A Single Breath: A gripping, twist-filled thriller that will have you hooked. Lucy Clarke

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       5

      Eva parks the hire car on the opposite side of the street from Dirk’s house but doesn’t get out. Her palms are damp from where she’s been gripping the steering wheel and she wipes them against her jeans.

      She studies Dirk’s house, which looks tired in the afternoon sunshine. Red flakes of paint peel away from the blistered siding revealing a white undercoat. The front garden is overgrown and two plant pots lie broken on their sides. The curtains are open, which she hopes is a sign that he is in.

      Feeling queasy with nerves and expectation, she climbs from the car, crosses the street, and walks the short length of the pathway to his front door. There is no bell, so she knocks, then stands back with her arms at her sides. She hopes Dirk will be in; she’s eager to hear his voice, to see Jackson in his face.

      She wonders what they’ll talk about, whether there will be any common ground beyond Jackson. She tries to remember the walks Dirk mentioned in his letters, or the name of the book he was enjoying when he last wrote, but her mind feels permeable, facts and information draining away. She’d like to establish a connection, something enduring so that they can have a reason to keep in touch.

      She hears movement from inside, as if a chair is being scraped across a floor. A moment later the door is opened by a man wearing a flannel shirt tucked into belted jeans. He has no shoes on and his grey socks are thinning at the toes.

      Her breath catches as she sees clues of Jackson locked within the angle of the man’s nose, the line of his brow, the shade of his eyes. ‘Dirk?’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘I’m Eva Bowe. Jackson’s wife.’

      His brow furrows into rows of deep creases. He rubs a large hand across his forehead, as if he’s trying to release a memory of this arrangement. The skin on his cheeks is bright red, broken capillaries spreading like a map over his face. ‘What … what’re you doin’ here?’

      ‘I tried calling.’

      He looks past her as if he expects to see more people. ‘You’ve come from England?’

      She nods. Her toes squirm in her sandals as she tells him, ‘I flew in three days ago. I … I wanted to come to Tasmania. See where Jackson was from. See where he grew up. Meet you.’ She is babbling and stops herself.

      Dirk stares. ‘It’s a long way.’

      ‘Yes,’ she says.

      He steps back from the doorway. ‘You’d better come in.’

      He leads her into a small living room where a timeworn green sofa faces the window. A whisky bottle and glass stand on a side table and a television plays on silent, some daytime game show with an overdressed host. A pile of videos is stacked at the bottom of the unit, and somehow the sight of these relaxes her: Dirk is a man who still hasn’t made the switch from VHS to DVD, despite having had more than a decade to do so.

      ‘Sit yourself down,’ Dirk says, pointing towards the sofa.

      ‘Thank СКАЧАТЬ