Free Thorn in the Flesh by Anne Brooke Page A

wall, one corner peeling away. On it was displayed a horse and carriage caught in swift movement passing a canal which gleamed in the sun. The woman in the carriage was laughing, blonde hair swept back by the breeze. She looked happy, free.
    Kate smiled.
    ‘Bruges,’ she said. ‘I’ll go to Bruges.’
    Two hours later, a leave of absence agreed and new arrangements made, Kate found herself in her bedroom, reaching to the top of her wardrobe for her case. It was only when she’d packed and the Eurostar seat had been booked that she allowed herself to remember the contents of this morning’s letter.
    Don’t think you can feel safe at work , it had read. Wherever you are, I’ll get you.

Chapter Eight
    At Waterloo, the sweat and noise of the crowds on the Eurostar concourse so overwhelmed Kate that she almost turned back. But a grim determination not to fall away from the path she wanted to take propelled her through the check-in area, down the long line of waiting passengers and at last onto the platform where uniformed officials stood ready to direct the travellers into the correct seats. She thought too that amongst the mass of people around her was a sense of anonymity she could grasp and wear like a favourite item of clothing.
    The train itself – spurred on by Nicky’s encouragement, she’d taken the precaution of booking first class – was cool, quiet and relatively empty, at least in her carriage. A welcome contrast to the jagged noise of the station she was about to leave behind. For the first time, Kate felt as if she might learn to survive this, as if a part of her mind was turning away from the prison of memory and out beyond it, to somewhere she couldn’t yet see but which might one day be reachable.
    Shaking her head, she smiled inwardly. Getting away like this, before the end of semester, might have been the right decision, but she couldn’t afford to succumb to sloppy thinking. Not now and not ever.
    For most of the journey, she slept in a way she hadn’t been able to sleep for weeks. Neither in her house nor at Nicky’s. It was as if only here in the constant rocking movement of the train could she slip the bonds which tied her unwillingly to the memory of the attack. She wondered if the return journey would find her taking those bonds up again and forced her thoughts away from that direction; enough for the moment to take what came and give herself time out of her own life for a while. Yes, what she was doing was avoidance. Nothing more and nothing less. And why not? Only a few days from now, an important decision would have to be taken about the phone call she hadn’t yet made. But here, today, she was safe.
    At Brussels, she missed the connecting train to Bruges by five minutes and drank a scalding coffee in a small café in the station. Three times she was approached by Arabic women, one of them with a child in tow, begging for money. She gave to the first but shook her head for the next two. Her supply of euros was limited. Arriving in Bruges in the late afternoon, she decided against walking to the hotel and took a taxi which sped through the cobbled streets of the old town, passing couples and families in horse-drawn carriages, and numerous bicycles carrying both old and young. It must be the best way of getting around for locals, she thought, and tourists too, if hiring was available.
    Her home for the next four nights, over the Bank Holiday weekend, was the Hotel de Castillion, next door to the Cathedral. When her driver deposited her and her luggage at the entrance to the courtyard, she was met by a young, dark-haired woman who waved her hands, saying something in Flemish before smiling and switching to English.
    ‘English, madame? Yes? I am so sorry, I have to run over the road to see the other receptionist, our sister hotel, yes? I will be with you in only a few moments.’
    In the foyer, the dark leather sofas were an elegant match for the polished wooden welcome desk, and the