Death in a Far Country by Patricia Hall Read Free Book Online Page B

football but I do recognise a breath of fresh air when it hits me. I think you’re going to be in for an interesting few months on the sports pages, Tony. I really do.’
    When she had finally finished her feature and received Ted Grant’s grudging grunt of approval, Laura took a detour to see her grandmother on her way home. Joyce Ackroyd still lived in one of the old people’s bungalows on the edge of The Heights, always known locally as Wuthering, one of Bradfield’s most notorious estates where the tower blocks were at last in the process of redevelopment. Apparently unfazed by the noise and dust as she watched the blocks of flats she had helped to plan as a young town councillor come down, Joyce Ackroyd was proving very reluctant to move away to any quieter corner of the town that Laura suggested.
    She came to the door slowly, reliant on a walking frame now for her arthritic hips and knees, but delighted as always to see the granddaughter who had inherited her once red hair and more than a little of her fiery temperament.
    ‘You look tired, love,’ Joyce said sharply when Laura had made them both tea and settled in her tiny living room.‘How’s that man of yours? Is he better now?’
    ‘More or less,’ Laura said cautiously. She knew Joyce had always harboured reservations about her relationship with what she called ‘her policeman’. ‘He’s back at work, though I’m not sure he should be.’
    ‘You both work too hard,’ Joyce said. ‘How are you ever going to…’ Joyce hesitated, with unusual tact though Laura knew well enough how she had intended to end the sentence.
    ‘Don’t go there, Nan,’ Laura said. ‘It’s all a bit fragile. Anyway, I didn’t come up to talk about my love life, such as it is. I came to ask you about Dad.’
    ‘Ha,’ Joyce said. She had recently returned from a holiday with her only son, Laura’s father, and had been succinct in her criticisms of an ex-pat lifestyle in Portugal, which she regarded as self-indulgent and futile. ‘Next thing you know he’ll be back in England,’ she said. ‘He’s in a panic over this drought and the forest fires they’ve been having in Portugal, reckons the place won’t be worth living in if he can’t fill his swimming pool and play on a nicely watered golf course.’
    ‘I wouldn’t bank on it being any better here in a few years’ time, the way things are going,’ Laura said. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to ask you. What I’m interested in is Dad and Sam Heywood. Weren’t they big mates at one time? I seem to remember meeting Sam at home once or twice, a long time ago, when he first took over United and they did quite well for a bit. I don’t remember Dad having any interest in football, but Sam was one of the local wheelers and dealers and Dad never let one of them pass him by.’
    ‘I think he had some shares in the club at one time,’ Joyce said slowly. ‘I’ve no idea if he still has. He wouldn’t tell meowt like that. But if he thought he could make a bob or two he’d be in there like a flash. And that time United got into the second division and won that Cup – what was it? The Milk Cup? I think that’s when he was making up to Sam Heywood, jumping on his bandwagon, was even a director of the club for a while. As he would be if it looked like yielding a profit.’ Joyce’s incomprehension of her successful businessman son’s money-making activities masked one of the major disappointments of her life. She had put her only son, whom she had brought up as a widow, down to become the socialist prime minister she would have liked to have been herself but, as sons do, Jack had gone his own way and made a fortune in business and broken his mother’s heart. Joyce looked forlorn for a second.
    ‘I don’t remember all the details, love,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to ask him yourself.’
    ‘I might do that,’ Laura said. ‘As I hear it, there’s a few predators circling United, aiming to buy Jenna