Heathen/Nemesis Read Online Free PDF

done in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors for the launch of his last book. It showed him standing beside the guillotine, pointing up at the blade and smiling.
     
    Donna stared at the photo, her eyes filling with tears. She fought them back and glanced around at the other things on his desk. It was organised chaos. File trays were marked with white sticky labels, each one supposedly home, according to the legend on the sticker, to various documents.
     
    CONTRACTS
     
    RESEARCH AND NOTES
     
    FAN MAIL
     
    She picked a letter from the top of the tray and glanced at it. It was the usual thing. ‘I enjoyed your books very much. I look forward to the next one. Please can I have a signed photo etc. etc.’
     
    Ward received a lot of fan mail and was always grateful for it. The readers, he used to tell her, paid their mortgage.
     
    Did they pay for his mistress, too?
     
    Donna slid open one of the drawers and peered in. More notepads, more envelopes. Elastic bands, paper clips, Tipp-Ex.
     
    A letter.
     
    She pulled it out and spread it out on the desk, scanning it through tired eyes.
     
    Dear Suzanne.
     
    Donna stiffened, sucked in a shallow breath.
     
    Suzanne.
     
    One part of her wanted to read the letter; the other part told her not to continue.
     
    ‘Dear Suzanne,’ she read aloud. ‘Just a quick note to tell you that everything is taken care of.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I hope you are well and I will see you next Thursday. Love, Chris.’
     
    Love.
     
    Donna closed her eyes for a moment, her body shaking. Then she looked at the letter again. There was no date on it.
     
    See you next Thursday.
     
    She snatched at the letter and balled it up, crushing it between her hands, finally hurling it across the room with a despairing grunt. Tears were coursing down her cheeks. She glared across at the photo of her husband on the wall.
     
    He smiled back at her.
     
    ‘You fucking bastard,’ she roared at the photo.
     
    She didn’t know whether her tears were of pain or anger.
     
    And it didn’t really seem to matter any more.
     

Eleven
     
    Donna hadn’t expected so much coverage in the papers.
     
    She’d thought there would be a mention of her husband’s death in the trade magazines, and perhaps a line or two in one of the nationals, but she was unprepared for what actually appeared.
     
    Three of the tabloids ran two-column stories (one with a photograph) while even The Times mentioned Chris’s death. A little ironic, Donna thought, considering how they had lambasted his books when he’d been alive. The coverage provoked a flood of phone calls to the house. She moved around irritably, not picking up the phone, leaving the answering machine to cope with the deluge. Occasionally she would stand beside the machine and listen to see who was on the other end of the line, but by the afternoon she had unplugged all the phones except the one connected to the answerphone in an effort to get some peace.
     
    She hadn’t slept much the previous night and what rest she’d managed had been fitful. She’d woken twice from a nightmare but had been unable to remember the images that had shocked her into consciousness.
     
    Car crashes, perhaps?
     
    Funerals?
     
    Mistresses?
     
    She didn’t go near Ward’s office that day; she feared what she might find in there. The letter she had discovered had only reinforced her conviction that her husband had been having an affair with Suzanne Regan. What Donna was aware of was how little she had cried since finding the letter. More and more of the emotion she felt was tinged with anger now.
     
    She ate a bowl of soup and some bread at about two o’clock and sat staring at the Valium bottle. She thought about taking one of the tablets but decided against it.
     
    The phone was silent now. As she dropped her bowl into the sink, Donna decided to check the messages before a new batch came in.
     
    The house seemed very quiet as she walked through the hallway and flicked