Five Years of Marriage to Mr. Bradford novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Offer

Leonard stood at the bottom of the steps with his shirt half buttoned and his face white.

Imogen did not look at him.

"Go home, Len," she said. "I want to speak to your wife."

"She's not going to speak to you."

"She's standing at a window listening to every word. I'd say she's rather keen."

I came down the stairs in my socks and opened the door.

"Leonard," I said. "Go."

"Leah, whatever she says..."

"You said you'd tell me in order. You haven't. So go home."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he crossed the road, and the green door shut behind him.

I stepped back and let Imogen in.

She came up the stairs slowly, with her cane, into my little kitchen, and sat in the chair by the table.

She declined tea.

I put the kettle on anyway, and while my back was to her, I opened the voice recorder on my phone and set it on the shelf behind the bread bin, with the red dot running.

"You were kind to me," I said. "At the café. The scarf."

"I meant it. I like you very much. That's what makes this so tiresome."

"Say what you came to say."

"Very well." She laid the cane across her knees. "You've found the card, and you've heard something about Route 9, and you're clever, so you'll have drawn a line from one to the other. I'd like to save you the trouble."

"Go on."

"Seven years ago Len had his birthday dinner. He had four whiskies, perhaps five. I asked him to give me the keys, and he laughed, and he drove."

I kept my face still.

"There was a boy on the shoulder," she said. "He didn't see him. I screamed, and Len stopped the car, and we got out, and the boy was lying there, and I begged him to call someone."

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