Blue Genes by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page B

party on any reasonable ground.’
    ‘“The final decision as to the reasonableness or otherwise of that ground to be taken by the partners in consultation with any employees of the firm,”’ I quoted from memory. I’d written most of the agreement; it wasn’t surprising I knew by heart what the key parts of it said. ‘It’s academic, Bill. You know I can’t afford to buy you out. And you also know damn well that I’m far too fond of you to stand in the way of what you want. So pick your buyer.’
    I jumped to my feet and wrenched the door open. ‘I’m out of here,’ I said, hoping the disgust and anger I felt was as vivid to him as it was to me. Sometimes, the only things that make you feel good are the same ones that worked when you were five. Yes, I slammed the door.
     
     
    I sat staring into the froth of a cappuccino in the Cigar Store café. The waitress was having an animated conversation with a couple of her friends drinking espressos in the corner, but apart from them, I had the place to myself. It wasn’t hard to tune out their gossip and focus on the implications of what Bill had said. I couldn’t believe what he planned to do to me. It undercut everything I thought I knew about Bill. It made me feel that my judgement wasn’t worth a bag of used cat litter. The man had been my friend before he became my business partner. I’d started my career process-serving for him as a way of eking out my student grant because the hours and the cash were better than bar work. I’d toiled with him or for him ever since I’d jacked in my law degree after the second year, when I realized I could never spend my working days in the company of wolves and settled for the blond bear instead.
    There was no way I could afford to buy him out. The deal we’d done when I’d become a partner had been simple enough. Bill had had the business valued, and I’d worked out I could afford to buy thirty-five per cent. I’d borrowed the money on a short-term loan from the bank and paid it back over four years. I’d managed that by paying the bank every penny I earned over and above my previous salary, including my annual profit shares. I’d only finished paying the loan off three months previously, thanks in part to a windfall that couldn’t be explained either to another living soul or to the taxman without risking the knowledge getting back to the organized criminals who had inadvertently made me the gift. It had been a struggle to meet the payments on the loan, and I had no intention of standing under the kind of trees that deliver such dangerous windfalls ever again.
    I had to face it. There was no way I could raise the cash to buy out Bill’s sixty-five per cent at the prices of four years ago, never mind what the agency would now be worth, given the new clients we’d both brought in since then. I was going to be the victim of anyone who decided a two-thirds share in a profitable detective agency was a good investment.
    A second cup clattered on to the table in front of me. Startled, I looked up and found myself staring into Shelley’s amber eyes. ‘I thought I’d find you here,’ she said, tossing her mac over a chair and sitting down opposite me. Her face looked like one of those carved African ceremonial masks, all polished planes and immobility, especially now she’d abandoned the beads she used to wear plaited in her hair and moved on to neat cornrows. I couldn’t tell from looking at her if she’d come to sympathize or to tell me off for my tantrum and plead Bill’s case.
    ‘And we thought Lincoln freed the slaves,’ I said bitterly. ‘How do you feel about being bought and sold?’
    ‘It’s not as bad for me as it is for you,’ Shelley said. ‘I don’t like the new boss, I just walk out the door and get me another job. But you’re tied to whoever Bill sells his share to, am I right?’
    ‘As usual. Back on the chain gang, Shell, that’s what I am. Like Chrissie Hynde says, circumstance beyond