NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) by Adrian Magson Read Free Book Online

while, he hadn’t really known Helen very well.
The idea filled him with sadness and regret.
    He wasn’t
looking forward to the next few minutes. Given a choice, he’d have preferred to
shut himself off from everyone else and deal with the news of Helen’s death in
his own way. It was unreasonable and even disloyal, he knew that, because Riley
was probably his closest friend and the one person he could turn to at a time
of crisis. But years of operating in solitude had made him accustomed to not relying
much on anyone else.
    Riley was
waiting for him on the first floor landing. She looked worried and drawn, and
he guessed she hadn’t slept well, either. He nodded matter-of-factly and
followed her inside. When she hesitated before going into the kitchen, and
appeared as if she was about to throw her arms around him, he held up a hand.
    ‘I’m fine.
Really,’ he said brusquely, and instantly regretted it. He knew she must be
feeling like hell, for him if not for herself. He reached out for her. ‘Sorry.
Didn’t mean it. This is good. But don’t tell anyone.’
    They hugged
each other tight for a few seconds, before Riley patted him on the back and
slipped into the kitchen, where she clattered around making coffee. He couldn’t
see her face but he could read the body language. He left her to it, relieved
he hadn’t stuck to the stiff upper lip. She might not have known Helen very
well, but she clearly wasn’t unaffected by what had happened.
    A large bruiser
of a tabby cat entered from the bedroom and walked across to greet him. It
rubbed against his legs just long enough to make contact, then turned away and
sat down to clean itself. Palmer smiled. The cat was a feline self-set, having
adopted Riley on a whim, but alternating between her and a granite-featured old
Pole named Grobowski, downstairs. While Riley made do with calling the animal
Cat and stocking standard feline food, Mr Grobowski shouted a lot in
heavily-accented English and called it Lipinski, feeding it heavy portions of
Polish cooking which he put together in his kitchen for compatriots at the
local community centre.
    When Riley
brought the mugs into the living room, Palmer sat and eyed her steadily,
waiting. He knew she’d have questions. Some of them would be disguised as
throwaway comments, but she’d still be angling for answers. In his experience,
women invariably had the edge when it came to interrogation techniques. It was
something passed across at birth along with the DNA.
    He didn’t have
long to wait for the first one.
    ‘You never said
why you and Helen broke up.’
    Palmer sighed.
This wasn’t something he felt good talking about. Not that he had any reason to
feel guilty, but saying nothing wasn’t an option. ‘Actually, we didn’t so much
break up as move on. When it was over, it was over.’ He took his mug and stared
into it. ‘Ships that pass, I suppose.’
    ‘I know what
you mean.’ Riley sat facing him.
    He smiled
gently. If there was anyone who understood the transient nature of
relationships in their respective trades, it was her. He didn’t know every
aspect of her private life, and didn’t pry, but he knew she was still coming to
grips with a lengthy split from former army officer, John Mitcheson, who was
somewhere in America. Palmer knew Mitcheson as a likeable, cool, yet detached
individual who seemed hell-bent on ploughing his own furrow, even if that took
him away from Riley. But he also knew it wasn’t as simple as the divergence of
paths: there were questions in Riley’s mind over Mitcheson which even Palmer
wasn’t sure about. Some of those questions concerned just what his moral limits
were when it came to doing his job, which was partly centred on private
security work. It was the ‘partly’ which raised some of the most searching
questions.
    As if reading
his mind, she said simply, ‘Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?’
    He nodded and
looked at his coffee. ‘Do you have anything stronger than this