Tok. Paul Finch

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СКАЧАТЬ persecutions had actually taken place or were purely imaginary, but given Miriam’s personal history it was no surprise that her sense of embattlement had finally become so acute that she’d had the outer wall erected, cutting herself off completely from the busy world that had suddenly encircled her. Despite that, but not atypically of psychological breakdown (not to mention advancing senility), even this security measure had in due course proved insufficient. In the last year alone, Miriam had contacted her son on average once a week to complain that people were trying to climb over the wall, were scratching on her doors, tapping on her windows. Nonsense, of course. Utter nonsense. Though Don had not admitted that. He would never have the guts to be so abrupt with his mother. He’d tried to calm her, tried to reassure her that she was imagining it – to no avail.

      And then, this last week, the murders had started.

      Berni only knew what she’d read in the papers, but on three consecutive nights an unknown assailant had entered homes on the Bannerwood estate and had strangled a woman to death in each one. It was pretty difficult to take Miriam’s fears with a pinch of salt under those circumstances.

      Don now came downstairs. As always after a meeting with his mother, he looked chastised.

      “She okay?” Berni asked.

      “She’s fine.”

      “Happy?”

      “Happier.” Though he didn’t look as if he was being entirely truthful with that. “Don’t suppose you fancy popping to the chippie and bringing us something for tea?”

      “Sure.” Berni had taken her coat off, but now pulled it back on.

      “Hang on.” He raised a hand. “You’d better not go. I’ll go.”

      “It’s okay. It’s not even dark yet.”

      “It’s getting dark.”

      “Don, there are coppers all over the estate.”

      “Yeah, and like Helga said, what bloody good have they been?”

      Berni took her coat off again. She wasn’t usually so quick to follow her husband’s orders. A born and bred Scouser, ‘toughness’ and ‘independence’ were her two middle names. But there was something about visiting The Grove that she found oppressive. Its brooding aura, not to mention the aura of its queenly owner, always seemed to sap her energy to resist. She wondered if this was the spell the aristocracy had woven in olden times, when an awed peasantry made them superior simply by believing that they were. Miriam was no aristocrat of course, but she had been raised among the colonial classes.

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