On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory Read Online Free PDF Page B

let Constable York know precisely how I felt, when we gave them that description …”
    â€œBut you just don’t know,” repeated his wife. “He had a nice face. Kind. He looked … well just so anxious; so concerned. He really seemed enormously reluctant to have to leave.”
    â€œSweetheart I don’t care how enormously reluctant he seemed. The main thing is—he left.”
    â€œThere could have been a reason.”
    â€œLike what?”
    I said: “That description you gave them. May I hear it too?” I had been careful not to rush in; I was having a struggle to keep my expression suitably composed. “Maybe I know him?”
    â€œWell as I’ve already told you—he was a toff in an evening suit. But it’s a wonder we noticed even that much. It was the middle of the night, remember. We’d just stumbled through our gate after being shocked awake by the sound of a tremendous smash. It was obviously the accident itself which concerned us.”
    â€œHe was a man of about forty,” said Esther, “or he might have been a bit older. He was tall and very handsome and had a good figure and dark hair …” She petered out, perhaps conscious that in the circumstances it was indeed a little strange she should have registered so much, or else wondering if such details at such a time might not strike us as slightly inappropriate. There’d been a renewed element of defiance in her tone, even of near-hysteria; I somehow got the feeling that Constable York hadn’t paid her the same degree of attention which he’d accorded to her husband. “Oh he was probably just here for the weekend,” she concluded, almost bathetically.
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    Why do you say that oh you wonderful woman?
    â€œBecause if he were local we’d have recognized him, dinner jacket or not. Not that we’ve been here very long ourselves—only a couple of months—so possibly that’s why—”
    â€œWell if that’s the case thank God for small mercies. Sweetheart you might like him as a neighbour. But me—no way—not in a million years.”
    Rob smoothed one stubby-fingered and reflective hand over his balding pate. Again turned back to me.
    â€œAs a matter of fact,” he said, “I gave this handsome fellow chase. But not at once of course and when I did I’d left it far too late. At the very least, you see, he must have been a witness.”
    â€œYou gave him chase? I’m not sure I’d have thought of that.”
    â€œBut I hadn’t felt happy about leaving Esther; that was the crux of it. Not to mention not being in the pink of condition! And when I did dash round the corner he was almost out of sight. I was just in time to see him turning off towards Pack Hill and if it hadn’t been for the moonlight I mightn’t even have seen that much. God knows what he was going to do up there at half-past-two in the morning! Heading for some witches’ coven as like as not. Definitely up to no good!”
    Again I wanted to express my joy; would have liked to dance or cry out in gratitude. I had been asking for a sign. At first it had seemed I wasn’t going to get one but now I’d been given not just a sign but even an eyewitness account— two eyewitness accounts—with virtually a road map thrown in. Glorious and irrefutable proof I’d soon be catching up with Brad.
    â€œBut aside from witches’ covens,” I said, “there’s nothing very much up Pack Hill is there? I’ve only been there once; even the views were disappointing. The only vaguely interesting thing was a pile of ruins which somebody told us was the site of an ancient hostelry—afterwards we looked it up in the local library. Odd sort of place to have an inn! But apparently in its heyday it used to draw people from all over. Pilgrims and whatnot. It was called The Halfway