Читать книгу Lost Summer - Stuart Harrison - Страница 9

A few weeks after what had turned out to be his final session with Morris, Adam followed a man as he made his way through the crowds at Euston and climbed aboard the six-fifteen from platform seven. They shared the same first-class compartment, the other man nodding briefly before he opened the evening paper. Alan Thomas was forty-six. He was an executive for a print firm. Adam knew a lot about him. He had three children, a boy and two girls. Adam knew their names, where they went to school, when their birthdays were. Thomas’s wife, Christine, habitually wore a vaguely trapped expression that manifested itself in a kind of desperation in her eyes.

The train started moving and as it did the compartment door opened. A man with a briefcase started to come in until Adam stood up and blocked his way.

‘Sorry, this compartment is full.’

The man looked startled and then puzzled by the empty seats. Adam smiled apologetically, though he didn’t move out of the way. ‘I’m sure there are seats further on,’ he said. Eventually the man made a snorting sound and turned on his heel. There was a rustle of paper as Thomas regarded Adam warily, perhaps thinking he was sharing a compartment with a madman. Adam closed the door and returned to his seat. He weighed up the man opposite him. Thomas was heavier, but running to fat. He probably ate lunch at expensive restaurants too often, drank too much. Maybe lately he was drinking more. To help him sleep. If things went wrong then Adam thought he would come out on top. He was younger and fitter, even with a bad leg. He clenched his fist, and unclenched it again and he stared at Thomas coldly. He almost hoped Thomas tried something.

‘I want to know what you did with Liz Mount’s body after you killed her,’ he said.

He saw the reaction in Thomas’s eyes. The sickening fear and perhaps a kind of relief as well. Relief that the demons he’d lived with for months finally had a face if not yet a name.

When he got off the train forty minutes later Adam went to the police and told them what he knew. He couldn’t give them the name of Liz’s friend who’d told him that Liz had confided that Thomas had once tried to kiss her when he’d taken her home after baby-sitting, and that he’d put his hand up her skirt. He’d said if she told anyone they wouldn’t believe her and she would get into trouble. It wasn’t worth it, she’d said to her friend. She just wouldn’t go back.

Thomas hadn’t admitted anything, but Adam could guess some of what had happened. Thomas had probably seen Liz on the train that morning and perhaps he’d followed her. When she went back later he’d been on the train with her. Somehow he’d managed to get her to his house without anyone seeing them, though Adam didn’t know how. Perhaps he’d threatened her, perhaps it was just opportunist luck. Maybe he hadn’t even meant to kill her.

The police would question Thomas, and they would find Liz’s body somewhere near the house, Adam was sure of that, either before or after he confessed. After he left the police station he went to see the Mounts. He sat outside their house for a long time before he finally went to the door. Parents have a kind of extra sense where their children are concerned, especially mothers. He believed in the intuition of women. Carol Mount opened the door and as soon as she saw him she began to cry.

He found out later that Thomas had tried to assault Liz on the train and when she had resisted he’d pushed her out. Later he’d driven back to the spot where she’d fallen and recovered her body.

When he finished the story he wrote Adam sat for a long time in the dark. The light on the phone didn’t blink. By then Louise had left him.