Full Fury by Roger Ormerod Read Free Book Online Page A

dead.’
    Something moved behind the screen of his eyelashes. His mouth flexed. ‘That’s so, is it?’
    I nodded. He reached into his pocket, produced a paper handkerchief, turned, meticulously polished the little patch on my paintwork, then screwed it up and threw it away.
    ‘ He wants to see you,’ he said.
    Finn wanted to see me. No argument. No discussion.
    ‘ Then take me round the other way.’
    He did so. We walked in painful silence side by side. He was an inch or so taller than I am, but I thought I’d be a little heavier. I hoped I’d never need to take his gun from him. He moved with the controlled grace of a pacing tiger, softly beside me, and took me round to what had been the main entrance when it had been an ordinary residence. The door was open. We went into the hall that I’d already met.
    Troy mounted the stairs lithely, three at a time, and did the same trick with the door. This time I was ready and spotted it. There was a button in the wall a foot from the doorway. The door swung open. I went in. It silently closed in Troy’s face.
    It was like a stage set. Karen was seated on the edge of the chair I had used. She had her legs crossed, one elbow on the higher knee and another cigarette going in the supported hand. She was looking across the room at nothing, and she did not turn when I entered. Myra was over by the magnificent fireplace, holding it up with one hand. She wasn’t sparkling any more. Her eyes met mine at once. I was expected to tell her it wasn’t true, perhaps. She looked startled, shocked. The turquoise and diamond brooch was no longer over her left breast, and there was a little tear in the material. Normally she’d rush to climb out of such a desecrated dress, so it couldn’t have happened long before I arrived.
    I looked at Finn. He was at the bar pouring himself a drink, and, I saw with approval, one for me. He was dapper in a sky-blue mohair suit. On the surface of the bar was the brooch. He had only just put it down. Karen would have arrived only a minute before me. It appeared that her entrance had interrupted something violent.
    He came towards me with the drinks. His eyes were cold and deadly, his mouth hard. He had poured me a scotch and flipped in a dash of soda.
    ‘ More soda if you want it,’ he said in a flat voice.
    The air crackled with tension.
    ‘ Karen’s just told us,’ said Finn.
    He didn’t say they had only just heard, I noticed. But Myra was looking like a woman who had only just heard, and was appalled.
    As she didn’t speak, Finn said: ‘What happened?’
    I moved the hand with the glass in the general direction of Karen, who might have caught the movement but only lazily drew on her cigarette. ‘She hasn’t said?’
    ‘ There hasn’t been time,’ Myra put in quickly. ‘Only that it was a car accident.’
    ‘ That was all I told her.’
    Something passed between Carter Finn and Myra, a warning.
    ‘ There’s more?’ he asked.
    ‘ Where it happened,’ I said helpfully. ‘How it happened.’
    I was showing the bull a flutter of the cape. His eyes took me in and assessed me. I couldn’t have looked very dangerous. I certainly didn’t feel dangerous.
    ‘ If there was an accident, it looks as though you’ve been in it.’ He cocked his head in challenge. ‘You haven’t touched your drink.’
    I was aware that Karen’s attention had been attracted. Her eyes were on me. ‘I think, perhaps, I’ll have some more soda,’ I said, ‘after all,’ and drew Karen to her feet at once. ‘Let me.’ Her hand was out for the glass, but I was casual about it, turning from her. ‘No… I’ll get it,’ I said, leaving her hand poised in the air, and it was Myra who was forced to ask, ‘then you were involved in it?’
    ‘ Not my car.’ I put the glass on the bar, leaving the remark hanging in the air. In the mirror behind the bottles on the shelf I saw the quick look of warning from one woman to the other. Finn’s eyes were squarely