Blind Date by Frances Fyfield Read Free Book Online Page B

imagine?” They both smiled, and began to sneak round the far edge of the lawn, avoiding the dining-room windows. Their feet were silent on the lawn, shoulders brushing the overhanging shrubs which were Diana’s pride, the air thick with the scent of the stocks. They made casual but careful progress. It was ten-thirty at night, could have been the hour before dawn. Until a masked figure crashed out of the bushes, leapt into their path and stood before them, legs wide apart, the gun held in both hands to steady it, the voice low and threatening.
    â€œFreeze!”
    They froze. The tray carrying cups, transferred to Steven’s hands, fell with a crash. He swore. Diana made an automatic gesture of putting up her hands. She had almost tripped over the trug with the weeds left over from this morning; she looked at the feet in front of her. Socks, but no shoes.
    â€œYou’re not going to send her away!” the voice growled on as the hand holding the gun began to quiver. “You’re not, you’re not, you’re NOT!” and on the final repetition the voice broke into a childish shriek. A light came on from upstairs, visitors’ side, then another. Diana forced herself into a high, reassuring laugh, carried on at length. Apart from that, they stood in silence.
    â€œStopit, Matthew. Please,” Steven said, calmly.
    One by one, the lights went out. Mrs. Diana Kennedy’s paying guests retired early. Restraining themselves from the company of children and dogs, even if their gracious landlady did not.
    And in bed, more than half asleep against the sound of the sea, Elisabeth heard only the laughter and found herself dreaming of jewels. Bright gemstones, turning into traffic lights below her window rather than stars above.
    She imagined getting up once the laughter ceased. Packing her bag, going away now, instead of waiting another week for her elusive strength to come back. Thinking of whom she might have betrayed.
    O ne by one, the lights went out. Two men sat by the window, watching the monolithic London tower block three hundred yards away as family after family went to bed. Those who did go to bed. A dull light hung over the near distant city, the glow of a million lives.
    â€œSo you won’t help, then? You set me up for this, even got me as far as Devon, and you won’t help me?”
    â€œI didn’t say that. I didn’t say wouldn’t, I said couldn’t. Not the same thing.” Jenkins raised a slightly shaking hand. “Fingers burned, you see. To the stumps. I’ve still got a job. Want to keep it, such as it is. Wife gone, bairns gone … What I’ve got is this. Not much, but mine to use and abuse.”
    â€œI’m not going to fiddle with that, you know I’m not, as if I could or would. I just want to know more about Elisabeth Kennedy. You set me up. You sent me down to keep an eye on her.” Joe emphasized, copying the older man’s speech.
    â€œShe gotthe wrong man,” the elder said, after a pause. The shaking of the hand was not drink, more the result of the coffee, consumed by the pint in dainty thimbles which looked as if they had been stolen from a Chinese restaurant. Everything else in this single man’s abode looked borrowed, begged or donated from someone who would not miss it.
    â€œBut did she get the wrong man?” the younger asked.
    â€œYes, she may have done. He knew who was murdered, how it was done, with details, but that was all.”
    â€œYou led her to him. You set them up, too. It’s what you do, Jenks. Use people.”
    â€œAll right then, it was
me
got the wrong man. And then set the wrong woman to find him.”
    â€œI don’t understand. How did you find the man?”
    Every time, he had to act as if he did not know. It was a routine they went through, so that each conversation would reveal more. The older man waved his arm, vaguely. DI Jenkins. He looked more like a stage