meal.' It's one of those gallant post-Victorian requests one can only respond to with ‗Thank you, I think.'"
He laughed. -Sorry. My mother would roll in her grave, were she dead, which she isn't. Let me say, then, that I've had a look at tonight's menu, and it appears...if not brilliant, then at least swell."
She laughed in turn. - Swell? Where on earth did that come from? Never mind. Don't tell me.
Have a meal here instead. I've something already prepared and there's enough for two. It only wants baking."
-But then I'll be doubly in your debt."
-Which is exactly where I want you, my lord."
His face altered, all amusement drained away by her slip of the tongue. She cursed herself for her lapse in circumspection and what it presaged about her ability to keep other things to herself in his presence.
He said, -Ah. So you know."
She sought an explanation and decided one existed that would be reasonable, even to him.
-When you said last night that you were Scotland Yard, I wanted to know if that was the case. So I set about finding out." She looked away from him for a moment. She saw that the herring gulls were settling in on the nearby cliff face for the night, pairing off onto ledges and into crevices, ruffling their wings, huddling against the wind. -I'm terribly sorry, Thomas," she said.
After a moment during which more gulls landed and others soared and cawed, he said, -You've no need to apologise. I would have done the same in your situation. A stranger in your house claiming to be a policeman. Someone dead outside. What are you to believe?"
-That's not what I meant." She looked back at him. He was into the wind; she was against it. It played havoc with her hair, whipping it into her face despite the slide.
-Then what?" he said.
-Your wife," she told him. -I'm so terribly sorry about what happened to her. What a wrenching thing for you to have to go through."
-Ah," he said. -Yes." He moved his gaze to the seabirds. He would see them, Daidre knew, as she saw them, pairing off not because there was safety in numbers but because there was safety in just one other gull. -It was far more wrenching for her than for me," he said.
-No," Daidre said. -I don't believe that."
-Don't you? Well, there's little more wrenching than death by gunshot, I daresay. Especially when death is not immediate. I didn't have to go through that. Helen did. She was there one moment, just trying to get her shopping in the front door. She was shot the next. That would be rather wrenching, wouldn't you say?" He sounded bleak, and he didn't look at her as he spoke.
But he'd misunderstood her meaning, and Daidre sought to clarify it.
-I believe that death is the end of this part of our existence, Thomas: the spiritual being's human experience. The spirit leaves the body and then goes on to what's next. And what's next has to be better than what's here or what's the point, really?"
-Do you actually believe that?" His tone walked the line between bitterness and incredulity.
-Heaven and hell and nonsense in a similar vein?"
-Not heaven and hell. That all seems rather silly, doesn't it. God or whoever up there on a throne, casting this soul downward to eternal torment, tossing this soul upward to sing hymns with the angels. That can't be what this" - her arm took in the cliff side and the sea - -is all about. But that there's something else beyond what we understand in this moment...? Yes, I do believe that. So for you...You're still the spiritual being undergoing and attempting to understand the human experience while she now knows - "
-Helen," he said. -Her name was Helen."
-Helen, yes. Forgive me. Helen. She now knows what it was all about. But there's little peace of mind in that. For you, I mean...Knowing that Helen's moved on."
-It wasn't her choice," he said.
-Is it ever, Thomas?"
-Suicide." He looked at her evenly.
She felt a chill. -That's not a choice. That's a decision based upon the belief that there are no choices."
-God." A muscle moved in his jaw. She so regretted her slip of the tongue. A simple expression - my lord - had reduced him to his wound. These things take time, she wanted to tell him. Such a cliche but so much truth within it.
She said to him, -Thomas, do you fancy a walk? There's something I'd like