Innocent Blood by Elizabeth Corley

to her it was. She caught him staring and he looked away.
    ‘You’re of an age to remember,’ she said, as if this simple statement exempted their conversation from explanation.
    ‘I remember very well.’ The sincerity in his voice had an immediate effect on the woman before him. Her stoniness melted and she smiled briefly.
    ‘Would you like something to drink?’
    The odour in the house was making it hard for him to breathe and the idea of something from her kitchen passing his lips made him want to retch. But he’d made a promise to Stanley and gaining the woman’s trust might help him succeed in his mission.
    ‘Just a glass of water, thank you. It is a very hot day.’
    She was gone for a while, too long for his peace of mind. Paul looked at him with a knowingness that forced him to blink hard to clear his eyes. By the time she returned he was wiping his face again and the letter in his hand was damp with perspiration.
    ‘Would you like a biscuit?’
    He declined, certain that he would have choked on the crumbs.
    ‘This letter,’ he began again, ‘is from an old friend of mine whom you used to know. He wants to see you again.’
    She stared at him blankly as she nibbled on a chocolate digestive covered with white bloom.
    ‘Mrs Hill, Sarah, this letter is from your father. He’s dying,’ he added because he could see rejection already in her face.
    ‘I’m surprised he’s still alive. He is nothing to me. Go away.’
    ‘I can’t, not without giving you this. I promised him I would and I’m a man of my word. We served together, you see. It creates a certain bond of obligation.’
    ‘I could tell you were army the moment you got out of the car. My Paul was a cadet once, when he thought that he wanted to go into the services. Do you think he would have made a good soldier?’
    ‘I’m sure he would have done.’ Maidment was suffocating in the tiny sitting room as Paul looked on, enjoying the torture.
    ‘He would have been good at anything, my Paul. He had so much potential.’
    The major took a tiny sip of the tepid water so that he could speak.
    ‘I must give you this letter,’ he repeated, insistent now, but she refused to take it from him. ‘I’ll leave it on the coffee table then.’
    ‘Did he tell you?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Why we argued.’
    ‘No. He said I didn’t need to know.’
    She barked a laugh, a sound so devoid of humour that it made his eyes ache.
    ‘Oh, how like him; but you should know.’
    He shrugged helplessly, pinned by the sharpness of her stare.
    ‘It was long after Paul disappeared.’
    She paused and drank her coffee in an unfussy way, not enjoying it but not grimacing either. Her neutrality characterised this as it did everything else about her. He waited.
    ‘The police had stopped looking though they never told us that of course. They didn’t have family liaison officers in those days, not like now.’
    She rose with a jerky movement, like a pre-programmed robot, and went to a cupboard at the bottom of a built-in bookcase from which she lifted a heavy box file.
    ‘This is a recent case.’ She passed him the file. ‘Another boy. Look at the coverage and all the fuss. Fascinating what the police do these days. We had none of that.’
    Sarah Hill bent down and opened another door. The file she passed him this time was much smaller, a bare half inch across.
    ‘That’s Paul’s file. See how tiny? And half of that is from references to him during other investigations. Criminal science has progressed wonderfully, at least in its vocabulary. Doesn’t save the children though.’
    He winced at her words and looked up expecting tears, but she was dry-eyed.
    ‘Do you follow many cases?’
    ‘Every one. The loft is full of past files. The ones down here are only those from this year. On New Year’s Eve I take the old year’s files upstairs and put the new ones ready in the cupboard.’
    ‘New ones?’
    ‘Of course, empty, ready for use. I think of all