Tom All-Alone's by Lynn Shepherd

Author:Lynn Shepherd [Lynn Shepherd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780331713
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2012-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Sarah enjoys their walk far more than Charles does. He stops her at the first second-hand clothes stall they come to on Oxford Street and makes her invest part of her new wealth in a decent if rather threadbare military coat. It takes what he considers an unconscionable time to root through all the jumble, but Sarah eventually picks out a dark green merino shawl, badly stained on one side but fringed with bright emerald silk. Thus decked out she becomes animated, almost coquettish, and he’s forced to acknowledge that she has an eye for colour if nothing else. The green makes richer the red in her hair and the swing of the man’s coat flatters her slender tomboyish figure. For a moment – just a moment – he feels a distinct and absurd stirring of desire, which he stifles ruthlessly by reminding himself that this girl can’t be more than a few years older than the little Park Lane princess he saw earlier, as suffocated by her stiff plaid as she clearly was by parental anxiety. He quickens his pace and forces Sarah to run to keep up; the sooner this enforced excursion is done with, the better.

When they eventually reach the house near Golden Square there’s no sign of life, but that’s no great surprise at this time of day. He tells Sarah to wait at the front, and goes down the narrow alley at the side to the shabby one-up-one-down cottages at the back, thrown up some years ago on what was once a leafy garden. Lizzie lives at number 5, but there’s no answer from her door. The only ground-floor window is covered with a thick curtain, no doubt to keep in the heat from the meagre fire. Charles knows where she keeps the spare key, and decides that his own need to have done with Sarah is more pressing than Lizzie’s for a few more minutes’ sleep. When the door creaks open, his eyes are momentarily blinded by the contrast between the bright sunshine outdoors and the darkness inside. He knows this room well – he’s slept here more than once himself – but as his senses adjust, something about it strikes a strange note. It’s a small squalid space, no more than ten or twelve feet square, sparsely furnished and damp for nine months of the year. But behind the bed, on the left-hand wall, the unplastered brick seems to him oddly dark – in fact not just dark but thick with something that – he sees now – is dripping its slow way on to the floor and congealing in pools on the bare boards.

Blood.

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