"But?" she asked wearily.
"But I chickened out, lost my nerve." She stared at him, her eyes portraying her shock, and he laughed harshly, the sound a low, raw wound of pain and contempt.
"Surprised? I don't blame you. Doesn't quite fit in with the macho image, does it? The wolf who walks alone?" The self-derision was so scathingly bitter she could only watch him numbly as he began to pace the room, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"I told you my wife and child died eight years ago," he said harshly, 'but there was something else, something I didn't tell you. They were killed on an icy country road driving into town to see a pantomime just before
Christmas. An articulated lorry jack-knifed on a patch of black ice and they were killed instantly. "
_"Wolf--' He raised his hand at her anguished voice, and now she saw his eyes were steady.
"The reason they were there, the reason they died all alone in a piece of twisted metal, was because I had a big contract going through that I considered more important than my family," he continued tightly.
"I had arranged to be home in time to take them myself, but when a few problems delayed things I rang Miranda and told her to take Carrie in her car and I'd meet her there. I left nearly half an hour later. I knew I'd miss the first part, but what the hell? It was only a two-bit pantomime, wasn't it? No influential contacts present, no high-fliers to clinch a deal with."
The pain and disgust in his voice were almost more than she could bear. She was seeing the real Wolf now, the man behind the mask, and it was agonising.
"I saw the police cars first, then a fire engine and a couple of ambulances..." His eyes focused on her, black with pain.
"There was nothing anyone could do. The car was mangled beyond recognition but, in one of those quirks of fate, the number-plate had been ripped off and was found intact at the side of the road. Funny thing..." He stared at her blindly.
"I couldn't believe it when the policeman told me the number, and yet I'd known the first moment I saw the road was blocked. I'd known."
"But you didn't know the accident was going to happen," she-said softly as the tears streamed down her face.
"It was a million to one chance, one of those things against which there would have been no protection even if you had been driving. You do see that, don't you?"
"Maybe." He raked back his hair savagely.
"Maybe not, we'll never know." He continued the pacing again, _his face grey.
"After the funeral I guess I went crazy for a time. I sure can't remember much about the weeks that followed, anyway. I think they're blanked forever.
Dad came over and took me off somewhere, a log cabin in the depths of the
Lake District with the snow up to the windows. I think he saved my sanity."
He stopped and turned to her, his eyes focusing on her white face.
"And then one day I wanted to go back. The house was weird, empty, and I began to sort Miranda's things--it was as if it was happening in a film to someone else. But I couldn't go into Carrie's room." He stopped and she saw moisture gli
tter bright for a moment in the vivid blue eyes before it was blinked harshly away.
"I never did go into her room again, perhaps I should have. Anyway..." He continued the pacing again, his big body seeming to fill the small room,
"I found letters, addresses, even little gifts among Miranda's things. She'd been having a string of affairs from the first year we were married, before too, maybe. I don't know. Some of the letters were... disgustingly intimate. I sat and read them all, every one, and then I left the house and never went back. I had the site bulldozed within weeks." He laughed harshly, the sound raw in the stillness.
"Half a million lost in a futile gesture, but I didn't care. I still don't."
He stopped, turning to look out of the window with his back towards her.
"I couldn't believe I'd lived with someone, shared my life and my bed with them, and not known them. None of it had been real--the love, the sharing, the laughter. Oh, we used to have rows, mainly about my work, which I could understand. She was frustrated being at home with a child and I wasn't home enough--the isolation used to drive her mad."
_She waited, hardly daring to breathe as he paused. "The worst thing, the worst thing of all was that I couldn't let myself think of Carrie for a time after that. She and Miranda were somehow linked together and I had to blank them both to survive. It got better..." He turned to face her now, taking a deep hard breath.
"It had to," he said simply.
She rose slowly and walked over to him, putting her small hands against his chest as she looked up into his ravaged face.