Echoes of Silence by Marjorie Eccles

Author:Marjorie Eccles [Eccles, Marjorie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781466822702
Google: UANvV5H-pbMC
Amazon: 0750518073
Barnesnoble: 0750518073
Goodreads: 798908
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2000-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

On the upper floor of Low Rigg Hall, Philip Denshaw had what it had amused Freya to refer to as his executive suite. It was far from grand, however, comprising a small sitting-room, an even smaller bedroom and a bathroom. But it suited him, gave him all he needed in the way of comfort. When he had come to live here, after Laurence’s death, selling his own house and almost its entire contents, he had first made sure he could get his piano in, his music books and all his paraphernalia for listening to music. Then he’d had it painted white, installed a couple of comfortable chairs and bookshelves, and that was that.

He sat back in a chair that had, over the years, accommodated itself to his shape, listening to a Radio Three concert, the score open on his knees, not reading it, however, but watching through half-closed eyes the small, silent figure perched on the arm of the opposite chair.

‘I’m almost sorry she’s dead,’ Elf said suddenly. ‘Almost. You’ll miss her. You thought a lot about her, didn’t you?’

The words cut brutally across the third movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto and Philip’s eyes flew wide open. He wondered what on earth had given her that idea, it had never occurred to him to believe that anyone could view his relationship with Freya in that light. Everything they’d ever been to each other had been a matter of expediency. But he supposed he would miss her being there. He hadn’t yet allowed himself to think of the changes on the way.

Her death had caused all sorts of strangenesses – that he should be talking to Elf for one thing, like this, when they hadn’t spoken anywhere nearly so intimately for years. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ he rebuked, genuinely repelled. ‘You’ll miss her, too.’

‘Me?’ Elf looked sardonic.

‘She was very good to you,’ he reminded her gently.

‘And never let me forget it! Everything she ever did for me I had to be grateful for, every minute of the day.’

‘That’s a cynicism that doesn’t become you.’

Her chin went up, she looked out of the window, watching the noisy, bad-tempered crows. ‘One thing I’ve always wondered,’ she said, turning back to face him. ‘Did you ever tell her about - that day? In the garden?’

Shocked to his conventional core, colour rising to his pale cheeks, he stared at her. ‘Of course not! And I don’t think it’s a subject we should discuss, either.’

‘I don’t suppose you do. You never want to face anything unpleasant, do you, Philip? You’ve always hidden behind someone else, somebody’s always made out for you, let you off the hook -’

‘Elvira. Do you realise who you’re speaking to?’

She looked at him then, her little pixie face creased, her ageless black eyes curiously blank. ‘Oh, yes. I never forget that. And I don’t forget what you thought you saw, in the garden, all those years ago -’

‘You’d better not go on.’ Abruptly he reached out to the radio

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