Full Fury by Roger Ormerod Read Free Book Online Page B

and uncompromisingly on the small of my back. I reached out for the glass, diverted it fractionally, and picked up the brooch.
    It was a plain setting in platinum and couldn’t have been worth more than four thousand. On the back was a safety fastening, which was supposed to save you losing it if you bent to pick up a lousy quid note, and an inscription which read: ‘Myra, my inspiration. Carl.’ I put it down gently. Then I squirted more soda into my glass and turned back to them.
    ‘ Then why don’t you say what you mean?’ said Myra with pained indignation.
    ‘ I was close behind him,’ I explained. ‘Not close enough to save him—but close.’
    Troy would have reported that I had been examining the Rover. I was playing a pretty game, tossing live coals from hand to hand, and hoping to keep them moving so fast I didn’t get burned. Finn was no man you could bluff. He came straight out with it.
    ‘ How close?’
    ‘ Close enough to reach his car before the wheels stopped spinning.’ I took a sip of my drink, the edge of the bar boring into my back. ‘When I got to him the car was already on fire. Just starting.’ Karen turned away. Myra’s eyes were huge. ‘The door was jammed. I couldn’t get him out of the window. The whole thing just went up like a bomb.’
    I lifted my left arm, letting them see the scorched sleeve. Myra shot a glance of entreaty at Finn, who responded, and said it for her. ‘Was he alive?’
    ‘ I don’t know. Unconscious, I think.’
    Karen sat down suddenly. She spoke in a tiny voice. ‘Carter will you get me a drink?’
    He turned on her with anger, but what he saw in her face restrained him. ‘Of course.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Myra?’
    I moved away to let him get on with it. Myra came towards me. ‘You must have had an exhausting evening,’ she said with sympathy. ‘Don’t you want to sit down?’
    ‘ It’s all right, thank you.’
    Finn spoke from the bar. ‘Then you must have been mighty close, to get to him that quickly.’
    ‘ Chasing him,’ I explained. ‘Trying to catch him before he got home. I wasn’t sure where to find his place.’
    I allowed a little silence to build up, but nobody told me where to find it, and in the end Karen broke in.
    ‘ But you didn’t quite catch him?’
    She had been distressed in the car, ending up furious. I’d managed to shake her then. Now she was poised, her eyes more to her mother’s distress than to her own. She accepted a drink from Finn, and he smiled as he handed it to her. He was taunting her about something, a private joke perhaps.
    ‘ I was about two hundred yards behind,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t see what happened. Just ran out of road, I suppose.’
    ‘ Distressing for you,’ murmured Myra.
    ‘ I was a bit upset.’
    Karen stirred. ‘I think you’re as unfeeling as a rock.’
    ‘ Upset at losing a client,’ I explained. They stared at me. I expounded on it. ‘He was still my client, you see. Whatever other people might slide in about their personal little wishes and dislikes, Paul was the boss, because he was paying me. Or at least, would’ve been, if we’d got round to it. As it turned out, he owed me for a day’s work and expenses. Come to think of it, it’s his fault this suit’s had it. He owes me for that, too. Of course I’m upset. It’s time and money down the drain.’
    I looked at them blandly. A small curl of disgust began to distort Karen’s mouth, and she drank quickly. Myra put her hand to her mouth, bewildered. Finn smiled. Finn knew what I was saying. All right, he’d pick it up, play with it.
    ‘ It’ll teach you to vet your clients in future.’
    ‘ How could I check he was going to die?’
    ‘ Ask for an advance.’
    I grinned at him. ‘You’re very generous with advice.’
    ‘ You were chasing him?’ said Karen suddenly, angrily.
    ‘ Wanted to catch him,’ I tossed at her, not looking round.
    She ignored the look Finn gave her. I’d got her caught up in