Act of Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

defamatory chant. Her nightmare self would turn to her fellow actors on stage only to see their eyes narrow with
angry exultation.
    She reached up and cupped his face with both hands. ‘Why do you love me?’
    He frowned. ‘What a strange question!’
    Slowly he placed his hands on hers and brought them down to her side. When he spoke, his voice was low and in deadly earnest. ‘You are the most precious thing in my life. Whenever I close
my eyes, your face – every delightful contour and feature – is before me. There are times when I feel such pain . . . there is a very fine dividing line between love and torment, and it
hurts me so much to be apart from you.’ He brought her lips close to his. ‘I love you so very much.’
    She felt the warmth of his breath, and the ardour it bore. She edged towards him, and as they kissed she felt herself almost floating with abandon that took her far beyond the dingy confines of
this cramped room and away from the misgivings that would nevertheless be awaiting her when she returned.
    *
    When Georgina Throstle awoke, she felt a tremor of disorientation. For a second she thought she was back in Leeds, lying in a comfortable bed in their spacious home, where all
was right and the sky forever blue. But the harsh call from a fish-hawker in the street below, urging passers-by to ‘put some gradely jackbit on yer owd chap’s plate!’ in a
sing-song lilt repeated over and over again, made her open her eyes with a heavy sigh. The pain from earlier had subsided into something more tolerable, a dull ache that was like the final
rumblings of a distant storm, and the darkness outside the window told her that she had indeed slept for some considerable time.
    She sat up, slowly and with exaggerated care in case the pain should come flooding back, and glanced over to the chair beside the wall opposite, where Richard would sometimes sit and read by the
oil lamp on the table. But the chair was unoccupied. She had a sudden presentiment. Evidently he had gone out. But where? The Public Hall, to supervise tonight’s presentation? Or to speak
with the gentleman who accosted him earlier, the one he had lied to her about? Or simply to take an early-evening constitutional before his dramatic exertions for the Phantasmagoria ?
    There was, she knew with a heavy heart, a fourth possibility, one that swirled beneath her composure like sewage, and one which she had hitherto preferred to keep well hidden in case the stench
should make her nauseous.
    Such morbid thoughts! She scolded herself and walked over to light the lamp. The room was now merely in half-shadows, and she pulled her dressing-gown around her shoulders to ward off the chill
before moving over to the window.
    The fog had lifted a little, drifting around the flare of the gas lamps which illuminated the row of shops opposite and cast a dull, jaundiced yellow on their wares. She glanced to left and
right, up and down the street, scouring the darkened features of each person, but seeing none that remotely resembled her husband. This was intolerable! He had effectively abandoned her to her own
devices – why, she could have been murdered in her sleep!
    Suddenly, she felt a cold breeze stroke the back of her neck, and saw the curtains before her sway in response. She heard something click, like the closing of a door she had never heard open,
and then, before she dared turn around to investigate, there was a strange and brutish sound behind her, like the heavy panting of a wild animal, and she realised there was indeed someone –
or something – in her room. She turned around quickly, saw the wild and frenzied look in the eyes, and the scream froze in her throat.

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    Billy Cowburn had flatly refused to go to the Pagefield for a drink after work. He could tell, in the resigned shrugs of the others, that they were not only getting used to his
desire for solitude, they were also growing more than a little fed up. The time would soon