The Warning by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online Page B

whenever you have a conversation, at exactly the same rate that he edges forwards. Then you wouldn’t notice. You’d both be weirdos, but your weirdness would be camouflaged when you were together. See what I mean?”
    “Unfortunately, yes.”
    Saying that I see doesn’t stop Lorna from wanting to tell me again. “Both you and Tom Rigbey are predatory stalkers and grateful stalkees in equal measure. Hence, you’re both able to maintain the illusion that you’re just two normal people who are attracted to one another. Mystery solved!”
    “Not the Nadine mystery,” I say.
    “Yes, Chloe! Ugh, get real. When Nadine described him as a plague and a danger, that must have been what she meant. Maybe he came on strong to her the way he is with you. She found his zealous persistence intimidating and told him to sod off. He then did something unspeakable to her as payback for the rejection—God knows what—and that’s what she was hinting at. Chloe, Nadine was sacked hours after you mentioned her name to Tom in a she-might-be-jealous context. If that doesn’t convince you, nothing will. He clearly panicked about what she might say to you if you met her again, and decided to get shot of her sharpish.”
    “You say ‘clearly’, but it’s not clear. It’s speculation.”
    “No, it’s fact. Tom Rigbey is unhealthily obsessed with you. You don’t see it because you’re equally unhealthily obsessed with him. Something disastrous is almost definitely going to happen here! Men like that, who put you on a pedestal and call you ma’am . . . they’re the ones who end up caving your skull in with a metal pipe when you burn their dinner and all their illusions about your perfection are shattered. Take my advice and heed Nadine’s warning.”
    “No.”
    “Chloe, you don’t know what he did to her! What would someone have to do to you to make you call them a plague in human form? Set fire to your house? Plant a bomb in your car?”
    Lorna’s words make my brain jolt. It’s the strangest feeling: my mind does a full-circle turn and, at the end of it, everything looks different.
    It’s obvious what I must do.
    “Chloe!” Lorna snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Did you hear what I just said?’
    “Yes.” Sort of. It was something about her knowing someone who could probably help me. “I don’t need help.”
    Lorna sprays shandy across the table in her attempt not to laugh. “You forgot to add ‘with my temporary insanity,’ ” she says. “Tough. You’re getting the help whether you want it or not. They’re only in Cambridge for a couple more days—it’s too good an opportunity to miss. And . . .” She glances at her watch. “At the risk of pissing you off still further, I’ve made the arrangement already. We’d better get a move on—we’re meeting them in twenty minutes.”
    “Who?” I ask.
    Lorna rolls her eyes. “I knew you weren’t listening,” she says.

 
    Chapter 10
    “T HEY” TURN OUT to be Lorna’s old schoolfriend Charlotte and her husband, Simon. We’ve met them in the Eagle. Both are police officers—he’s some kind of hotshot murder detective and she’s more in the social-work sphere of policing: community crime forums, suicide prevention initiatives, that kind of thing.
    I don’t want to be here, but I can’t deny I’m finding them interesting so far. I’m enjoying wondering about them. She, Charlotte, seems to flinch every time Lorna speaks, which makes me warm to her.
    Her husband has hardly said a word, and keeps directing the fiercest of evil stares at anyone nearby who laughs or clinks their glass too loudly, but he earned my admiration on arrival by asking if we could move to a quieter part of the pub. Thanks to him, we’re sitting in the room I always want to sit in and am never normally allowed to by Lorna because it’s not historical enough—the one to the right of the front door.
    Why is he so resentful of normal pub noise? It’s odd. Also