A Pack of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

the thing everyone wants.
Fiction, madam!
’ Then he loped back towards the
chaise longue
. As he passed Ailsa he nudged her with his elbow, winked, and gave her a quick, brilliant smile. ‘Sold it, though, didn’t I, eh?’
    ‘Certainly did,’ she said, backing off a step or two. ‘You’re not Irish at all, are you, Mr Berkshire?’
    ‘Not that I know of,’ he said with a blithe shrug, ‘but you never can tell for certain.’ And he plunged heavily on to the green velvet and into his book once more. ‘And do call me MCC. Please.’

 
    Chapter Three
    The Writing Box:
The Story of a Liar
     
    MCC Berkshire seemed to have gone out, even before breakfast. But Ailsa and her mother noticed that the ladder had been moved from outside the newsagent’s next door, and stood against the lintel over their own front door. Ailsa ran outside and saw that the dingy, peeling lettering of ‘Povey’s Antiquary’ had been smartly touched up. And the words ‘ DEALER IN BOOKS ’ had been blocked in, small, on the last half-metre.
    ‘How very kind,’ said Mrs Povey. ‘I wonder where Mr Berkshire is. I must thank him.’
    ‘I wonder if he asked permission to use the paint or the ladder,’ said Ailsa sceptically, and moved it all back to the front of the shop next door. She was only just in time, for as she reached her own doorway again, their Indian neighbour, Mr Singh, came out and noticed the theft of his bicycle.
    He was a man who had never been heard to swear. But from the way he kicked over the shop’s litter bin and jumped on the empty cartons that spilled out, Ailsa thought he was probably rather attached to the bike. He was, in any case, too upset to notice that his ladder and paints had been interfered with.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about what Mr Berkshire said,’ observed her mother, gazing raptly at a raised spoonful of breakfast cereal. ‘He didn’t exactly say that our clock was
the
clock in the story, you know.’
    ‘Didn’t he?’
    ‘No — and the customer didn’t really believe him, anyway.’
    ‘Didn’t he? Isn’t it a lie, then, if it isn’t believable?’
    ‘Goodness, Ailsa, you can be pompous when you set your mind to it. I can’t think where you get it from . . . I mean, it’s perfectly true that the clock will be fine when it’s restrung . . . and it was a fair price, taking that into consideration.’ Her face flushed with pleasure at the thought of the money. ‘I’ll be able to pay the electricity bill now,’ she said dreamily, as if that had always been her fondest ambition.
    ‘Er . . . Mother.’
    ‘Yes dear, I know I owe you pocket money, too.’
    ‘No, it’s not that . . . exactly where is the money? The old man paid cash, didn’t he?’
    Mrs Povey did not turn pale all at once. Her hands went to her apron pocket, and then her eyes wandered to the mantelpiece, the biscuit tin, her handbag, and all the other places she might have put a hundred pounds for safety. Her arms mimed the exchange of payment: ‘I remember seeing the old gentleman count the money into Mr Berkshire’s hand . . .’
    ‘Now don’t panic, Mother,’ said Ailsa, her chair scraping the kitchen floor. ‘You telephone the police and I’ll see if anyone in the street saw which way he went!’ They collided in the doorway and fought each other on the stairs. Mrs Povey knocked the telephone off its stand and Ailsa became entangled with a length of plastic potted plant. By the time she had extricated herself and opened the shop door, she was certain she knew who had stolen Mr Singh’s bicycle, and where her mother’s hundred pounds had found a place of safety. But what to do? Which way to run? If MCC Berkshire had left while they slept, he could be in the next county by now.
    She rammed heavily into Mr Singh who was standing on the edge of the kerb, pointing up the street. Downthe crown of the road came MCC Berkshire on the stolen green bicycle. He was wearing a white pith helmet, such as