An Air That Kills by Andrew Taylor Page B

husband into renting a house at the lower, cheaper end of the road. It was semidetached and late-Victorian. Thornhill would have preferred to buy, but that would have to wait until they had saved enough money for the deposit.
    He parked the Austin immediatley outside the house. The landing light filled with a dim yellow radiance the uncurtained windows of the front bedroom he shared with Edith. He let himself into the hall. Three empty tea chests and a smell of polish greeted him. The wireless was on behind the half-open door of the kitchen. He didn’t call out for fear of waking the children.
    As he hung up his coat and hat, he caught sight of his face, tired and serious-looking, in the mirror by the pegs. He wished he could hang up his job and everything that went with it at the same time as his hat and coat. These days he seemed to carry his working life around with him wherever he went and whatever he did: it was like a weight on his shoulders which as the months and years passed grew steadily heavier. His shoulders twitched; a second later he realised that he was trying to shrug the weight away.
    He walked down the hall and pushed open the kitchen door. They called it the kitchen, though in fact they used it as a living room and did their cooking in the scullery at the back; the kitchen was the warmest room in the house because it contained the boiler which heated the hot water. Edith was sitting in the armchair darning one of the children’s socks. A man was saying something about the National Debt on the radio, but Thornhill didn’t think she was listening to him.
    She looked up and smiled. ‘Hello, Richard.’
    He bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘Sorry I’m late. Are the kids asleep?’
    â€˜Well, they’re upstairs. Come and get warm while I fetch your supper.’
    The scrubbed deal table was laid for one person; Edith must have eaten with the children. The man talking about the National Debt had a voice whose cultivated arrogance reminded Thornhill of Dr Bayswater’s. He reached out a hand and switched off the radio. In the silence, he heard the clatter of a pan in the scullery.
    The inactivity irked him. He slipped upstairs to say goodnight to the children. At present, and at their own request, they were sharing a room, perhaps to help them cope with the novelty of their surroundings. For once they were both asleep. Thornhill felt obscurely cheated. It was much colder upstairs, and both children had burrowed deep under their bedclothes. All he could see of them were two patches of hair.
    He went back downstairs. Edith was sitting in the chair again with a couple of socks on her lap and his baked beans and toast were waiting on the table. She assumed that the police canteen provided him with a proper hot meal in the middle of the day: usually she was right.
    â€˜Did you have a good day?’
    No, he wanted to say, it was awful. He said, ‘Not too bad, thanks. And you?’
    Talking in a low, placid voice, she took him step by step through her day. She was an orderly woman who liked to describe things chronologically. Thornhill finished his baked beans and helped himself to an apple and a slice of Cheddar cheese. While he ate, he watched Edith. She was almost as tall as he was, with the sort of light-brown hair which had once been fair. She wore no jewellery except the thin gold wedding band. Suddenly, he wanted to go to bed with her. Not in an hour’s time – but now. And it didn’t have to be bed, either. The table would do. Or the floor. Anywhere.
    He cut himself another slice of cheese with a hand that trembled slightly. She was telling him what David’s teacher had said about his reading. This was followed by an account of Elizabeth’s attempt to run away to their old house in Cambridgeshire while they were walking back home from school. Still talking, Edith went into the scullery to make some tea.
    â€˜What kept you so late?’ she called