Echoes of Lies by Jo Bannister

hurt him. The angry man who could have stopped it and didn’t. The third man who watched and hardly spoke until the end. He wanted to kill them. He was a gentle man, a teacher, a man who respected other people and their ideas. And he wanted to take something heavy and smash their unseen faces to pulp. He lay on his bed, lungs pumping and heart pounding, and thought he was going mad.
    When the rage abated, leaving him shaking and with sweat pooled in the hollows of his eyes, he searched desperately for an
anchor to cling to when the tempest returned. But nothing offered. He had no family to speak of; he had friends but none he could share this with. He’d always been happy: until now he hadn’t realised how essentially alone he was.
    Even if there had been someone he could call it might not have helped. Perhaps no one who’d known him before could help him now. He’d come a long way this last week from where and who he’d been: nothing from that past had any rôle to play in this present. Daniel was surrounded by people, all of them well-meaning yet none of whom seemed apt to help. The detective who called at intervals to ask if he’d remembered anything new had no answers, only more questions, and Daniel had suffered enough questions for a lifetime.
    Then he remembered the woman. He still wasn’t sure who she was, thought she must work in the hospital. Mrs Farrell. He remembered her as someone kind, who’d sat with him when the mere presence of another human being was what he needed most, who’d listened when he needed to talk and answered when he needed answers. He was a private man, self-contained, but now he needed contact with someone and Mrs Farrell’s had been the first kind voice he’d heard, the first gentle touch he’d felt, since before this began. He dared to wonder if she could help him now.
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    Brodie had finally found a cranberry glass épergne. It was a good match, a good price, and it was hers if she could be in Worthing before the shop shut.
    She was on her way to the door when the phone rang again. She picked it up in flight, meaning to take a number and call back. The sound of his voice stopped her dead. She lowered herself onto the desk and took a moment to answer him. “Mr Hood. Of course I remember you. What can I do for you?”
    Incredibly, he sounded embarrassed. “I wondered - I mean, not if you’re busy - but if you have the time … It’s just, my head’s full of
stuff and there’s nobody I can talk to. The nurses are interested in my temperature, the doctors in my wound, Inspector Deacon in a whole bunch of things I don’t know, and I just need to talk to somebody. But if you’re busy … ?”
    â€œI’ll be there in ten minutes.” The cranberry glass épergne was going to have to wait.
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    Daniel looked both better and worse than Brodie expected. He was out of bed, wrapped in a towelling dressing gown, curled in a chair. A little colour had seeped back into his face and he rose to greet her without much difficulty. Two days earlier he couldn’t lift his head.
    The biggest difference was the addition of a pair of large circular wire-rimmed spectacles. Through them he was able to focus on her as he had not before. The people who took his clothes, his dignity and almost his life had not thought to throw his glasses into the skip with him when they were finished. Someone had been to his home for another pair. Brodie might have thought of that. After all, she knew where he lived.
    But his physical progress was not mirrored in his mental state. He was troubled, restless and ill at ease. It was no wonder, but it turned the knife in Brodie’s heart. This too was her responsibility. It didn’t end when Daniel woke up, wouldn’t end when he went home. The nightmare never going to be entirely over, for either of them.
    She drew up a chair beside Daniel’s. She