An Air That Kills Read Online Free PDF Page B

again.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, woman, you owe him that much, an apology, an explanation.”
    â€œWhy should I apologize? I’m not sorry. As for an explana­tion, how can I explain something I don’t understand myself? I didn’t know it was going to happen to Ron and me. If I had, maybe I would have asked Harry for a pill or something, a love-preventative pill.” She laughed briefly and bitterly. “He’s got every other kind.”
    â€œWhen did it all begin?”
    â€œA couple of weeks before Christmas. I went into town to buy Harry’s gift and I met Ron in Eaton’s by accident. We had lunch together at the Park Plaza and afterwards we went out on the terrace in the snow and looked down at the city. It was so pretty. I’d never cared much for Toronto before, I was brought up in the West, Vancouver. Well, that’s all, we just stood there. There was no flirtation, no hand-holding, we didn’t even talk personally or look at each other much. But when I got home I didn’t tell Harry. I had no reason not to. But I didn’t. I even made up a lie for him, told him I had lunch with a nurse I used to work with at the Murray Clinic in Hamilton. The next day I took a bus into Toronto again because I’d forgotten to buy Harry’s Christmas present. At least that was the excuse I gave myself. I went back to the same store, at the same time, and hung around the Yonge Street entrance for nearly an hour. I had this terribly strong feeling that Ron would show up. He didn’t, but later he told me that he’d wanted to very much, that he’d thought of me all morning but he couldn’t get away because Esther was giving a luncheon party at the club.”
    A couple of dimwits, Turee thought contemptuously, dramatizing themselves, out of boredom, into a situation that neither of them was equipped to handle. He said, “And Harry hasn’t suspected a thing?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œFor your information, Esther has and does.”
    â€œI thought as much. She was very cold when I called her last week and invited her to go to a séance a friend of mine was giving. I was only trying to be affable.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œFor Ron’s sake. I don’t want him cut off from Esther’s children the way he was cut off from his first wife’s. It’s not fair.”
    â€œThe courts seem to think so.”
    â€œThe courts in this country, yes. Oh, this place is so stodgy and provincial. I wish we could live in the States, Ron and I and the baby.”
    The front door opened and Harry came back into the hotel lobby walking unsteadily and with his feet wide apart like a newly debarked sailor bracing himself against the pitch and roll of a ship that was no longer under him. Although the night air was still balmy, his lips were blue with cold and his eyes had a glassy stare as if unshed tears had been trapped there and frozen.
    â€œ. . . some place where they don’t have these long terrible winters,” Thelma was saying. “Oh, how I hate them! I’ve reached the point where I can’t even enjoy the spring any more because I know how short it will be and how soon fall is coming when everything is sad again, everything dying.”
    â€œLet’s go into that some other time,” Turee said brusquely. “Now tell me, was Ron driving the Cadillac when he came to your house tonight?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œDid it have the top down or up?”
    â€œDown, I think. Yes, definitely down. I remember waving out the window to him and wondering if he might catch cold with all that draft on the back of his neck. He com­plained of feeling ill anyway.”
    â€œI can believe it.”
    â€œNo, I mean he complained about it before I told him any­thing about the baby. Really, Ralph, you’re in a nasty mood tonight.”
    â€œI wonder why.”
    â€œAfter all, it’s not your