Intrusion Read Online Free PDF Page A

flippant or banal. It seemed to work for everyone else.
    The woman gave a small, unimpressed laugh.
    ‘Could I get you a drink?’ Hugh said.
    ‘Oh, would you?’ She sounded surprised. ‘Thanks awfully.’
    ‘What are you having?’
    ‘A vodka and lime, please. That’s not too girlie, is it? You can say it’s for yourself, can’t you?’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t have my cert updated, and anyway … ’ She shrugged one shoulder, then looked away.
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Hugh. This time he knew what to say, but didn’t because the woman herself so plainly didn’t want to speak about it: the humiliation and annoyance of having to show she wasn’t pregnant before she could buy alcohol. Instead, he sighed sympathetically, then smiled complicitly. ‘Mind my pint.’
    He put the glass carefully on the nearest low table, and rejoined the queue. By the time he got back the beer was flat. He didn’t much mind.
    ‘Thanks, uh …?’
    ‘Hugh Morrison.’
    ‘Thanks, Hugh.’ She sipped, regarding him.
    ‘And your name is …?’ he said.
    ‘Hope Abendorf.’ Another laugh, this time at herself. ‘And I’ve heard all the jokes since kindergarten.’
    ‘Jokes?’
    ‘My nickname was Hope Abandon.’
    With her slender English-posh vowels, that did sound a little like her name, the way Hugh heard it.
Hape Ebendon
.
    ‘No jokes about that from me,’ said Hugh.
    ‘Good,’ she said.
    They went on talking, and didn’t stop. There was one awkward moment, when she was telling him something about her course – art and business studies, which as she said was about right for minding some village gallery or craft shop in the Home Counties – and his attention wandered. A tall, long-haired, bearded guy in leathers and metal – could have been a biker, could have been a re-enactor – strolled past and suddenly turned and fixed Hugh with a blue-eyed glare and said, in a language Hugh didn’t speak and had never heard but did understand, ‘You be good to that one,’ and strode straight on, through the wall as if it weren’t there. Or as if
he
weren’t, to be more rational about the matter. It had been ten years since Hugh had seen someone who wasn’t there.
    ‘Am I boring you?’ Hope asked, her tone light but sharp.
    ‘No. Sorry.’ Hugh blinked, and shook his head. ‘Something you said just reminded me of something, that’s all.’ He smiled. ‘You have all my attention.’
    The way he said it, slow and precise, it sounded like a promise. Which, as it turned out, he kept.

A Scar of Thought
     
    Fiona Donnelly rang the doorbell at 10.15 the day after Hope’s queries to her friends. She was about forty-five years old and she was a district nurse. She’d been alerted by Hope’s monitor ring, which like all such devices logged its results with the local health centre and the national database. Her visit had popped up on Hope’s diary when she’d fired up her glasses that morning, and Hope had nodded in agreement. Mrs Donnelly had been her visitor when she was pregnant with Nick.
    Still, when Hope opened the door and saw Mrs Donnelly standing there in the little basement-flat front yard under a light dusting of snow, she felt a slight pang of dread, like she always did when she saw someone in uniform on her doorstep. It wasn’t much of a uniform, just a hooded blue fleece over a blue tunic and trousers, with a few badges and discreet sensors – cameras, mikes, sniffers – pinned here and there over the chest,but there it was. Authority. Hope had had a slight nervousness about people in uniforms since she was a girl in Ealing, back when Ealing was still des res and she was about ten, and the men from Environment had come to take away the Aga.
    ‘Hi, Mrs Donnelly,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’
    ‘Fiona, please, Hope. It hasn’t been that long. Let’s not be strangers.’
    ‘No, no,’ said Hope.
    Fiona took off her fleece, shook the ice particles off it, looked about for a peg and hung the garment on