Page 29 of No Quarter

Margaret shook her head. “No, my granddaughter only told me these things. She didn’t want me up there.”

“Did she tell you why he was mean to her?”

“I didn’t really understand,” Margaret said. “She said it was because they had a mutual acquaintance. Someone Agatha had dated for a while years ago, Terry Marshall. So, this Patrick ... Patrick Ives, that was his name, the guard. He didn’t like that she had seen this man.”

Valerie scribbled down a note to herself.

“Did she say anything more about that?”

“No.”

The grandfather clock ticked again. Valerie tried to block it out. An image of her own grandmother came into her mind again. Then a whisper from the hallway outside the room. Had she just imagined it?

Was the mental illness exerting itself again?

“Are you okay, Dear?” the old lady asked, kindly.

“Yes ... Yes, I am, thank you, Margaret. The coffee was lovely. But I think I have all I need now.”

“If I can do anything else ...”

“Please do let us know if you think of anything else,” Valerie said. She leaned over and squeezed the old lady’s hand again.

“You are a pretty one,” she said. “I don’t see a ring on that finger, though. You should get yourself a nice husband. I just wish my poor Agatha could have had all of that. A nice life ...”

Valerie smiled in sympathy and thought of Tom.

Husband, she thought to herself. Now that was unnerving. She’d never thought about calling him that. But soon enough, he would be just that, if she went through with the marriage.

Valerie thanked Margaret and walked out of the room. She avoided the grandfather clock and its ticking.

But she felt it looking at her.

Clocks have faces, she thought.

Her heart sank. Strange thoughts were coming to her again. And she began to suspect that the family illness was waiting to throw her into darkness at any moment.

Leaving the house, she breathed in the cool autumn air.

Looking down at her phone, she called Charlie.

“Wild,” he said, answering immediately. “We have a suspect.”

“So do I,” she replied. “Pa—”

“Patrick Ives,” Charlie interrupted. “I said it first, so I get the credit.”

Valerie laughed. “Do you have an address?”

“Yeah, I got one from Doctor Whitmore on the down low.”

“Text me it, let’s bring him in.”

Valerie looked back at the house. The little bungalow where Agatha Mitchell’s grandmother lived. And in her mind, the clock ticked.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Valerie felt a chill in the air as she waited on the corner of Argent Street. It was more of a dirt track than a proper road. At the end of it, an old farmhouse sat on top of a diminutive hill.

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