Читать книгу Mark of the Beast - Brian Ball - Страница 4

CHAPTER ONE

“Tell your husband to park at the front,” Mrs. Pierce said.

“Park there,” ordered Janice, so Alan eased the Rover into the kerb.

Mrs. Pierce said: “Charlie will be pleased you’ve come along. Though he’s not been too well himself. He said last week he’d got a cold, but I think it’s flu.”

“Flu, Mrs. Pierce!” said Alan as he locked the doors of the Rover.

“Do call me Linda. Charlie always neglected himself,” Mrs. Pierce said. “I was always telling him to wrap up. Any little infection goes straight to his chest. He sounded dreadful last week.”

She led the way to the white-painted building.

“But isn’t he—” Alan began in a whisper.

“Alan!” warned his wife.

“But I thought you told me she’d lost her husband, Jan. I thought he was dead!”

Mrs. Pierce waited for them on the step. Smiling, she said:

“But Charlie’s not dead, dear! How could he send me messages every week?”

Alan hadn’t wanted to come to the séance. There was a good TV programme that evening. But Janice had been insistent. Now he was stuck with a crank.

“Well?” asked Mrs. Pierce.

“I suppose—”

“They don’t regard it as death,” said Janice.

“That’s right, dear,” said Mrs. Pierce. “It’s just a matter of going over to the other side.”

“Ah,” said Alan. “The other side.” He repressed the urge to laugh as he caught the expression on the women’s faces. “Is it time to go in?”

“Yes! We’re late!” said Mrs. Pierce. “Janice, I’m sure you’ll get through, though I don’t know about your husband.”

Janice smiled, and her whole being was transfigured. She was a tall, slim, very pale girl with a, long white neck and a well-shaped body; there was nothing exceptional at all about her except that smile. Her chin was too pointed and her nose too narrow for beauty. She was plain until she smiled.

Alan saw the brilliant smile on his wife’s face and knew it wasn’t for him. Janice was smiling because she was excited at the prospect of hearing a dead man speak. A dead man with flu.