Read Fell Purpose for Free Online

was too young!’ Mrs Wilding said viciously, in the manner of one wanting to inflict the maximum hurt. ‘Zellah’s the same age!’
    And in the same manner, he hissed, ‘Was! Was! Was! ’
    It was too much for everyone in the room. A hideous silence fell, the Wildings staring at each other with terrified pain and realization, Wilding on his feet, trembling, his wife gripping the arms of her chair so hard her knuckles were white.
    Time for a little time out, Atherton thought. There was history here, which might or might not prove helpful to understanding the situation. Think like me, Slider had said; and Slider would have got to the bottom of it. He caught Connolly’s eye and conveyed his wishes by eyebrow and an infinitesimal flick of the head, and said, ‘Mrs Wilding, I wonder if PC Connolly could see Zellah’s room. And we shall need a clear recent photograph, if you have one.’
    Mrs Wilding tore her eyes from her husband’s like someone peeling off a plaster, and not without pain, either. She stood up, the meat of her face quivering with suppressed rage. ‘You want to talk to him on his own,’ she said. ‘Well, you’re welcome to him! Much good may it do you.’A last little spurt of viciousness. ‘Much good he ever did me.’
    A response almost escaped Wilding’s lips, but he held it back, and she walked from the room with unexpected dignity, Connolly following.
    In the silence that followed, Wilding remained standing where he was, as if he had forgotten how to sit down. Atherton, trying hard to imagine what he must be suffering, thought he would probably have welcomed death at that moment, so that he would never have to move on from that moment and face what was coming in the future, for the rest of his life.
    ‘Please sit down,’ Atherton said eventually, half expecting an explosion. A cornered animal will often attack. But Wilding did sit, blindly, staring at nothing again. Slowly he unfurled his clenched fists and rested them on the chair arms with a curiously deliberate gesture, as though determined to remember where he had left them , at least. Atherton sat too, giving him a moment to compose himself.
    But Wilding spoke first. The effort of control was audible in the strain in his voice, but it was a very fair attempt at normality. ‘I apologise for that. My wife is an emotional woman, and . . .’ He didn’t seem to know how to end the sentence.
    ‘No apology necessary,’ Atherton said. ‘This is a terrible time for both of you.’
    ‘We ought to have handled it better,’ Wilding said. ‘But it’s not something you ever anticipate having to face. Please don’t pay any attention to what she said. She didn’t mean anything. She was just lashing out.’
    ‘I understand,’ Atherton said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
    ‘I suppose you must be used to it,’ Wilding said, looking at him properly for the first time. ‘I hope you don’t understand. Have you got children?’
    ‘No,’ Atherton said.
    ‘Then you can’t,’ Wilding said. ‘Though I suppose you’ve done this before.’
    ‘It’s never easy,’ Atherton said.
    ‘I suppose not. A strange job, yours. Not one I envy you. You must have seen all the worst aspects of human behaviour.’
    ‘And some of the best,’ Atherton said, to encourage him. ‘Great courage and dignity.’
    ‘We should have handled it better,’ Wilding said again. ‘ I should have, as an educated man. But Zellah is our only child. She . . . she was everything to me. You can’t conceive how much she . . .’ He made an unfinished gesture towards the large photograph on the wall, as if that said what he could not.
    ‘She’s beautiful,’ Atherton said, deliberately not using the past tense.
    But Wilding noticed. ‘Not any more,’ he said with black bitterness. ‘Someone’s taken all that away. All that beauty, that talent, that intelligence. All that promise. She was my perfect star.’ He was winding himself up again. ‘But there’s