‘Have you? Thank you.’
Catherine thought for a moment, then said, ‘Charmery said something, after it was over. I don’t think she intended either of us to hear it, but I did. She looked at the baby and said, “I’m sorry, Theo… I loved you so much.”’
For a moment he could not speak and Catherine thought she had gone too far. Then he said again, ‘Thank you, Catherine.’
As they walked back towards the main doors, he was silent, but as they crossed the hall, he suddenly said, ‘Shall you have any second thoughts about all this?’
‘About us, d’you mean? Yes,’ said Catherine, ‘I’ll have second thoughts, and probably third thoughts, too. But this is where I belong.’
As he left, she stood for a moment watching him walk down the drive. It’s all right, she thought. I’ll probably have a few bad moments thinking about what might have been, but this really is where I belong. Here in St Luke’s, doing the work I studied and trained to do, seeing the years wheel by, fulfilled and deeply content.
With a brisk squaring of her shoulders to shake off any might-have-beens, she went back into the convent to help Sister Agnes with the washing-up.
Heathrow Airport was its usual seething mass of people and luggage trolleys, blared announcements in several languages and bewildering arrival and departure boards.
Theo had checked his luggage in and gone to the departure lounge. Unless there were any delays, in about ten minutes’ time he would be called to board the plane and in three or four hours he would be in Switzerland. Petra had made the arrangements, and had promised that a car would meet him at Geneva.
He sat back, enjoying watching the people for these last few minutes. Who were they and where were they going? A lot of them would be holiday-makers, even at this time of year, and almost as many would be travelling on business. Some would be families going to meet up with relatives.
But none of them would be going to meet the grown-up ghost of a small boy who had haunted an old house in a remote Norfolk village.
As his flight was called, Theo smiled, picked up his hand luggage, and went to board the plane that would take him to meet Matthew.
Also by Sarah Rayne
Ghost Song
The Death Chamber
Spider Light
Roots of Evil
A Dark Dividing
Tower of Silence
Visit www.sarahrayne.co.uk
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2010
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Sarah Rayne, 2010
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Sarah Rayne to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
HB ISBN-13: 978-1-84737-332-8
TPB ISBN-13: 978-1-84737-333-5
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85720-059-4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
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