A Night on the Orient Express Read Free Page A

her heart felt as empty as the house.
    Added to which, the twins’ departure had coincided with William leaving too. Just after they married, the Russells had bought Bridge House because of the coach house attached, which had served as William’s surgery for over ten years. Although Adele hadn’t been directly involved, her role as the doctor’s wife had been one she had taken seriously, engaging on a daily basis with his patients and being concerned with their welfare.
    But now William had joined three other GPs to set up a modern practice in Filbury, five miles away. It was part of the NHS drive to make medical care more accessible. It was exciting for him – revolutionary – but it involved so much decision-making, so much more responsibility. So much more time. She barely saw him, and when he did come home, he was burdened with paperwork and reports. When he’d practised from Bridge House, he’d had morning surgery from nine until midday, then again from two until four, and that had been it, apart from being on call to answer emergencies and deliver difficult babies.
    And thus Adele felt lonely and useless and rather sad. And, if she was honest, a tiny bit resentful towards her husband. If she was feeling particularly self-pitying, she blamed him for sending the boys away and then abandoning her. What did he expect her to do with her time?
    Yet Adele wasn’t really the type to bear a grudge or bemoan her lot. She was a doer, which was presumably why William assumed she could cope. And which was why, at twenty past nine on a Tuesday morning, she had already done everything she needed. She’d walked up the high street to the butcher for tonight’s supper, and bought a punnet of plums to make a crumble – that would take all of ten minutes. There was no housework to be done, for she had Mrs Morris, her daily help. There was a coffee morning up at the town hall but she had a horrible feeling that she might, just might, burst into tears if anyone asked her how the twins were getting on, and that would make her feel foolish. She’d had her dark curls washed and set the day before, and had welled up when the hairdresser had enquired as to their wellbeing.
    She picked up the local weekly newspaper and leafed through it for inspiration, although what she imagined might be in there she didn’t know. She noticed there was a country-house sale not too far away. She thought she would go: she was thinking of turning the abandoned surgery into an annexe for house guests, and there might be some furniture there. Without thinking too much about it, she fished in her handbag for a pale-pink Coty lipstick, dragged it across her lips, took her mac from the hook in the hallway and picked up her gloves. It was either that or go and swap her books at the mobile library. They were waiting in a pile on the hall table but the very thought made her faint with tedium.
    She went out to her car. A pale-blue A35 saloon. She was, she knew, lucky to have a car to drive. She was lucky full stop. She had the most coveted house in Shallowford, right on the bridge by the river, with a pretty walled garden and a wrought-iron walkway to the door . . . so why did she feel so empty?
    There was, of course, one good reason, but she didn’t dwell on it very often because really – what was the point? If she felt it was ironic that her own husband, who had delivered so many of the babies in the town they lived in, hadn’t been there to supervise the birth of her own sons and had therefore not been able to prevent the subsequent damage, she had never said so. William felt badly, of course he did, that he had been so far away on that day. If he’d been nearer then maybe there would be another little Russell to fill the void left by the twins’ departure, or maybe even two. But there wasn’t, so . . .
    As she pulled out of the drive and onto the high street, a dreary September rain began to fall. Adele turned on the windscreen wipers, which dragged