Sleeping Partners

Alan Goodare

Description

It is the summer of 1996. The Cold War is supposedly over. But in a sleepy English village the local doctor is about to stumble across a dark secret that has been buried for over twenty years... Teddy Burton is facing a mid-life crisis, during which he questions his own professional ability and his wife's fidelity. He sets out on a trail of discovery that leads to a midnight rendezvous on the streets of Cambridge with the mysterious Mr. Pritchard, who reveals a truth far stranger than anything Teddy could have imagined. As the doctor's life begins to unravel around him, he becomes increasingly drawn into a dangerous world of intrigue, spies and the ultimate betrayal, at the centre of which sits the menacing figure of the man known as 'Victor'. Having found that his past is built on sand, what does the future hold for Teddy, the quiet, unassuming doctor, now that he knows too much?Sleeping Partnersis not only a story about espionage, but it also shows one man's descent from loving husband and respected professional, living a comfortable and unremarkable life, into a strange and frightening world in which he encounters deceit and betrayal. It is the tragedy of this personal journey that setsSleeping Partnersapart from other books of this genre and which broadens its appeal to a wider reading audience.

Sujets

• Cambridge

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 juin 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783067152
• Langue: English

Extrait

Sleeping Partners
Alan Goodare

Copyright © 2014 Alan Goodare
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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ISBN 978 1783067 152
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Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

For my wife Pam and
all our family, with love
Contents

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1
Summer 1996
In the misty, monochrome light of dawn, Connie Welland sat alone by her cottage window, staring blankly into the receding night. Robbed of sleep, tiredness lay heavily upon her, whilst the tightness in her chest and knots in her stomach were the painful, physical reminders of her deep anxiety for her husband, Jack.
Her concern, like the gradual transformation of the eastern sky from the dusty pink glow of daybreak into the brilliance of a summer’s morning, had crept up on her so slowly that she could no longer remember exactly when that first moment of worry had occurred. Could it have been five weeks ago? Six maybe? Longer? Her inability to remember merely added to her torment. That didn’t matter, anyway, she decided. As her hands moved incessantly in her lap, clasping the tear-soaked handkerchief that, in her tension and anguish, she continually twisted and pulled in all directions, she knew that the only thing that mattered was that her husband, the man who throughout more than twenty years of their marriage had always enjoyed the best of health, was clearly ill. And getting worse. Rapidly.
What was she to do? Perched on the arm of the settee where she had passed so many simple, yet wonderful, evenings wrapped in the arms of her loving husband, she drew her voluminous fluffy white dressing gown tightly around herself for warmth and security as she searched her mind and her heart for an answer, but none came. With the constant wringing of her handkerchief the only movement to disturb her otherwise petrified stillness, she once more replayed recent events in her mind, seemingly for the hundredth time that night, reliving the agonies, sharing his pain.
It had started with relatively minor, seemingly unconnected, episodes that they both dismissed at the time as trivial. She supposed that there might have been earlier, even less significant incidents that Jack had not thought to mention at all. Whether that was true or not, she realised now, was no longer of any consequence and that trying to remember the precise moment at which she felt the first uneasy stirrings of concern was simply a waste of her dwindling reserves of energy, especially as she knew unquestionably in her own mind that four weeks exactly had passed since she had become aware that something was seriously wrong. That was a night that she would never forget.
She remembered with certainty and alarming clarity that at four o’clock in the morning a peaceful night’s sleep had been suddenly and violently interrupted by a terrifying and terrified scream. She woke in a panic, she may even have uttered a cry of her own, as she was hauled into premature consciousness. Coming quickly to her senses, she could feel the blood pounding in her ears and sense the succession of short, shallow gasps that passed for breathing.
As her faculties returned, she became aware of the formless mass close by, deeply black against the paler darkness of the room beyond. Her ears became attuned to the sound of sobbing some little while before her eyes were able to make sense of the apparently shapeless figure at her side.
She discovered Jack sitting on the edge of the bed, slumped forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped about his head as if trying to prevent it from exploding; his palms pressed firmly to his temples and his fingers interlaced across his scalp. He was rocking slowly backwards and forwards. She instinctively reached out to him to offer comfort. Her hand touched his back, finding it bathed in a cold sweat and he was shaking uncontrollably.
‘What is it, what’s the matter?’ she pleaded. She was crying herself now, from shock and concern at finding him so distressed.
It took her almost twenty minutes to calm him and regain her own composure. Only then, as she held him close to her, enfolding him in the security of her embrace, could she begin to question him, desperate to establish what had happened and what was troubling him. Her voice was soft and soothing, but her questions were insistent and unremitting, punctuated here and there by a whispered ‘hush, hush’ and reassurances that ‘everything will be okay’.
Though perhaps only a few minutes passed, it seemed to Connie that hours elapsed before he was able to offer any kind of response.
‘I don’t know, Con. I don’t know.’ There followed a brief pause, after which the sudden realisation that he was, indeed, ignorant of the source of his distress hit him as powerfully as a physical blow and he began to sob once more.
‘It’s all right. I’m here, darling. Hush, hush…’ was all that Connie could manage through her own tears, as she held him even tighter and gently stroked his head. In the minutes that followed, no matter how much she probed and cajoled and even, at times, prompted, he was unable to offer any rational explanation for his condition. Fuelled by his frustration he began to get irritated with her.
‘I don’t know, all right? Just leave it will you? It was a nightmare, okay? Just a nightmare. I don’t remember anything, you know? Nothing.’ But the more he spoke, the calmer he became and from the cold coals of his anger arose the faint glow of recollection. Connie blew gently on the embers, coaxing a flame.
‘Nothing,’ he repeated, less certainly. ‘A feeling. Just a feeling, you know. Something… Something horrible, something very, very awful happened. But it was just a nightmare, Con, all right? Just a nightmare that I’ve already forgotten.’ He smiled weakly at her in the gloom.
‘But you were screaming; it was the screaming that woke me,’ she persisted and despite his insistence that he had experienced little more than a bad dream all she knew then was that he had woken screaming, as she had found him, consumed by an unidentified and indescribable fear.
In the half-light of dawn they had sat, in silence, over a cup of tea before returning to bed for a couple of sleepless, troubled hours.
Rising as usual at seven, Jack had showered, dressed and grabbed a hasty breakfast of dry bread and milk before setting off for work. As she lay awake in bed, listening to his comings and goings, Connie knew that he was still brooding on the events of the previous night. He would normally be singing as he prepared for the day ahead; he was always singing. That morning he was silent and, for the very first time in their long and happy marriage, Jack had left for work without a single parting word for his distraught wife.
By the time he returned that evening his mood seemed to have lifted somewhat. He did not speak of his nightmare, or what might have induced it, and Connie thought it best not to raise the subject. That night passed undisturbed, much to Connie’s relief, and within a couple of days the whole episode appeared to have been forgotten by them both.
Exactly one week later, to the day, it happened again.
This time it took Connie the better part of forty minutes to restore him to normality, nursing him in the security of her loving arms as a mother would bring comfort to a frightened child.
As soon as he felt able to speak he escaped from her embrace, stood and walked over to the window, as though he needed distance between them if his thoughts were to be allowed their release into words that others could hear. He stood, naked, with his back to her, whilst she, feeling his need, remained seated on the bed, watching him and waiting. He pulled the curtain aside, sufficient only to afford him a narrow view of the world beyond. It was still dark and he could see nothing, but he maintained his pose, finding it easier to address his words to the anonymous night sky than to his wife.
Connie ached to be by his side, helping him through his ordeal, but with immense effort she managed to restrain herself. A painfully long, expectant silence ensued before Jack finally spoke. It proved difficult for them both, but at least on this occasion Jack had some greater recollection of the nightmare.
‘I was in a room,’ he said, calmly, dispassionately, as if reading from a script. Connie felt an icy chill run through her. ‘A small room, with a high ceiling. There were no windows, but the room was not dark.’ He paused, as if trying to remember. Connie waited patiently and in silence.
‘I remember sitting on the floor,’ he went on, at last. ‘It was like sitting at the bottom of a well, except there was no water. Or perhaps it was a bear trap?’
His narrative lacked lucidity; he was clearly in a highly agitated, confused state still and this, combined with the fact that dreams tend, n