Dead Reckoning by Patricia Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

fact that Michael Thackeray was taking an unconscionable time to marry her. His moves towards a divorce at last gave her grounds for hope, but that was not something she intended to share with Jack. The irony was, she thought ruefully, that when Michael had met her father the two men had got on quite amicably, had possibly even liked each other. She was probably, an impediment to a beautiful friendship.
    â€œBloody men,” she said, not realising that she had spoken aloud until someone emerging from a cubicle behind her spoke.
    â€œBloody right,” the woman said, manoeuvring her endowments more comfortably inside her skin-tight Lycra dress and moving to the mirror to effect repairs to an already camouflage-thick maquillage. She seemed as out of place as a clown at a funeral in the rather stuffy environs of the Clarendon but by no means fazed by her surroundings. “Never give ‘em an inch without t’cash up front, I say,” this unexpected adviser offered.

    â€œA wedding ring would be nice,” Laura said, throwing caution to the winds.
    â€œOh, that,” the primping woman said, fluffing out her big blonde hair and contorting herself to inspect her stocking seams. “Not worth the paper they’re written on these days, marriage lines. A pre-nuptial contract’s worth having though. Pins the beggars down, that does.”
    â€œI’ll bear it in mind,” Laura said with a grin, quite cheered at the thought of persuading Michael to sign away half his worldly goods, which consisted largely of a collection of jazz and blues recordings, and some scruffy furniture which she would not give house-room to, before she consented to become his wife.
    â€œMust dash,” her companion said, cramming her make-up back into her tiny black handbag. “It does no harm to keep them waiting, but not so’s they get bored.” And with that she swept out of the cloakroom in a haze of a heavy perfume that Laura knew Michael would hate.
    When she went slowly back to the lounge, she found Jack and Joyce chatting reasonably amiably over their buttered scones. Joyce glanced at Laura, sharp-eyed, but relaxed when she saw that her granddaughter had evidently calmed down.
    â€œJack wants to take us both out for a meal tomorrow night,” Joyce said. “That’d be nice.”
    â€œBring your copper along, an’all,” Jack said magnanimously.
    â€œI’ll call you,” Laura said noncommittally.
    Her father shrugged and glanced at the door.
    â€œI can see the colleagues I’m meeting, so I’ll love you and leave you. Give us a bell in the morning and I’ll book us a table in the carvery,” he said, getting to his feet. Laura and Joyce watched him thread his way through the tea tables and join two smartly dressed men in the lobby, one white and one Asian.

    â€œWhat’s he up to?” Joyce asked.
    â€œI’ve no idea, but I shouldn’t think it’ll necessarily do Earnshaws mill any good,” Laura said. “Come on, have another cup of tea as he’s paying. And then I’ll run you home.”

Chapter Four
    While the Ackroyd family was taking tea in the Clarendon lounge, a fair-haired young man with the beginnings of a paunch and an air of sleepy superiority was downing his third consecutive double malt and leaning against the mahogany and brass bar next door at an increasingly acute angle.
    â€œI mean, it’s obvious that these people won’t move into the twenty-first century, isn’t it?” Matthew Earnshaw asked the comfortable woman in a black dress who was carefully polishing already gleaming glasses on the other side of the counter. “They’re hardly out of the bloody middle ages, are they?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know about that, sir,” the barmaid said with well-rehearsed neutrality. “I take people as I find them. You have to, in this job.”
    â€œI know, but let’s say