Design for Murder by Roy Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

I don’t want to get too closely involved myself: having to dig into distant family feuds and learning a little too much about family peccadilloes makes my flesh creep. I’d rather get it all cleared up by someone other than myself. That’s where you come in.’
    Eric grimaced. ‘Family matters can get messy.’
    ‘Exactly. But I’d be grateful if you could look into the matter for me. There can’t be much more to do. Just a matter of bringing an end to a long-running saga.’
    ‘So what’s it all about?’ Eric asked.
    She smiled, teasingly. ‘First of all, I think you need to know that you’re in danger of tying yourself in with a fairly wealthy young woman.’
    ‘It was always your money I was after,’ Eric assured her solemnly.
    She grinned. ‘Well, you made a good choice. The fact is, our family is pretty well loaded. Has been for a couple of generations. And that’s where the problems come in.’
    ‘Inheritance?’
    ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. I mean, my parents – who as you know are both dead now – they left me well enough heeled through general inheritance, but there’s also the matter of a trust fund which was originally set up by my grandfather. It was always separate from the money my parents left me. The trust’s given rise to certain problems among the two beneficiaries. Me and my cousin. I don’t want to go into details over dinner now, but if I gave you the name of the lawyer who’s been handling the estate – slowly, I might add – maybe you’d be able to look into it for me, and bring the whole messy business to an end.’
    Eric shrugged. ‘It hardly needs saying that I’ll be happy to do what I can to help.’
    ‘There’ll be a fat fee, of course,’ she teased.
    ‘I’ll take it in kind.’
    ‘I won’t be averse to that.’
    The remainder of the evening passed pleasantly. Eric regaled her with some of the more colourful stories about his life before he had become a lawyer, when he had been a police officer on the Tyneside beat, and she asked him about his problems with glaucoma, which he now kept under control with drugs. It was almost eleven before they left the restaurant for the short walk back to the apartment.
    There was a police car some hundred yards away, its blue light flashing. It was not an unusual occurrence: with so many bars and cafés in the area there was bound to be a certain amount of drunken behaviour late at night. Sharon glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Trouble?’ she queried.
    Eric shrugged. ‘Nothing to bother lawyers, yet. The police can deal with it.’ He turned his head, realized the car was stationed not very far from the hotel where he had arranged a room for Raymond Conroy and wondered briefly whether their erstwhile client had already got himself into difficulties. He shook the thought aside. He gripped Sharon’s elbow firmly, steering her across the road towards his apartment.
    ‘Come on,’ he said with a smile. ‘Let’s go talk about lawyer’s fees.’ 

CHAPTER TWO
1
    When Eric arrived at his office on the Quayside next morning his secretary Susie Cartwright was waiting for him with his appointments book in her hand. He waved her into his room and gestured her to a seat. She sat down, tugging at the hem of her skirt in a manner that suggested she was not at ease, not best pleased with him. ‘So you got that Conroy man off the charges,’ she said as she raised her chin to stare challengingly at him. There was more than a hint of disapproval in her tone.
    Eric eyed her carefully. Susie had been with him for a number of years now, ever since he had set up his practice on the Quayside. A widow, she was in her forties, far too young to be his mother, but that did not prevent her trying to develop such a function in their relationship: she was determined to look after him, was not afraid of telling him how he ought to go for a better kind of client, not reluctant to question some of his decisions. Occasionally she acted as his