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She’d run aith someone else, and that someone else was Black Arthur, who fed people to demons, who had tortured the woain
I know you’re not Daniel Ryves’s son
Everybody always found it hard to believe that he was Alan’s brother, because he was not Alan’s brother He’d never had a brother
“Do you really know Alan?” Mrs Walsh asked, her voice tre “Can you tell me how he is? Daniel and Alan simply disappeared one day, and I alondered what had happened to them And then Alan found me He called and he wrote and he visited He was so polite; he was so good I didn’t see my nephew for fourteen years and he ca that his father was dead, and then he vanished I just want to know if he’s all right”
She looked as if she was going to cry Alan would have cared
Nick stared at this woer had a better claim on Alan than he did
The s room and its decorations did not seem frozen anymore Nick wanted to smash it all He’d been cold before, but now his blood felt too hot He was burning up, he was shaking with rage
The horrible woht?” she asked “Do you — do you need to sit down? Would you like a glass of water?”
Natasha Walsh rabbed hold of her upper arm She recoiled from the look on his face
He’d always known that he scared people sometimes Clearly it was a talent he’d inherited from his father
The wohted by fear “Don’t hurt me”
He hated her She’d told hi he’d ever known about his life was a lie, and he hated her aled in this place, with this woman and her family, and not with him
Nick put his lips to her ear and whispered, “Why not?”
He shook her hard, and she gave a thin, small scream and tried to break away She didn’t have a chance
“Let o,” she pleaded
“Why?” Nick de to a shout “I don’t feel sorry for you I don’t feel anything for you Why should I?”
He shook her again, her shoulders irip of his hands She stared up at him with terrified eyes that ashed-out copies of Alan’s deep-blue eyes and for ato do
Then the picture slipped out of her shaking fingers and clattered onto the rug
Nick looked down and saw Dad staring up at him
He let the woo and bolted out of that warm, comfortable home into the rain
He had not heard when it started raining, but now the drops pounded against his skin and rattled the roof of the car He stood with his ar a slick black curtain of hair over his eyes, and wondered why he didn’t just get into the car and drive It occurred to hio Home had always been an uncertain concept, attached to no particular place and centered on so to him
There was no hoainst his wet forearainst the slippery metal of the car roof, and tried to think It could not be true, not really There would be no way to live if it was true
He drove back to London eventually, because he could not stay outside that house and he could not think of anything else to do He was not panicked or running for a bolt-hole like a wounded anis or ideas, as if so
Alan called this kind of rain cats’ paws, and this rain seehtray of a pouring sky seeray of a city He only really noticed that he was in London when the car coughed to a stop on Tower Bridge, and he realized that night had been closing in behind the rain
Nick got out and went to the front of the car, intending to check out the engine, but the rain ha at the car bonnet, the rain distorting the road and the passing cars into a river of ink, the flow broken occasionally by flashes of metal
He turned away and left the car a of other h the rain Withinof rain against his skin beco as personal a rhythm as his footsteps
The towers on the bridge looray with rain clouds and the approach of night Nick stared up at thelittering as stiletto knives He bowed his head and walked through the driving rain
He had to walk for a long tiet hos had the heavy feeling thatto As he approached the flickering sign of the Chinese takeaway, the light turned the raindrops silver, and Nick had forgotten what it felt like to be dry
He caainst the door The rain druo back out and keep walking He’d knohat to do when he alking
“Nick!”
He looked up,switched on than at the sound of his name At the top of the stairs stood Mae, liht of a nad bulb
“Where have you been?” she asked “It’s three in thecrazy orry”
He flinched at the na it Mae’s face changed from inquiry to suspicion
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She’d run aith someone else, and that someone else was Black Arthur, who fed people to demons, who had tortured the woain
I know you’re not Daniel Ryves’s son
Everybody always found it hard to believe that he was Alan’s brother, because he was not Alan’s brother He’d never had a brother
“Do you really know Alan?” Mrs Walsh asked, her voice tre “Can you tell me how he is? Daniel and Alan simply disappeared one day, and I alondered what had happened to them And then Alan found me He called and he wrote and he visited He was so polite; he was so good I didn’t see my nephew for fourteen years and he ca that his father was dead, and then he vanished I just want to know if he’s all right”
She looked as if she was going to cry Alan would have cared
Nick stared at this woer had a better claim on Alan than he did
The s room and its decorations did not seem frozen anymore Nick wanted to smash it all He’d been cold before, but now his blood felt too hot He was burning up, he was shaking with rage
The horrible woht?” she asked “Do you — do you need to sit down? Would you like a glass of water?”
Natasha Walsh rabbed hold of her upper arm She recoiled from the look on his face
He’d always known that he scared people sometimes Clearly it was a talent he’d inherited from his father
The wohted by fear “Don’t hurt me”
He hated her She’d told hi he’d ever known about his life was a lie, and he hated her aled in this place, with this woman and her family, and not with him
Nick put his lips to her ear and whispered, “Why not?”
He shook her hard, and she gave a thin, small scream and tried to break away She didn’t have a chance
“Let o,” she pleaded
“Why?” Nick de to a shout “I don’t feel sorry for you I don’t feel anything for you Why should I?”
He shook her again, her shoulders irip of his hands She stared up at him with terrified eyes that ashed-out copies of Alan’s deep-blue eyes and for ato do