A Pigeon Among the Cats Read Online Free PDF Page B

and picking up Gwen’s left hand gently slid the wedding ring off and stared at the bare finger.
    â€œHow long did you say you’ve been married?”
    â€œEleven years,” she answered, “and each of them after the first, a lifetime …”
    â€œOf misery,” Owen finished for her. “Then how come the ring has left no impression whatever.”
    A familiar warning bell sounded in Gwen’s brain.
    â€œThe ring?” she repeated to gain time, to choose which tale would go down best.
    â€œYes, the wedding ring. I don’t believe you, Gwen, my darling. I don’t believe you’ve worn this ring for eleven years.”
    He was making it too easy, but still she was puzzled. He had accused her so pleasantly, so smoothly. He was no jealous boy trying to work up his passion by rootling in her past. Oh no. He was far older than she was, in more ways than one. So what was his game? Better cut it off short, but stop the questions first.
    Snatching her ring back from him, ramming it on to her finger, she wriggled away to the opposite side of the bed, swung her legs to the floor and said with a well-simulated choking sob, “All right, I haven’t worn it all that time.” And defiantly, “I always take it off at night, anyhow.”
    Owen laughed aloud. Gwen went across the room in one bound to smack his crooked face but he caught the hand in such a fierce grip that she screamed, though no sound came, for his other hand covered her mouth.
    She was not frightened for she knew he had not lost his temper and he was the kind of man who did not become dangerous until his temper ruled him. So she let herself go limp and found herself plunged on the bed again, while Owen walked across to the wash basin to clean his hand of her saliva.
    â€œGet dressed, you silly bitch,” he said in his gentle voice.
    Gwen wept a few genuine tears.
    Later, restoring her hair and make-up, she told him the second version of her marital troubles. She did it well.
    â€œI didn’t want you to know,” she began. “Roy Chilton has been my boss for eleven years. He was married all that time, five years before, actually. At first I thought he’d get a divorce, but then as it went on and on …”
    â€œYou realised he did not intend to give up his family?”
    â€œThat’s right I know it’s an old story, but it does happen. In the end …”
    â€œYou ran out on him?”
    She nodded and he let her finish the work on her face. Then he said, “What are you using for money?”
    She was not caught. In fact she was relieved. Money. That was what he wanted from her, was it? Poor nit. She’d begun to think he was dangerous. But no, not at all. Just over-confident.
    She looked round at him and saw with a slight inner chill that he had taken her handbag and had opened it. But it was not money he was after. He rummaged quickly, turning things about roughly, much to her indignation. Finally he pulled out not her wallet, but her passport, saying with an air of triumph, “So now perhaps you’ll tell me. What were you doing in Switzerland three weeks ago, was it? This’ll tell me the actual dates, won’t it?”
    Got him again, she thought, waiting, her face very pale but wary.
    He dropped her bag on the bed, she pounced and secured it and began to tidy the ruffled contents, bending her head over it to hide the smile she could not help widening her mouth. But she saw in the long mirror on the wardrobe his blank astonishment and confusion.
    For, instead of the foreign document he expected to find inside the British cover, he held a genuine English passport, in the name of Gwendoline Chilton, with the usual unflattering photograph, quite unmistakably herself. And there was no evidence on any page to show she had visited Switzerland that year or any other year during the lifetime of that passport. The most recent entry marked her arrival in Italy,