Fortnight of Fear by Graham Masterton Page B

truly nuts. Maybe she hadn’t really gotten over the shock. Robbie would live for ever; at least as far as Jill was concerned.
    Maybe she was punishing me now for not being him. Or maybe she was punishing
him
for dying.
    Whatever the reason, she was cheating on me, without making any serious effort to hide it. She might just as well have invited her lover into our bed with us.
    There was no question about it: our marriage was over, even before it had started. I sat in front of the television with the tears streaming down my cheeks and I felt like curling myself up into a ball and going to sleep and never waking up.
    You can’t cry for ever, however; and after about an hour of utter misery I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and finished my glass of wine and thought: right, okay. I’m not giving Jill up without a fight. I’m going to find out who this bum is who she’s been sleeping with, and I’m going to confront him, face to face. She can choose between him and me, but she’s going to have to do it right out in front of us, no sneaking, no hiding, no hypocrisy.
    I went to the bedroom and opened the door and Jill was lying asleep with her mouth slightly parted. She wasstill beautiful. I still loved her. And the pain of still loving her twisted inside me like a corkscrew.
    I hope you live for ever, I thought to myself. I hope you live to know how much you’ve hurt me. Immortooty, immortaty. Ever, ever, after.
    On the dressing-table her key ring lay sprawled. I looked at it for a long moment, then quietly picked it up.
    Next day it was windy and bright. I sat in the coffee shop opposite Jill’s agency building, drinking too much coffee and trying to chew a bagel that tasted of nothing but cream cheese and bitterness. At a few minutes after twelve, I saw Jill march smartly out of the front of the building, and lift her arm to call a taxi. Immediately I ducked out of the coffee shop, and called another taxi.
    â€œFollow that cab,” I told the driver. He was a thin Puerto Rican boy with beads round his neck and a black straggly mustache.
    â€œWheesh cab?” he wanted to know.
    â€œThat Checker, follow that Checker.”
    â€œYou thin this some kinda movie or somethin? I aint follnin nuttn.”
    I pushed a crumpled-up fifty into his hand. “Just follow that Checker, okay?”
    â€œWhatever you say man. Your fewnral.”
    As it turned out, I paid fifty dollars plus the fare to follow Jill back to Willey’s apartment on Central Park South, where I should have known she was going anyway. The Puerto Rican boy saw Jill climb out of the cab ahead of us. Those long black-stockinged legs, that smart black-and-white suit. “Hey man she’s
worth
fifty, that one. She’s worth a hundud.”
    Jill walked without hesitation into the apartment building. I allowed her five clear minutes, pacing up and down on the sidewalk, watched with stony-eyed curiosity by an old man selling balloons. Then I went intothe building after her, through the lobby to the elevators.
    â€œYou’re looking for somebody, sir?” the black doorman wanted to know.
    â€œMy wife, Mrs Deacon. She arrived here just a few minutes ago.”
    â€œOh, sure,” the doorman nodded. “You go on up.”
    I went upward in the small gold-mirrored elevator with my heart beating against my ribcage like a fist. I could see my reflection, and the strange thing was that I looked quite normal. Pale-faced, tired, but quite rational. I certainly didn’t look like a husband trying to surprise his wife
in flagrante
with another man. But then who does? People die with the strangest expressions on their faces. Smiles, scowls, looks of total surprise.
    I reached the third floor and stepped out. The corridor was overheated and silent and smelled of lavender polish. I hesitated for a moment, holding the doors of the elevator open. Then I let them go; and they closed with a whine, and the elevator