TOYL by Paul Pilkington Read Free Book Online Page A

done.’
    If only she really believed that about herself.
    ‘Edna only told me what she’d seen last night,’ he said through tear-drenched eyes, ‘while we were watching television. At first I wasn’t sure whether to believe her. Sometimes we can be sitting in front of the TV and she starts telling you stories about what she’s seen or heard that day – but it’s just all part of the TV programme she’d been watching earlier. So when she told me, I thought she’d just seen it on television.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Emma said, ‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.’
    ‘Sometimes she’s quite lucid,’ he said, continuing his monologue as if he hadn’t heard Emma’s remark. ‘You wouldn’t think anything was wrong with her. She talks about things that happened when she was a child, and about when we first met. All those memories are still fresh for her, you see. When she’s talking about old times I forget about the dementia, and I just enjoy talking to my wife again. I have her back with me. Not just a hollow shell; the real Edna. The woman I fell in love with and married. But then it’s like a light inside her head has been turned off, and she’s gone again, lost in her own world, talking about the television.’
    ‘What did Edna see?’ Emma said, trying to curb her enthusiasm for answers in the fear that to press harder might scare him away.
    But it was already starting to make sense.
    ‘Did she see Dan?’ she pressed. ‘Did you tell the police that you saw Dan running away from the apartment?’
    ‘We didn’t tell the police to try and get your boyfriend into trouble,’ he protested. ‘Please believe that. But when Edna told me what she’d seen, we felt we had to tell them everything we knew. I was going to talk to you about it, but I didn’t know how to get in touch with you.’
    ‘It’s fine. I understand, you had to tell them anything that might be able to help.’
    ‘I am sorry,’ he said.
    ‘What did Edna say she saw?’ Lizzy said, joining the conversation.
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘not a great deal really…’
    ‘Harry, where are you?’
    They heard a frantic shout from within Mr Henderson’s apartment and Emma knew at once that the chance for explanations had slipped away.
    ‘Harry?’
    ‘I’d better go and see what she wants,’ he said, glancing back towards his front door. ‘Won’t be a second, love!’
    ‘Is she sure that it was Dan she saw?’ Emma said, trying to recover the situation.
    ‘Harry, where are you?’ shouted Mrs Henderson again.
    ‘I really had better go,’ he said. ‘She needs me.’
    ‘Please, Mr Henderson,’ Emma begged, ‘it’s really important. The police came to see us before. They think that Dan was the one who attacked his brother. They think he tried to kill him. And it’s mostly because of what your wife told them. Is she certain it was Dan? Or could it have been someone else? You said that she gets confused. Maybe she did see someone, the person who really did this, but just not Dan.’
    ‘I really don’t want to talk any more about it,’ he said, backing towards the door, now avoiding her gaze as if embarrassed by his actions. ‘I’ve told you all I know, and I really don’t want Edna to be bothered about it. She can’t take this kind of upset in her condition. I’m really sorry for your fiancé, and his brother. I’m sorry. I’ll pray that his brother gets better.’
    ‘Mr Henderson, please.’
    But he turned and shuffled back into the apartment. Emma moved up to the doorframe, but resisted stepping inside the apartment and violating his personal space. ‘Please, if there’s any doubt about what your wife saw, then we really need to know about it. The police need to know.’
    He ignored her pleas and as he went to close the door Emma’s first reaction was to put a foot in the doorway. But she decided against it – the last thing she wanted to do was to alienate them with such threatening action.
    She let Mr Henderson