A Share in Death

He seemed caught up now in his own tale, speaking more to himself than to Hannah, remembering detail by detail. “Someone’s sharp intake of breath, almost a gasp. I turned, and after the second it took my eyes to adjust I made out a form standing by the sofa. Enough light came through the sitting-room windows that I thought I recognized Penny. I started to speak, but there was something about the way she stood there, not moving, not speaking. Furtive, almost frightened. Well, it occurred to me that I didn’t really want to explain my movements either, so I just turned and left.” He raised his eyes to hers for the first time. “I should have spoken up in the beginning. I didn’t want to have to explain myself. Oh, I could have made some excuse, but excuses always sound like what they are. Then Penny didn’t speak either and it got more and more awkward. It would almost have been funny, if the outcome hadn’t been so tragic.”

The roar of a lawnmower shattered the deep peace of the precinct. Hannah, startled, thought she’d never heard

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a more incongruous sound. Patrick sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. “I have no proof of anything, Hannah. No proof that I did nothing else that night but go to bed. But no one else has any proof that I did.” He waited, looking at her now, expecting some response.

“What would you have done if things had gone the way Duncan said? If Sebastian had told Marta, and she had left you and taken her parents’ money with her?” She spoke without heat, curiously.

“If I don’t win this by-election, I’ll win the next one, or the one after that, and I don’t need their help to do it. I could be P.M. someday, Hannah, if I grab the right coat tails, and Marta is becoming more of a liability than an asset.”

“Why,” Hannah asked in the same flat voice, “after you married one woman who wanted to use you, would you pick another with the same thing in mind?”

He shrugged. “Bad judgment, I guess. I’d begun to see that, of course, but she’s still very… attractive. 1 may know my strengths as a politician, but that doesn’t make me infallible. Besides, I never meant to marry Cassie.” His mouth quirked in that small, ironic smile and he straightened up, moving a step closer to her. “Now, let me ask something of you, Hannah. What gives you the right to accuse me? Or rather,” he smiled again, “I should ask myself why I feel obligated to offer you a defense. Something… compels me to be honest with you. I don’t understand it.”

Hannah turned from him. She stood on the brink, the choice before her. To speak now required more courage than anything she had ever done in her life. He had placed the perfect opening in her hands, yet she stood mute, her mind frozen. She forced herself to breathe. After a long moment the halting words came, but they bore no resemblance to the ones she’d prepared.

“You should have seen me at sixteen, Patrick. Too tall, too bony, all arms and legs and awkward angles. No boy ever showed the least interest in me until I went home with a school friend for the long vac, and her older brother took pity on me. He must have been all of nineteen,

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and terribly sophisticated in my eyes. I was curious, and flattered, and he was very inept—but I didn’t know that at the time, just that it was all rather disappointing.” She half turned and risked a glance at his puzzled face before continuing.

“Of course, the consequences of such… such stupidity and naivete were inevitable. You can’t imagine what it was like to have to tell my parents I was pregnant. My parents … didn’t make allowances for mistakes. I had already been accepted at university for the next year. To them it was unthinkable that I should keep the baby. And I… I didn’t have the courage to withstand them. I could have managed—left school, found a job. I could have done something.” Hannah’s voice had risen. She found herself trembling again and clasped her arms tightly across her chest. After a moment she spoke again, more calmly. “It was all very discreetly arranged. I went to stay with an aunt. When the baby came my parents took him away, saying they had found a suitable home.”