Read Why Don’t You Come for Me for Free Online Page B

was a one-off package, tailored to a group of English Civil War enthusiasts and their wives. While he led the men around various battlefields, Melissa would be taking their spouses on a round of galleries, antiques shops and various other upmarket retail opportunities, with visits to a chocolate maker and a stately home thrown in.
    It had been raining all the way from Manchester, but when he turned off the M6 it became torrential. As he negotiated the winding lanes, great sheets of water flew up every time the car encountered one of the miniature lakes which had spread themselves across the tarmac. He was dog-tired, but the knowledge that he was nearly home lifted his spirits.
    He had spoken to Jo the night before from the privacy of his Scarborough hotel room, by which time she had seemed much calmer, the initial upset of the card’s arrival behind her – touchingly contrite, in fact, about the interruption she had forced upon him in Haworth, and appearing to agree when he said that the card was just another cruel hoax like all the others.
    As he rounded the bend above the bridge, the lights of the house became visible through the trees. Another few seconds and he was turning into the drive. When he switched the engine off the rain seemed to pour onto the car roof with renewed vigour, water cascading down the windscreen unchecked, obscuring the lighted house, turning everything into a watery blur. No one appeared to open the front door for him, so he had to juggle his bags and keys, fumbling for the lock as the rain plastered down his hair.
    ‘Anyone home?’ he called from the hall.
    ‘In here.’ It was a tone which made his heart sink. In spite of their relatively upbeat conversation the night before, things were obviously worse than he had thought. He felt an intense weariness pressing him down.
    The voice had come from the sitting room. Marcus entered and attempted to muster a cheerful expression. ‘What’s up?’, adding as he caught sight of Jo’s look of acute distress, ‘Has there been a call from the hospital?’
    She stared up at him. ‘It would have been – is – Lauren’s birthday.’
    ‘Oh, I see.’
    ‘You’d forgotten.’ She slumped back into the chair, absently twisting her wedding ring between her right thumb and forefinger, while tears began a parallel descent down each cheek.
    Although exasperated, Marcus was invariably moved by her beauty. The newly shed tears made her look impossibly young and vulnerable. ‘I’m sorry.’ He advanced to embrace her, but when she stayed wooden in his arms he withdrew, repeating his apology but this time adding with a hint of reproof, ‘I’ve just driven all the way back from Manchester. Sometimes the living have to take precedence over the dead.’
    An arctic chill instantly enveloped him. It had slipped out so easily – the great unsayable. Even so, he felt she could have offered him something, at least asked after his mother, but she resorted instead to noisy sobs, between which she gasped out, ‘She’s not dead. She’s not dead.’ It reminded him of when he was a little boy, sitting between his sister and his mother in the theatre at a performance of Peter Pan , with the whole audience shouting out, ‘I do believe in fairies’, and Tinkerbell miraculously restored to life.
    ‘My darling Jo.’ He put a hand on her shoulder, which seemed to calm her.
    ‘I’ve been in touch with the local police about the card, and they’re going to contact Devon and Cornwall,’ she said. ‘The policeman was so nice – I explained it all to him and he seemed quite hopeful. He said they’ll probably analyse it. There are so many new tests now … DNA …’
    He gave her shoulder another squeeze before withdrawing his hand, saying nothing. She had clearly spoken with an officer who was unfamiliar with the case, unaware that the cards had never afforded any forensic clues whatsoever. By the time the police got hold of them, they had always been handled by