Free Till We Meet Again by Lesley Pearse Page B

sight of Susan sitting at the desk waiting for her, Beth felt as if the years had been stripped away. She was far more identifiable as Suzie now, for her hair was newly washed. Maybe it didn’t shine and bounce the way it used to, there was no full fringe either, but it was Suzie’s hair. Even the redness of her face seemed to have subsided. She was wearing a navy-blue sweatshirt over the same navy slacks she’d been wearing when she was arrested, and she appeared slimmer than at their previous meeting.
    ‘How’s it going?’ Beth asked awkwardly, hovering in the doorway, even more unsure now of how to proceed.
    Susan shrugged. ‘Not that bad,’ she said.
    ‘Are you ready to talk now?’ Beth asked as the door closed behind her, leaving them alone.
    ‘No,’ Susan said, looking defiantly the other way and folding her arms across her chest.
    Beth saw no point in playing cat and mouse any longer.
    ‘Okay, Suzie,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you straight off, because I know you did me. But you weren’t someone I ever expected to turn up as a client.’
    Susan’s mouth dropped open, shut and fell open again like a fish. ‘I didn’t –’ she began, and faltered. ‘I couldn’t –’
    ‘God moves in mysterious ways, so they say,’ Beth said archly, wishing she could stop trembling. ‘Not that I’m much of a believer in God these days. But fate, call it what you will, seems to have stepped in.’
    ‘If they’d told me your name before they called you I would have asked them to get someone else,’ Susan said in a croaky voice. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when you arrived.’
    ‘Well, I did turn up, so you’d better stop all this nonsense of refusing to talk,’ Beth said firmly. ‘You see, I know about Annabel now, I’ve seen your photographs of her. I know she died of meningitis and that Doctor Wetherall was your GP.’
    Susan’s eyes widened and the red flush came back to her face, her expression so much like ones engraved on Beth’s heart. Suzie had always blushed furiously when shocked or nervous.
    ‘I’m so very sorry about Annabel,’ Beth went on, moving a little closer to her. Part of her felt she should hug her old friend, show some of the emotion she felt inside her. But Beth didn’t know how to be spontaneous any more, and her lawyer’s mind said she must keep her distance. ‘Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, and it does throw a very different light on what you did,’ she added.
    She thought for a moment that Susan still wasn’t going to talk. Her face tightened, she was twisting her index finger with her other hand, and her eyes were fixed on her lap.
    ‘Do you remember what you shouted to me when I was on the train going home that last summer?’ Beth asked after a minute or two.
    She could see the scene so clearly, Suzie in a pink dress, running alongside the train as Beth leaned out the window to wave and blow kisses.
    ‘It was “Till we meet again,” ’ Beth said and heard her own voice waver with emotion. ‘That’s what you shouted. I could never have imagined meeting up like this, then.’
    Susan still didn’t speak. Beth wasn’t even sure if she’d really heard what she said.
    ‘Look, Suzie,’ she began again, ‘I’m sorry we lost touch. But we were young and we both had so many other things going on. Please talk to me. If not as a solicitor, then just as an old friend.’
    There was a moment or two of silence, and Beth could almost read Susan’s thought processes in the agonized expression on her face. She was probably relieved she’d been found out, she wanted to trust her old friend, yet she was very much aware Beth was a solicitor and therefore on the other side. Was it best to stay silent, or tell her everything?
    ‘That bastard sent me away from the surgery twice,’ she burst out suddenly, her eyes sparking fire. ‘The second time Annabel had a rash, she was like a floppy doll, but he said it was