by R.J. Ellory
And the table came into view, the chair also, the chair where he had sat in life, in death also; the chair from where Jimmy had risen and walked forward, the sound of cockroaches scuttling across the plates, the smell of rotted food, the drip-drip-drip of blood as it spooled out between items of crockery and cutlery to find the edge of that table.
And there was nothing.
Not a sound. Not a word. Nothing for him to see and nothing in his mind. The table was still standing, the chair also, but the seat had gone, the back also, and whatever color the fabric might have been had long since disappeared, bleached out by daylight, by damp, by time.
In that moment, Michael Travis believed that he was in front of himself, as if he could turn around right there and then and see his own face looking back.
He shuddered. It was a strange and disorientating sensation, and then it passed, almost as quickly as it had come.
He stood for a moment longer, trying to feel anything at all, but the house was empty, as were his feelings for it, the only extant memory that of his mother in the kitchen, her voice gentle and melodic.
If happy little bluebirds fly… beyond the rainbow… why, oh why can’t I?
And then the memory was gone.
Michael retraced his steps and left the house. He paused for a moment on the veranda, and then he walked to the edge and stepped down.
From his jacket pocket, he withdrew the letter that he had recovered from his apartment in Olathe. He had left everything behind but for a few articles of clothing. Even the book he had given Esther so many years before had stayed there on the bookshelf.
Michael
Just one word on the front.
He turned it over and opened it.
There were two sheets of paper. The first was from Esther, and even as he read her words, he felt a wave of emotions deep enough to drown him forever.
January 28, 1950
Dear Michael,
The truth can both hurt and heal. I trust that what I am telling you now will bring you more of the latter and none of the former.
Your mother, dead now more than two years, never lost her mind. She was never crazy. She knew who you were, and she always knew who you were. She made two decisions in her life, both of them harder than any decision I have ever had to make, harder than any decision I will now ever have to make. The first was to end the suffering she endured from Jimmy and also any possibility that Jimmy might hurt you. The second was to leave you long before her death. She knew that you would only suffer more if she did not disconnect. And so she feigned her madness, and she pretended to you and the rest of the world that she no longer recognized you. It broke her heart, but she did not believe she had a choice. Once she had decided, there was no going back.
I was there with her in the very last moments of her life, and she wanted me to tell you how much she loved you, how much she had always loved you, and that she wished you all the happiness in the world.
And she gave me something for you, and this I have enclosed.
She said that she never told you for fear that you might—perhaps in anger—say something to Jimmy, and if he knew of this, then he would have reason to really hurt both you and her. And even after his death, she could not bring herself to tell you, for fear that you might think her a liar, that if she had withheld this from you, then what else had she not communicated?
There was nothing else she did not tell you. She wanted you to know that.
And so, facing my own death as I do, I want to send my blessings as well, Michael.
I loved you with all my heart, just as your mother did, and I trust that you will find happiness in whatever you decide to do with your life.
Take care, my sweet.
Esther.
Tears were on the page before Michael had finished reading. The ink bloomed and spread, and words merged together here and there. He folded the page, and before he tucked it back in the envelope, he withdrew the second page.
It was a birth certificate, and it was a moment before he appreciated that it was his own.
Michael Travis
Birth registered in Howard County, Nebraska, this day 12 May 1927
Name of mother: Janette Alice Travis
Name of father: unknown
Travis looked at the word again. Unknown.
There was something written on the other side of the certificate, and when he turned it, he saw his mother’s unmistakable hand.
I am sorry, my darling. You lived with a lie. Jimmy was not your father. You father’s name was Jack Fredericksen, and no, he does not know and never will. He died in the fall of 1931. He was a good man, and though I should have married him, it seemed that Fate had a different path mapped out. Whatever happened, I always did what I thought was best. I hope you will forgive me. x
Michael held the paper in his hand.
Doyle’s words came back to him.
And sometimes a man can find out that his past was not what he believed it to be.
He did not know what to feel. He was unsure that he would ever know what to feel.
He was not his father’s son.
Michael stood slowly. He took four, five, six steps away from the veranda. He paused for a moment and then glanced back over his shoulder at the house of his childhood. There was nothing there. He believed that whatever ghosts might have followed him had finally been laid to rest.
Reaching the Fairlane, he looked once more at his mother’s words. He folded that page, tucked it into the envelope, put the envelope in his pocket.
It was no more than four or five hours back to Seneca Falls, and there was a girl he needed to see.
He caught sight of his own shadow then, stretching out before him across the cracked and arid earth.
Somewhere a crow laughed.
The setting sun had reached the tops of those too-familiar trees, and Michael Travis felt that final ghost of warmth upon his face.
He started the engine and drove south.
There was silence all around him and silence within.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.J. Ellory is the critically acclaimed author of eleven previous novels including the bestselling A Quiet Belief in Angels, which was a Richard & Judy Book Club selection and won the Nouvel Observateur Crime Fiction Prize.
Ellory’s novels have been translated into twenty-six languages, and he has won the USA Excellence Award for Best Mystery, the Strand Magazine Best Thriller 2009, the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year for A Simple Act of Violence and the Quebec Laureat. He has been shortlisted for a further thirteen awards in numerous countries, including four Daggers from the UK Crime Writers’ Association.
Despite the American setting of his novels, Ellory is British and currently lives in England with his wife and son.
To find out more visit www.rjellory.com
ALSO BY R.J. ELLORY
Novels
Candlemoth
Ghostheart
A Quiet Vendetta
City Of Lies
A Quiet Belief in Angels
A Simple Act of Violence
The Anniversary Man
Saints of New York
Bad Signs
A Dark and Broken Heart
The Devil and the River
Novellas
Three Days in Chicagoland:
1. The Sister
2. The Cop
3. The Killer
COPYRIGHT
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Orion Books.
This ebook first published in 2014 by Orion Books.
Copyright © Roger Jon Ellory 2014
The right of Roger Jon Ellory to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the charac
ters in this book, with the exception of those already in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 2422 1
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