Free Fortnight of Fear by Graham Masterton Page A

whenever we weekended in Connecticut, Jill leaned back in her basketwork chair and said dreamily, “Some days ought to last for ever.”
    I clinked the ice in my vodka-and-tonic. “This one should.”
    It was dreamily warm, with just the lightest touch of breeze. It was hard to imagine that we were less than two hours’ driving from downtown Manhattan. I closed my eyes and listened to the birds warbling and the bees humming and the sounds of a peaceful Connecticut summer.
    â€œDid I tell you I had a call from Willey on Friday?” Jill remarked.
    I opened one eye. “Mr Willey, your old landlord? What did he want?”
    â€œHe says I left some books round at the apartment, that’s all. I’ll go collect them tomorrow.”
    â€œDon’t mention tomorrow. I’m still in love with today.”
    â€œHe said he hasn’t re-let the apartment yet, because he can’t find another tenant as beautiful as me.”
    I laughed. “Is that bullshit or is that bullshit?”
    â€œIt’s neither,” She said. “It’s pure flattery.”
    â€œI’m jealous,” I told her.
    She kissed me. “You can’t possibly be jealous of Willey. He’s about seventy years old, and he looks just like a koala bear with eyeglasses.”
    She looked at me seriously. “Besides,” she added, “I don’t love anybody else but you; and I never will.”
    It thundered the following day; and the streets of New York were humid and dark and strewn with broken umbrellas. I didn’t see Jill that lunchtime because I had to meet my lawyer Morton Jankowski (very droll, Morton, with a good line in Polish jokes); but I had promised to cook her my famous
pesce spada al salmoriglio
for dinner.
    I walked home with a newspaper over my head. There was no chance of catching a cab midtown at five o’clock on a wet Monday afternoon. I bought the swordfish and a bottle of Orvieto at the Italian market on the corner, and then walked back along 17th Street, humming Verdi to myself. Told you I was mega-pretentious.
    Jill left the office a half-hour earlier than I did, so I expected to find her already back at the loft; but to my surprise she wasn’t there. I switched on the lights in the sparse, tasteful sitting-room; and then went through to the bedroom to change into something dry.
    By six-thirty she still wasn’t back. It was almost dark outside, and the thunder banged and echoed relentlessly. I called her office, but everybody had left for the day. I sat in the kitchen in my striped cook’s apron, watchingthe news and drinking the wine. There wasn’t any point in starting dinner until Jill came home.
    By seven I was growing worried. Even if she hadn’t managed to catch a cab, she could have walked home by now. And she had never come home late without phoning me first. I called her friend Amy, in SoHo. Amy wasn’t there but her loopy boyfriend said she was over at her mother’s place, and Jill certainly wasn’t with her.
    At last, at a quarter after eight, I heard the key turn in the door and Jill came in. The shoulders of her coat were dark with rain, and she looked white-faced and very tired.
    â€œWhere the hell have you been?” I demanded. “I’ve been worried bananas.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said, in a muffled voice, and hung up her coat.
    â€œWhat happened? Did you have to work late?”
    She frowned at me. Her blonde fringe was pasted wetly to her forehead. “I’ve said I’m sorry! What is this, the third degree?”
    â€œI was concerned about you, that’s all.”
    She stalked through to the bedroom, with me following close behind her. “I managed to survive in New York before I met you,” she said. “I’m not a child any more, you know.”
    â€œI didn’t say you were. I said I was concerned, that’s all.”
    She was unbuttoning her blouse.