Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) by Paddy Magrane Read Free Book Online Page A

Eleanor’s long fingers, the nails were bitten and the skin raw.
       Things had moved on a great deal since their initial meeting. The shotgun – Sam guessed it might never have been loaded, but he hadn’t asked – was now lying in an entrance porch and Eleanor had also made him a coffee. But he knew he could still not afford to say one wrong word. She was fragile. He could not distress her any more. So while he’d mentioned her father being haunted by something, he had not revealed the other telling phrase – Scott saying that he’d ‘done something terrible’. He also knew any mention of what Scott had said about his family – ‘ Wendy’s all but lost to me. And I can’t burden Eleanor with this. She wouldn’t understand.’ – was out of the question. This reluctance was not out of deference to his former client – he was already betraying him – but because he knew this information could lead to poisonous, destructive assumptions on Eleanor’s part. And that wouldn’t help him either. The brutal truth was, he needed Eleanor to be thinking clearly.
       No, the only way forward – selfish though it now felt – was to keep the notes to himself and convince her, in the gentlest, most sensitive way possible, that it was worth her getting involved in his search for the truth.
       He started by telling her how, during his last session, her father had been spooked by the sight of a man in the street outside and how his mood had dramatically altered afterwards, going from fear to a calm resignation.
       ‘Of what?’ asked Eleanor.
       ‘I’m not sure,’ said Sam. ‘All I know is that the next day, the same man who appeared in the street turned up at my house to tell me your father had committed suicide.’
       Sam paused, groaning inwardly, hardly believing that he’d been so tactless.
       ‘It’s alright,’ said Eleanor. ‘We’ve seen the autopsy report – and the papers.’
       ‘Right,’ said Sam, struggling to regain his flow. ‘Anyhow, this man then asked me to tell him what your father had said about his work.’
       ‘I’m assuming you told him to piss off,’ Eleanor said.
       ‘After a fashion,’ said Sam. ‘I didn’t like or trust the man one bit. And there was no way I was telling a stranger what a client had told me in confidence. But he was insistent and, had another client not arrived, I think he would have happily beaten me to a pulp to get what he wanted.’
       Eleanor leaned forward in her seat. ‘So then what?’
       ‘He stormed out. But later on someone else tried to break into my place and steal your father’s case notes. When that failed, the same man chased me through a local cemetery with a knife in his hand. Had there not been people around, he’d have got what he wanted.’
       Eleanor combed a hand through her thick hair. ‘So what you’re saying is, these men suspect that you know something about my father – something they deem explosive enough to steal or even kill for.’
       Sam nodded.
       ‘But you don’t.’
       ‘Exactly.’
       ‘So you want my help to work out what this incendiary secret is.’
       ‘I know you have your own grief to work through, Eleanor. I also know I’m trampling all over it by marching in here today. But I just wonder whether we can help each other.’
       Eleanor’s head dipped. He’d upset her. He knew it. When she looked up she was crying. But what came out of her mouth was not what he expected.
       Eleanor turned to look at her mother in the room behind them. Her voice then dropped. ‘Most widows in my mother’s state, with maybe a year to live – two at best – would have given up with this news. But not her. She’s found a new appetite for life. She’s eating and drinking more.’ She leaned forward, as if afraid her words were still carrying into the other room. ‘I know why,’ she said. ‘She’s angry. Angry with my father possibly, but more likely with the