The Hunger Trace Read Online Free PDF

strings. She thought of the figure she had seen on the grounds that night. Even if she had wanted to tell Maggie, how could she explain her excellent vantage point?
    She, too, had read the newspaper stories about the break-in. Maggie had responded to the scaremongering with an interview in the Derbyshire Herald , in which she spoke of the ignorance of the animal liberationists she assumed to be responsible. ‘Many of the animals “set free” were in fact infants, or ill . They will not survive in the wild without their parents. One of the foxes released was blind. That’s animal cruelty.’
    Clever girl, Louisa thought. She wondered what Maggie had done to get such coverage when the ‘Lions on the Loose’ angle pulled in the punters. The photograph was of an ocelot cradled in arms to show that it was not much bigger than a domestic cat. The arms wore a ribbed thermal undergarment, tight to the skin with a row of tiny buttons up through the cuff, and a coat over the top with a zip pocket in the sleeve. The arms were Maggie’s and Louisa knew it; she was all straps and zips and buttons, that one.
    These were the forms in which Louisa felt most comfortable dealing with people: cropped photos and handwriting, on newspaper and card.

T HREE
     
    Maggie stepped into the entrance hall of the house after her early morning rounds and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Powdery rays fell from the skylight onto the faded staircase runner, but for a few moments, all she could see was her breath.
    They had once lived on the ground floor, but Christopher insisted that they move upstairs after David died. Maggie had told Christopher of his father’s death in David’s office, downstairs, and she recalled that she had been unable to cry. Christopher had curled into a huge ball on the floor, as still and silent as the stuffed foxes and hares that surrounded him.
    She climbed the stairs. The second floor, where they now lived, was dusty and sparsely furnished. Planks of wood rested on garden rocks to serve as shelves, and smoky marks stained the walls above the defunct storage heaters. That morning, Maggie found the cold air heavy with the cedarwood and citrus of David’s aftershave. She had to steady herself. In the bathroom she found Chris Isaak blaring from the radio, and the bath rimmed with the rusty splinters of Christopher’s beard. A small pool of the aftershave dripped from the edge of the sink onto the bare floorboards.
    As she walked through the hall, she could hear Christopher in the living room, and could tell from his tone that he was talking to the Samaritans. ‘Anyway, I can hear my arch-nemesis approaching, so I have to go. What? No, no, I’m no longer suicidal. Erm. Okay, bye.’ He laughed, and Maggie could discern, beneath his gravelly mirth, her late husband’s laugh.
    She gave him time to organise a video as an alibi, waiting until the rasp of motor racing came from the TV before entering the room.
    ‘Morning, Christopher,’ she said.
    ‘Is it?’ he said.
    She looked at her watch. ‘Well, yes.’
    He was bulky, his large head lit by the dual burners of bright blue tinted contact lenses. His affected coolness was borrowed from 1950s Hollywood: he sat with one arm across the back of the sofa, and he often said, ‘Howdy.’ This morning the fingers of his right hand were speckled with the phosphorescent orange dust from a bag of Monster Munch. His limp lower lip was, as usual, split down the middle by a shining line of blood, which stained his front teeth and his dental brace. She crouched down by him, so their eyes were level.
    ‘I don’t suppose anybody has called about the missing animals?’ she asked.
    ‘How should I know? Anyway, you should hire security guards. I need to be in a secure environment in order to, erm, erm, flourish.’
    Maggie smiled. It was a direct quote from his educational support document.
    Christopher’s face brightened spontaneously. ‘Erm. I had the best