After Effects by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online

Christopher, all the while your father needs her. I can tell you that.’ He paused and then added significantly, ‘And it won’t be for long now, will it, Dr Friar?’
    Martin Friar looked solemn. ‘I’m afraid not.’
    â€˜So Dad’s nearly at the end of the road, is he?’ asked Simon, the elder son, his own role at the farm about to change significantly and new duties begin.
    â€˜He’s had a good innings,’ responded Browne obliquely, ‘but I think they’ll be drawing stumps, soon.’ He turned politely to the quondam consultant and said, ‘Don’t you, Dr Friar?’
    Martin Friar nodded gravely. It was about the only thing he could do.
    â€˜Although,’ said Angus Browne, automatically hedging his bets, ‘the heart has a remarkable capacity for keeping going.’
    The younger son found his tongue again. And was surprised to find how dry it was. ‘When …’ he licked his lips. ‘I mean … can you say how long?’
    â€˜Not long now,’ said Browne gently, as they all heard the sound of another, rather noisier, car coming up the farm lane.
    â€˜That’ll be the rector,’ said the daughter, taking off her apron and hurrying through the house. ‘We’d better get the front door open, hadn’t we?’
    Dr Browne led Martin Friar out of the back door as the representative of the next world came in at the front one—the seldom-opened farmhouse front door that the coffin would be going out of very soon.
    â€˜Thanks for coming,’ Browne said when they were well out of earshot.
    â€˜There was nothing I could do.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, there was,’ said Angus Browne unexpectedly. ‘Now you’ve seen the patient for yourself, you can go back and tell your boss that I don’t like this new drug he’s peddling one little bit.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    Doctors have their uses, real as well as imaginary.
    Over in the village of Staple St James, Dr Paul Meggie had also been noted as an absentee by Gilroy Pharmaceuticals (Berebury) Ltd.
    â€˜Sorry about this, Al,’ said George Gledhill, their Chief Chemist. ‘he wanted you to meet him while you were over here.’
    â€˜These medical bods do tend to get held up more than some,’ replied Al Dexter easily. He was Head of Dexter Palindome (Luston) plc, manufacturing chemists, and liked other people to get off on the wrong foot anyway. ‘Can’t be helped.’
    â€˜Oh, he’ll be along all right, never worry,’ contributed Mike Itchen, Deputy Chief Chemist and resident boffin at Gilroy’s, in the laid-back manner he was cultivating so assiduously. ‘He’s keen.’ Behind the laid-back manner were the research brains of Gilroy’s.
    Al Dexter took another sip of his preluncheon drink. ‘Trobuble is, you can’t ever check up on the medics. All they’ve got to say is that they’ve had an emergency wall.’
    â€˜True.’ George Gledhill glanced at his watch. ‘All the same, I don’t think we’ll wait to eat.’
    He pushed his chair back. Doctors with a penchant for drug research could be recruited for clinical programmes without difficulty—for a fee, of course. Good cooks were more tricky to come by and trickier still to keep—fee or no fee. The cook at Gilroy’s was first class and all of their visitors enjoyed her cooking. Most of them relished the corporate dining room at the Hall, too, and Gledhill was happy to note that their guest had every appearance of a man who hadn’t seen his toes for quite a while.
    â€˜Fine with me,’ said Al Dexter automatically. ‘Glad you yourselves could make it on time anyway. Sounds as if you’ve had a busy morning, both of you.’
    â€˜We’ve got people looking at the roof now,’ said the Chief Chemist indirectly. ‘They were lucky not to get themselves killed, silly young