A Fatal Attachment Read Online Free PDF

He’s the original sleeping dog who should be let lie.”
    She said it with a smile, so that the boys should not feel abashed. Colin had not finished with questions.
    â€œWhen I said our name was Bellingham yesterday, you said something funny—I don’t remember what, but something about your fate. What did you mean?”
    Lydia gave a gesture of dismissal with her hand and smiled charmingly.
    â€œOh, just one of my silly ideas. One of my ancestors was Spencer Perceval, He was the Prime Minister during the Napoleonic Wars, and he was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by a man called Bellingham.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œHe was a bankrupt who blamed the government. Actually he was probably mentally deranged, but they hanged him.”
    â€œWell, we’re not mentally deranged,” said Ted, smiling. “You needn’t fear we’ll assassinate you.”
    â€œI don’t!” said Lydia.
    â€œWe’re very ordinary really,” Ted went on apologetically, as if he sensed that somehow they had aroused excessive expectations. “We go to a very ordinary school—do nice safe things like cycling and playing cricket.”
    â€œOh—safety,” said Lydia dismissively. “Safety isn’t something to live your life by—you’ll find that out as you grow older. Anyway I’m not sure it’s so very safe playing cricket. One of our heirs to the throne got killed by a cricket ball.”
    â€œReally?” said the boys together. “Who?”
    â€œFrederick, Prince of Wales, son of George II.” She ventured on a joke that Gavin and Maurice had always enjoyed. “His father died on the lavatory seat, and he died playing cricket. Which shows the Hanoverians gradually becoming less Germanic and more English.”
    The boys laughed unrestrainedly, Lydia with them. The concession to schoolboy humour had gone down well. She pressed more cake on them andfelt a great wave of happiness surge through her. Her life was coming back into kilter again.
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    Trudging up the hill from Bly with a ream of paper under his arm, Andy Hoddle’s eye was caught by two cyclists at the top. They seemed to be coming out of Lydia’s gate. As they got on their cycles he saw them wave. They passed him cycling on their brakes down the hill, and he recognised the two boys he had seen at North Radley High. He smiled at them, and they smiled back in a rather off-hand way. But then why should they pay him any attention? A balding man in late middle-age, running to fat, shabbily dressed. He wouldn’t pay him any attention himself.
    When Lydia answered his ring on the doorbell he sensed that she was flurried, and that she was reluctant to ask him in. Still, she could hardly leave him on the doorstep while she fetched the money for the paper: Lydia always did the right thing.
    â€œWell, you have had a party,” he said, in what he hoped was a neutral voice, as they stepped into the sitting room. “Looks like a prep school tea.”
    â€œJust two young friends. But they’re older than prep school age.”
    â€œYes they are.”
    Lydia busied herself with her purse to ease the silence.
    â€œHow much was it?”
    â€œJust two ninety-five, I got the duplicating paper—you say it serves its purpose, and it’s so much cheaper.”
    â€œQuite right. Oh dear—I’ve only got a ten pound note and some small change. Have you got change?”
    â€œOnly small stuff. Never mind. It’ll do when I see you next time.”
    â€œNo, Andrew, I couldn’t think of it. I’ll raid the piggy bank. You know I’ve had one ever since . . . since the boys used to come up. And I’ve never opened it.”
    â€œMost of the coins will have ceased to be legal currency,” said Andy brutally. “Don’t worry about it, Lydia. There’s no urgency. I’ve got a