Chapters (156)
- A DATE WITH DEATH
- Also by Mark Roberts
- A Date With Death
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- The Past
- 1977
- Day OneWednesday, 1st December 2021CatoptrophobiaFear of mirrors
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- The Past
- 1979
- Day TwoThursday, 2nd December 2021OneirophobiaFear of dreams
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- The Past
- 1980
- Day ThreeFriday, 3rd December 2021MonophobiaFear of being alone
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- The Past
- 1982
- Day FourSaturday, 4th December 2021ThanatophobiaFear of Death
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- About the Author
- An Invitation from the Publisher
It was more than OK. No one apart from Dad ever asked him if things were OK with him. No one apart from Mum before she died asked him if he was OK. No one apart from Mum or Dad or Edgar, that is.
At a set of traffic lights, there was a church across the junction with a poster on the wall that read:
AN HONEST WITNESS DOES NOT DECEIVE BUT A FALSE WITNESS POURS OUT LIES. PROVERBS 14:5
A good proverb. The sort of thing Captain Cyclone would say at the end of one of his adventures overwhelming murderers and thieves and lowlife scum from the Big City.
He could barely see the wall around his window but he didn’t need light to know what was going on behind the veil of darkness because he had painted it himself and knew every square centimetre of the image.
Captain Benjamin Black led thousands of innocent men, women and children back into the ruins of the Big City, with a wren flying over the exodus, and with a simple command coming from the superhero’s lips.
Rebuild!
Wren moved into the corner of his room and tilted his lamp so that the light was aimed at the triumphant march back into the redeemed city. He placed the light on his small desk, which he hadn’t needed since the day he was kicked out of school for something someone else had done. He opened the desk drawer where he kept his paints and brushes. He selected a broad and a thin brush, a tube of white and a tube of black.
A change was needed to the wall around the window.
Wren took out the step ladder from the side of his pine wardrobe and, setting it up, stepped up from the floor, two, three steps to the top. Brushes in one hand and a tube of paint in the other, he stretched out his arms and moved them in a figure of eight.
This is how Edgar makes me feel, thought Wren. The loneliness that had dogged him for as many years as he could remember was gone.
‘My name is Wren. And I can fly!’
26
11.59 pm
Under the dim light of her bedside lamp, Norma Maguire had fallen asleep to the sound of Chopin’s Nocturnes whispering from the bedside radio. An empty glass and a bottle of Talisker lay next to each other.
Behind the large black mask that covered her eyes, nose and cheeks, Norma lived through a recurring dream.
In her dream, she walked on a beach, light dancing in the sky above her head and casting every shade of gold on the sand beneath her bare feet. Seagulls called on the wind and circled between the blue sky and the white clouds.
Crosby Beach.
Beneath the transparent white dress that exposed her skin to the light, her feet were elegant, and her legs moved effortlessly.