False Report by Veronica Heley Read Free Book Online

and married Nicole, whose parents were only too keen to help him establish himself as a Member of Parliament. He was painstaking and thorough and a loyal party member. He worked hard for his constituents. With luck, he now had a job for life. But if that failed him . . .?
    She sighed. Who could foresee the future? Who would want to?
    A fly blundered into the room. She shooed it out and stood, looking out over the quiet, shady garden which was enclosed – as all the houses in this terrace were – by high brick walls.
    Maggie had filled the great urns with summer bedding plants, and various shrubs and small trees around the perimeter were doing well. The sycamore was in two tones of green with the flowers showing lighter splotches against the leaves. The leaves trembled in the breeze, and through them she could glimpse the spire of St Mary Abbot’s at the bottom of the hill.
    Hamilton had worshipped in that church, and so had she for a while though it was a trifle too ornate and high for her. Hamilton had said God was everywhere, not just in church, and sometimes she could believe that. And sometimes not.
    Dear Lord, I am in your hands. You know everything. You know my weaknesses and my strengths. If my work here is done, help me to retire with a good grace. If you still have work for me to do here, then . . . do you think you could give me a sign of some kind? Faithfully yours, Bea Abbot.
    She was alone in the house. She listened for the comforting noises which would tell her that there were other human beings around, but there were none.
    There was no clashing of pans or sound of radio and television coming from the kitchen next door, which meant that Maggie had not yet returned from whatever job she’d been doing. Maggie didn’t seem able to function without a lot of noise around her.
    Oliver’s year at university had finished but he’d told Maggie he was staying on for another week or two to finish up some research project or other. So he wouldn’t be popping in and out, or playing jazz on his saxophone at the top of the house.
    Bea was not hungry after eating that big tea, so she went down the inside stairs to the agency rooms. Her office lay at the back of the house. More French windows there would let her out on to the garden, since the house was built on a slope, and what was a semi-basement at the front of the house was level with the paved garden at the back.
    Everything looked neat and tidy.
    In the old days she would have expected to see a pile of papers on her desk for her to peruse, sign, or mark up for discussion. Now there was nothing except a folder containing an up-to-date report on the agency finances, broken down into different categories.
    Once it had been Bea’s job to oversee the accounts and make whatever decisions might be necessary. All that was in the past. With the advent of Ianthe, her new manageress, the agency was going from strength to strength, and surely they would soon iron out any bumps in the road. If, indeed, there were any bumps. Probably not. It was all in her mind.
    The agency was a success story, as Max had said.
    How had he known it? Through Ianthe? Though how the two of them might have met was something of a puzzle.
    Bea tried to switch on her computer, but there was no power. Ianthe liked to turn off the power to all the computers on her way out every night. It was a sensible step to take, but it grated on Bea to have to go into the main office and unlock the cupboard to access the big new switch-box and turn the power on again. Fortunately, she’d insisted on having a key to that cupboard.
    Back in her office, she switched on her computer. She wasn’t completely redundant. At least she could find a suitable housekeeper for the little music man. A name had leaped into her mind: someone who had worked for her for a long time but recently decided to leave. Celia had said she wanted something less stressful now, though in the darkest hours of