Dead Men and Broken Hearts: A Lennox Thriller (Lennox 4) (45 page)

‘There was someone,’ I said, turning to her.

‘Did you break up with her,’ she asked.

‘Yes …’ Then I shook my head irritatedly. ‘No …’

I thought of the letter; of what Fiona had told me about how she had felt about me; how I’d changed while I’d known her and how I wasn’t to let
this
ruin that; how she wanted me to go back to Canada and find someone new, someone nice and start all over.

‘No,’ I repeated to the girl next to me. ‘We didn’t break up. She got sick. She died.’

‘Oh …’ The girl’s expression changed, as if suddenly she wanted to be somewhere else. I couldn’t blame her: she was just a girl looking for a good time, for fun, and the pony she had backed had turned out lame.

‘She was sick and I didn’t know it,’ I explained and could hear something like pleading in my own voice. ‘You see, all those times she went with him – all those times I thought she was
with
him … The hospital. He was taking her to the hospital and it should have been me taking her. She didn’t want me to know. I got it all wrong. All wrong.’

I took the letter from my pocket and stared at it, a crumpled ball in my hand. I felt my face wet.

I sat for a while saying nothing and when I next looked the
girl was gone. I stuffed the letter back in my pocket, went through to the public bar and drank some more, a lot more.

Then, in the best Celtic tradition, I looked around for someone to fight.

My thanks go to the following people for their support: Wendy, Jonathan and Sophie Russell; Jane Wood, Ron Beard, Katie Gordon, Robyn Karney and all at Quercus; Andrew Gordon, Georgina Ruffhead, Tine Nielsen and Ania Corless at David Higham Associates; Ali and Al Muirden at Creative Content; Colin Black, Chris Martin, Larry Sellyn and Elaine Dyer.