Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time by M.P. Wright

Author:M.P. Wright [Wright, M.P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2014-06-30T23:00:00+00:00

25

I stood looking through the frayed net curtains out into the quietness of the street as Virginia Landry sat, motionless, behind me. Neither of us had spoken for the last couple of minutes and her fear pervaded the little sitting room like an unwelcome relation had just joined us, giving me a real sense of unease as I tried to take in all that she had just told me. As I continued to stare out at the greyness outside, lost for a moment in my thoughts, a lone magpie flew down onto the church wall opposite. It steadied itself on the arch of the stonework, then began to clean its beak on the edge of the blue masonry before raising its head to study its surroundings; it peered across the road towards the house and bent its head ever so slightly, as if it were trying to get a better look inside at me through the translucent fabric.

“Hello, mister magpie, how’s your wife and kids?”

I was brought back to reality from my preoccupied thinking with a start as Virginia Landry suddenly spoke. I had not heard her get up, but she was standing directly behind me, watching the large black and white bird over my shoulder.

“You should salute it now.”

“What?”

“That’s what people say over here when they see a magpie alone. It’s an old English superstition, Mr Ellington.”

She smiled at me before returning to her chair and sitting down.

“It’s only a bird . . . Why’d they say that to a bird?”

“Maybe it is only a bird . . . but I’m told they’re supposed to mate fo’ life. When you see one on its own that means the bird is mourning the loss of its partner. You salute it to show sympathy fo’ the magpie’s loss.”

I turned and looked back out into the street to catch another glimpse of it, but the feathered creature that provoked such unusual sentiments was gone. I felt a sharp shudder run through me as I walked back across the room and stood in front of the frightened young woman, gently resting my hand on her shoulder.

“You said earlier there was someting I could do fo’ you once you’d finished telling me what happened . . . What was it?”

“If you find the missing girl you’re looking fo’ and she turns out to be the same poor child they had in that room, the one those bastards were holding and forcing to watch as they did what they did to me . . . You tell her I was sorry.”

She stared down at the floor and I watched as she softly tapped the toes of her white patent-leather shoes together.

“Sorry . . . What you gotta be sorry fo’? There was nuttin’ you could have possibly done to have helped that girl.”

I knelt down in front of her and rested my arm across my knee as I looked back up at her tired, anxious face. When she finally answered me, her voice was tense

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