Dangerous Games by Sally Spencer Read Free Book Online Page B

about it for certain, can you?’
    â€˜No, I most certainly can’t.’
    â€˜But I’ve got you marked down as a woman who could make a pretty good guess, whether or not, so I’d still like to hear what you think.’
    For a moment, it looked as if Elaine Rogers was about to continue proclaiming her complete ignorance on the subject of the letter, then she shrugged and said, ‘Who can you think of who might send a typewritten letter to a working man like Terry?’
    There was only one answer to that.
    â€˜It’s likely to be either council officials and debt collectors,’ Woodend admitted.
    â€˜But the things that council officials write to you don’t make you want to puke, do they?’
    â€˜You think he was in debt?’
    â€˜I could almost swear to it.’
    â€˜And who do you think he was in debt
to
?’
    â€˜Who do
you
think? How do fellers like our Mary’s Terry ever accumulate debts they can’t afford to pay off?’
    â€˜Through gamblin’.’
    â€˜Exactly. He’ll have been betting more than he could afford on the horses. Or on the dogs – because they can do just as much damage. And suddenly, with the baby on the way, he realized what a mess he’d got himself into. But it was too late for second thoughts then, wasn’t it? There was no going back. So he hung himself off that bridge, because he knew that no bookie will ever go after the widows and orphans for the money he’s owed. Once you’re dead, as far as bookies are concerned, the debt dies with you.’
    â€˜Are you still married yourself – or are you divorced, Mrs Rogers?’ Woodend wondered.
    â€˜Why are you asking me that?’
    â€˜Just curious.’
    â€˜I’m divorced. And if what you’re
really
asking is why I kicked the bastard out, I did it because he was a gambler as well. But that doesn’t mean I’ve got an obsession about men and gambling.’
    â€˜Doesn’t it?’ Woodend asked mildly.
    â€˜No, it bloody doesn’t. All it
does
mean is that when the signs are there, I know how to recognize them.’

Six
    W oodend had been something of a regular in the Tanners’ Arms in the days when his old dad had worked as a tackler in one of the nearby mills.
    Back then, it had been a strictly ‘spit and sawdust’ pub – a place to which women did not choose to go, and where they would not have been welcome if they had. It had done most of its business in the hour or so after the end of a shift, and on high days and holidays had been virtually deserted.
    There had been no food on offer in those days before the Second World War, and no music to listen to. The men had stood there talking loudly – since after a few years of working in the roar of the mills’ machinery, they were all at least partially deaf – and knocking back as much ale as they could afford, in a fruitless attempt to rid their throats of the taste of the cotton dust.
    Now, everything had changed. Cotton was no longer king in Lancashire, and though much of the new light industry had established itself in the industrial estate on the edge of town, a number of firms had chosen instead to colonize the skeletons of the old cotton mills close to the Tanner’s Arms.
    The pub had moved with the times, too, as was immediately evidenced by the fact that in place of the old front door – which had been latched – there were a pair of swing doors, which could be pushed open.
    â€˜Swing doors!’ Woodend said, bad-temperedly. ‘What do them buggers at the brewery think this is? A saloon in the Old West?’
    â€˜You tell me, Gary Cooper,’ Paniatowski said, almost
–
but not
quite
– under her breath.
    Once inside, the changes were even more apparent. The brass spittoons had gone. The heavy wallpaper – stained dark brown by generations of nicotine-laden smoke – had been stripped away,