by Jo Bannister
“Where is he?”
“Harry Marsh found a clinic on the far side of Birmingham – he thought it would be better to get him out of Skipley altogether for a while. So do I: better for him, better for everyone. Let things settle down before he comes home.”
“But people know now that he wasn’t to blame.”
“Of course – another man’s been charged. It’ll be in the papers tonight, then no one in Skipley will have any excuse for thinking Shad Lucas is a murderer.” She sighed. “But those who think he’s a freak will still think he’s a freak. Long term, that’ll be harder to deal with. Maybe he’d be better leaving Skipley, starting again somewhere else.”
“And waiting for the same thing to happen again?”
Rosie gave a rueful sniff. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? He can leave everything behind except his own history. When it looked as if he was going to lose that too I thought it was a tragedy. Now I’m not sure it would have been. Maybe forgetting would have been a blessing. Anyway, that’s not how it worked out so we’ll never know. We can hardly stick his finger in a socket and give it another try. On the whole, we should be grateful things didn’t turn out a good deal worse.”
“There’s still a girl dead,” Sale said – as if she needed reminding.
“Nothing can change that. But at least her killer’s going to pay for it – and thank God neither this paper nor anyone associated with it was in any degree responsible. Dan, we could be sitting here knowing that if we’d acted differently Jackie Pickering would still be alive. Beside that, almost any result is a good result.”
Sale nodded slowly. Since they couldn’t change history it was important that it contained nothing they would have trouble living with. He changed the subject. “I suppose you’ve heard what happened here?”
“The siege? Yes, Harry Marsh told me. Nasty enough while it lasted, I’m sure.”
He shook his head impatiently. “Not that. Yes, of course it was, but we were in no real danger. There were nearly as many policemen as there were demonstrators. No, what happened afterwards.”
She’d heard a rumour about that too. “You mean Matt putting three of them in hospital? Sounds good to me.”
Even that wasn’t what he was referring to. “I mean, Alex dumping him because he put three men in hospital!”
Rosie’s eyes widened incredulously. “You’re kidding!” But she knew he wasn’t. He didn’t make many jokes; and besides, it sounded like Alex. They’d known one another a long time. Rosie knew Alex searched deep into her soul over matters which cost most people hardly a moment’s thought. If this was sometimes inconvenient, it was a major part of who she was. She was an ethical woman, doing things properly mattered to her. If she had cared less, compromised more, she would have been someone other than Rosie’s best friend and the woman Matt Gosling wanted to marry.
Though he wasn’t, it seemed, making too good a job of it. Rosie was clearly going to have to knock their heads together to get any sense out of them. Rolling her eyes at Sale, she clambered to her feet and headed for the door. “I suppose I’d better go and sort them out.”
The editor raised an eyebrow. “Before you do, wasn’t there something you wanted to ask me?”
Rosie had forgotten. “Was there?”
Sale sighed long-sufferingly. “About The Primrose Path?”
“Mm? Oh – yes! Please, Dan, can I have my job back?”
That snort was the editor of the Skipley Chronicle biting back a laugh. “Of course you can, Rosie. The place isn’t the same without you.”
Her grin, vanishing round the closing door, was all the thanks he got; and all that he required.
Copyright
First published in 1999 by Severn House
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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ISBN 978-1-4472-3630-6 EPUB
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Copyright © Jo Bannister, 1999
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