A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

initial acquaintance in that family.
    Anna and I were both twenty at the time we first met. I had just flunked out of university, much to my father’s disgust, and was taking a few summer months off before joining the family firm and beginning my climb up the greasy pole of business. Anna was part-way through an English Literature degree at a redbrick university, and likely to graduate with an upper second, at least.
    The Holland family were farmers from just outside Market Harborough, and were pillars of the local community. It was a matter of some chagrin to Richard and Natalie that their elder daughter had embraced vegetarianism and had, on one occasion, threatened to boycott the hunt ball which they were attending to air her feelings on the topic of fox-hunting. She was not, however, rebellious by nature – or at least no more so than any other teenager – and by the time I got to know her she had mellowed into a kind and generous-spirited young woman.
    And she had style and grace about her. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. Her face was pretty rather than beautiful, with a Celtic feel to it. But her most noticeable feature, and one she shared with her mother and sister, was a mane of fiery red hair which spilled across her shoulders and down her back.
    Anna’s temperament was far from fiery. I found her shy and oddly lacking in self-confidence. Later I was to discover this was the effect of being overshadowed by both an independent, outgoing and popular sister, and a forceful and flirtatious (and, it must be said, still attractive and desirable) mother. Natalie Holland would come on to me outrageously whenever I dropped by the farm, and reduce me to a stammering and crimson-faced juvenile until, finally, she would relent with a giggle, and leave me to recover my fractured dignity as best I could.
    Anna’s disposition, I think was more akin to that of her father Frank, a sensitive and reflective man of plump stature and ruddy complexion, who bore his wife’s extrovert behaviour with resignation.
    “What’s it like being a vegetarian?” I asked Anna.
    “I don’t know,” she answered . “What’s it like being a carnivore?”
    “An omnivore,” I corrected her . “I eat anything.”
    “So I noticed at the buffet,” she said , smiling.
    We were leaning against a fence, enjoying the cool late-evening air. The barn dance was still in full swing, but we had stepped outside for a temporary respite from the caller’s relentless insistence that we ‘dance and enjoy, dance and enjoy’.
    “I can only stand so much enjoyment before my ears start to bleed,” Anna had announced.
    “Seeing that your parents are lending their barn to host this cornucopia of the senses,” I ventured, “I should have thought you’d have worn your perforated eardrums as a badge of honour.”
    In reality, my attendance at this event was something of a fluke. I was chaperoning Sally Glenister, a neighbour’s daughter, who had taken a shine to a visiting Australian country-dance fan by the name of Shane. Sally, needless to say, had no intention of being chaperoned, and she and Shane spent the evening in each other’s company, no doubt tentatively exploring her plans for becoming Mrs. Shane Brough: plans which, in the event, would be brought to fruition within a few years.
    This left me at a loose end for the evening. Fortunately for me, Anna Holland was also at a loose end, and proceeded to befriend this stray puppy from the other side of town.
    And so we became friends. Over that hot and endless summer of glorious irresponsibility, we walked the country pathways of Leicestershire and picnicked and enjoyed an ease with each other, the like of which I have not experienced before or since. The issue of romance between us never surfaced. To have even contemplated such a thought would have been to sully something fine, a noble friendship.
    “Tell me, David,” she said on one outing, “ what are you going to do with your