Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham (best e reader for android .txt) 📗

it into little pieces, he hadn’t been much interested in women. Not the ones you ask out anyway. The sort he’d met had been in bars where the courtesy of asking them out hadn’t been necessary. What was he doing? Marion would kill him if she knew.

‘Hey, Dad,’ it was Clare. ‘She sounded nice. Going on a date then?’

He laughed. ‘What time are you two leaving? I’ve got a dinner to cook.’

‘Go, Dad! But whatever you do, lose the shirt. It’s disgusting.’

* Alex stood next to Rose on the balcony. She was nursing a glass of mineral water. Below them the sun was setting beyond the city centre, the last streaks of pink disappearing below the horizon. Lights were beginning to blink on, pinpoints of orange, blue and white gleaming against a purple sky. The city was morphing from a concrete jungle into an evening wonderland.

‘This is absolute magic,’ Rose said. ‘How on earth did you find this place?’

‘It’s a long story.’

She turned towards him, brown eyes too large for her small pale face. He wondered how many hearts she had melted in her time.

‘Well,’ he said, leaning on the balustrade, ‘funny things happen in life. One of the oddest is I seem to have picked up a guardian angel. A real one,’ he added, with a smile, when he saw the surprise on her face. ‘Flesh and blood. An old man. Name of Mr Chan.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, her eyes bright. ‘Do go on.’

He hesitated. It was not something he ever talked about, but since he had brought it up he owed her an explanation. He kept it light. ‘Not much to it. A dirty little story. I was driving home one night, saw these two guys mucking around on the pavement. They were threatening. Menacing. I pulled over and watched for a while.’

He stopped. Already his breathing was laboured, his palms sweating. He took a deep breath, tried to continue as if everything was normal. ‘An old man came walking along, carrying two bags of groceries. I remember because they ended up scattered everywhere. They attacked him. I intervened. It wasn’t pleasant.’

He didn’t tell her the gruesome details. How could he? Didn’t want to let it out of the box. It had been a ferocious attack. The two were fuelled up on anything that could be swallowed. Between them they had the strength of many men. They came at him with a baseball bat one of them pulled out as he shed his overcoat. A baseball bat and big heavy boots. Thumping and kicking. He’d barely had time to call it in before running like the wind to stop their victim being bashed to death. Remembered picking up a can of baby corn off the pavement as he ran and flinging it at one of the men, hitting him in the face. But he took several hits on his arm and one to his shoulder, which almost flattened him. By the time the patrol cars arrived, he and the old man were in

bad shape.

They’d both ended up in hospital, Mr Chan for several weeks. The one good thing was he had no memory of the incident, no memory of the extreme violence, no memory of the string of racial slurs shouted as he lay bleeding on the footpath. Turned out the attackers had been rampaging for a year, cheap thrills. They were linked by DNA to over a dozen attacks in the city and had been jailed for twenty years. But it wasn’t enough. Whenever Alex thought about it, his shoulder and arm ached and his gut knotted.

He realised he was massaging his shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ he said, his smile gone. ‘It wasn’t pleasant. They almost killed him.’

He turned towards her and for a moment he was frozen by the look in her eyes. Compassion, desire, need.

Her hand began to reach out to him before she pulled it back to her side. ‘No. I’m the one who should be apologising. I’m sorry. I had no idea I would be bringing up such bad memories. It certainly explains why he feels he owes you a debt.’

He played along, pretended he hadn’t glimpsed the yearning written across her face, kept his voice steady. ‘It’s peculiar. He’s not obvious about it. I didn’t see him after he came out of hospital, except at the trial. But when my marriage broke up and the house was sold, there he was. A casual meeting, or so it seemed.’ Alex took a sip of wine. ‘I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time, so when he mentioned he owned this building and was selling the penthouse apartment, I didn’t connect any dots. One look at the place and I was hooked, even though it was a space used for storage. It was cheap as chips, give away price, so I bought it. Did it up. But now when I think about it, I wonder.’

‘Perhaps he wanted to repay a kindness. Does it worry

you?’

‘Yes and no. I’ve learned to go with the flow. Isn’t that what you’re meant to do? Take what comes?’ He tossed back the last of his wine. ‘Did I sound bitter? Didn’t mean it to. I think we’ve both found the best laid plans can be buggered up. Yes?’ He smiled a crooked smile.

She didn’t answer. Took a sip of water. ‘Did you say you renovated the apartment?’

He nodded.

‘It’s brilliant.’ She ran her hand along the wrought iron balustrade where it followed the curved sweep of the balcony. Turned towards the doors. Art deco cut lead glass with a mahogany trim. The handles brass, on large plates. ‘It’s stunning. Who lives in the rest of the building?’

‘Ah, there’s the rub. Mr Chan is on the ground floor, along with the tea shop.’

‘And the rest of the seven floors?’

‘The others are apartments. Sort of. Some of his grandchildren, nieces and nephews, use it as a town base. Jessica Chan is one of them. When she’s in town she often stays here.’

‘The gorgeous model? She’s