Dead Reckoning by Patricia Hall Read Free Book Online Page B

someone wanted to modernise the Clarendon, and let’s face it, it could do with a make-over. Wouldn’t you be pleased about that?”
    â€œI suppose it would depend on whether I’d still have a job or not, sir, wouldn’t it. They don’t vote for Christmas, don’t turkeys, do they?”
    â€œGod, I despair of this bloody country,” Earnshaw muttered pushing his empty glass over the counter. “Give me another, will you? I don’t know where my bloody brother is. He promised he’d be here at four and it’s twenty-five past bloody five now. I’m going to be driving home through the blasted rush hour.”
    â€œDo you think you should, sir? If you’re driving, I mean?” The barmaid’s voice was as deferential as ever as she stood
with the bottle of Glenmorangie poised and made her point, but the young man flushed with anger.
    â€œAre you fucking refusing to serve me?” he asked.
    â€œNo sir, just wondering …”
    â€œThe same again,” Earnshaw said flatly, looking round the bar where the scattering of customers were glancing curiously in his direction. He drained his fresh drink quickly.
    â€œIf my brother Simon comes in looking for me tell him to call me on my mobile,” he said to the barmaid. “He’s had his switched off all day, the silly bastard. Can’t contact him.”
    Concentrating hard to keep his gait steady he made his way to the door, where he passed a group of three men coming the other way. He nodded vaguely at the one who gave him a nod of recognition as they passed. In his present state he could not for the life of him recall who the tall grey-haired man in the designer suit was, still less his companions, a heavily built Asian and a small silver-haired man with acute blue eyes.
    â€œWho’s that?” Jack Ackroyd asked when they were out of earshot.
    â€œThat’s Matthew Earnshaw, Frank’s younger lad, pissed as usual,” the tall man said. “He’s one of the problems that company’s up against. I tell you, if it weren’t for him they might not be in the terminal mess they’re in. Still it’s no skin off our nose.”
    Â 
    Matthew Earnshaw arrived at his father’s house unscathed more than an hour later, the erratic driving of his BMW safely masked by the heavy traffic which had kept his speed down to a crawl for most of the ten mile journey to Broadley. He pulled up in a scatter of gravel on the drive outside the heavy stone Victorian mansion where he and his brother had been brought up. He pressed the doorbell persistently and
pushed past the Phillipina housekeeper who opened it for him without a word, storming into the sitting room where his parents were drinking sherry.
    â€œHe didn’t fucking turn up,” he announced with a scowl.
    â€œLanguage, Matthew,” his mother said reprovingly but his father, grey-suited and showing signs of the anxiety which seemed to have creased his face deeply around the eyes and forehead was more interested in his son’s message than the manner of its delivery.
    â€œDidn’t he call you?” he asked sharply.
    â€œHis mobile’s switched off. I haven’t heard from him since we made the arrangement to meet on Sunday. I know he’s got some girl he’s not letting on about, but this is ridiculous.” Matthew crossed to the sideboard on the far side of the room and poured himself a large Scotch without ice or water. “You get the feeling he enjoys buggering us about,” he said, lowering himself carefully onto the sofa beside his mother. “Making us sweat.”
    â€œI’m sure that’s not true,” Christine Earnshaw said placatingly. “He must be busy.”
    â€œThe bloody university’s on vacation. Why should he be busy?” her husband asked. “He knows what we’re trying to do and how important his input is. He knows we need to talk to