to the door with her. ‘I’ll come down,’ he said.

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘It is late, it is dark, there is no one about at this time and you are on your own.’

She laughed. ‘Simon, I’m a police officer.’

He put the flat door on the latch and looked at her, his handsome face stern. ‘And two women are missing.’

She looked at him for a long minute. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

‘I wish I was not thinking about them

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.