Echoes of Lies by Jo Bannister Page A

owed him a smile. “I’m glad you called.”
    Immediately his eyes dropped. “Inspector Deacon thinks I could tell him more about this if I tried. I can’t. I have tried: there’s nothing more.”
    Brodie shook her head dismissively. “Inspector Deacon can ask his own questions. I’m not his gopher.”
    â€œThen … ?”
    She shrugged. “I was just glad to hear from you. I kept wondering how you were.”

    â€œI wasn’t sure I should call. You must be busy.”
    â€œDaniel,” she said firmly, “you’re the most important thing any of us has to deal with right now. Sure I’m busy, but if you want to talk we’ll talk. You want to play snakes and ladders, we’ll do that. If I can help, in any way, I want to.”
    He blinked behind the thick lenses. Belatedly, Brodie wondered if maybe that wasn’t what he needed either. Maybe he’d been the centre of attention long enough and what he really needed was the resumption of normal services; which in the case of a comprehensive school maths teacher probably meant being ignored for much of the time.
    She sighed. “I’m overdoing it, aren’t I? The caring bit. It’s just, this whole situation is way outside my experience. Tell me what you want me to do.”
    He wasn’t as tall as her and the roomy dressing-gown emphasised the slightness of his frame. But his hands were a size bigger than expected, as if he still had some growing to do. They sketched a gesture of impatience before he could fold them tightly across his chest. “I don’t know! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I’m doing any more. This place is driving me crazy!”
    â€œDaniel, you’re not crazy,” Brodie said quietly. “You’ve been through hell. You nearly died. Of course your emotions will be in tatters for a while. You’re right, you need to talk. I can find you a professional in the field of victim support” - she saw his face fall, changed horses in mid stream - “or you could talk to me. I’m not a bad listener. Yell, stamp, bang the table if it helps. You’ve every right.”
    The look he threw her glanced off into a corner of the room. His voice was thick with feelings he didn’t know how to express. Nothing in his life before had given him either the practice or the vocabulary. “No, I just want to talk. Only, I don’t know what it is I want to say.”
    Brodie considered. “You want to say you’re angry.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen say it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Not your anger,
not your pain. You have the right to express them. It’s not an imposition, asking someone to listen.”
    Daniel nodded, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin throat. “That’s how it feels. Like I’m - trading on it. Like I’m droning on and on when good taste and simple good manners say it’s time to drop it. That I’ve become a bore and an embarrassment, like someone’s aunt who’s always on about her operation.”
    Brodie’s chuckle was rewarded by a flicker of wry humour crossing Daniel’s face. It was a pleasant face: not handsome, not striking or distinguished in any way; just the nice, amiable, honest face of someone it would be easy to spend time with. A face to inspire more friendship than passion, but the kind of friendship that can last longer.
    A face someone had spent big money finding and two days reducing to a gaunt mask. It was still incredible to her. What could a man like Daniel Hood have done to incur such wrath?
    She said softly, “I don’t think the rules of polite conversation apply. I think if you try to put this out of your mind you really will go crazy. What happened to you was too big. Rules designed for normal social interactions are no help when the sky’s fallen in.