A Place of Hiding

She was in the passage between front door and kitchen and the young man joined her there. His proximity in the narrow corridor made him seem more threatening than he otherwise might have been, and the silence in the house round and above them seemed amplified suddenly. He said, “I di’n’t have a paper in mind. I don’t ever remember any good with papers.”


“Well, then. That’s that, isn’t it? I’ll just have to phone and introduce myself to them.” Margaret turned—although she was loath to put him out of her sight—and made for the door.

He caught her up in two steps and trapped her hand on the knob. She felt his breath hot on her neck. He moved against her so she was pressed into the door. When he had her there, he released her hand and groped downward till he’d found her crotch. He grabbed hard and jerked her back against him. With his other hand he reached for and squeezed her left breast. It all happened in a second. “This’ll help me remember good enough,” he muttered.

All Margaret could think, ludicrously, was what had he done with the cigarette he’d lit? Was it in his hand? Did he mean to burn her?

The lunacy of those thoughts in circumstances in which burning was clearly the last thing on the creature’s mind acted as a spur to free her from fear. She drove her elbow backwards into his ribs. She drove the heel of her boot into the centre of his foot. In the moment his grip loosened upon her, she shoved him back and got herself out of the door. She wanted to stay and drive her knee into his bollocks—God, how she was itching to do that—but although she was a tigress when enraged, she had never been a fool. She made for her car.

As she drove in the direction of Le Reposoir, she found that her body was shot through with adrenaline and her response to the adrenaline was rage. She directed it at the loathsome excuse of a human being she’d found in the Bouet. How dared he...Who the hell did he thi nk...What did he intend... She could bloody well have killed... But that lasted only so long. It spent itself as the realisation of what might have happened grew in her mind, and this redirected her fury onto a more appropriate recipient: her son.

He hadn’t gone with her. He’d left her to deal with Henry Moullin herself on the previous day, and he’d done exactly the same this morning. She was finished with it, Margaret decided. By God, she was finished. She was finished with orchestrating Adrian’s life without the slightest assistance or even any thanks. She’d been fighting his battles since the day he was born, and that was over.

At Le Reposoir, she slammed the door of the Range Rover and stalked to the house, where she opened and slammed its door as well. The slams punctuated the monologue going on in her head. She was finished. Slam. He was bloody well on his own. Slam again. No sound came in response to her ministrations upon the heavy front door. This infuriated her in ways she wouldn’t have expected, and she charged across the old stone hall with her boot heels marking an enraged tattoo. She fairly flew up the stairs to Adrian’s room. The only things keeping her from bursting in on him were concern that some sign of what she’d just gone through might be apparent on her person and fear that she’d find Adrian engaged in some disgusting personal activity. And perhaps, she thought, that’s what had driven Carmel Fitzgerald into the all-too-willing arms of Adrian’s own father. She’d had a first-hand experience of one or another of Adrian’s odious methods of self-soothing when under pressure and she’d run to Guy in confusion, seeking solace and an explanation, both of which Guy had been all too willing to give her.

He’s rather odd, my son, not quite what one expects from a real man, my dear. Oh yes, oh too right, Margaret thought. Adrian’s one chance for normalcy ripped from his hands. And at his own fault, which was maddening to Margaret in the extreme. When—good God when— would her son transform himself into the man she meant him to be?