Above Suspicion Read Online Free PDF Page A

ignored the thoughts of the uncivilised. Ignoring doesn’t expose them, you know, Richard.” She traced a pattern on the carpet with her pencil. “Sorry, darling, I’m tired, and depressed. We’ve all gone so political these days. I worry and worry inside me, and I think everyone else is doing the same; it is difficult to forget what we all went through last September.”
    Richard tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. “Yes, it’s difficult,” he said slowly. “I shan’t forget helping to dig trenches in the parks, or the paper tape on all the windows, or the towels we were told to keep beside a bucket of water. All the time I was digging I kept wondering whether the trencheswould be any good at all, and I knew they wouldn’t be. I didn’t think much of the towel idea either. But what else was there? And then bastards like von Aschenhausen come along all smiles and bows. And wonder why people are not enthusiastic about them. They blackmailed us with bombers one year, and go back on the agreement they had extorted out of us, and then expect to be welcomed as friends. All within nine months. All that, Frances, makes one of the reasons why I listened to Peter. If I could put a spoke of even the most microscopic size in the smallest Nazi wheel, I’d think it a pretty good effort.” He had risen, and was pacing up and down the study.
    “I think this interruption is due. I see that ‘proposition look’ dawning in your eye. Don’t try, don’t you try to leave me at home. I’m coming.”
    “I was afraid you were.”
    “Richard, my dear, you know that whenever you imagine exciting things they always turn out duller than a wet day in Wigan. It’s the parties you don’t get excited about which turn out to be fun. Now here we are, both thinking of ourselves in terms of Sard Harker. What will happen? We’ll go to Paris, and then find that the man does not turn up. I’ll wear a red rose for three nights, and you’ll spill Cointreau for three nights, until the whole cafe is gaping at us. And then we’ll go on our holiday, wondering if Peter’s sense of humour has become over-developed since Bucharest.”
    Richard laughed. “You sound almost convincing Frances. But I know that you know what I know. This is no bloody picnic.”
    She rose from the floor, and went over to the window. It was wide open. She leaned forward to breathe in the dewy smellof the earth. The lilac trees at the end of the garden had silver leaves. Richard came to her, and slipped an arm round her waist. They stood there in silence watching a garden moonlit. Frances glanced at him. He was lost in thought.
    “If you want to know,” he said at last, reading her thoughts in the uncanny way two people living together learn to do, “I am thinking we should photograph this in our memory. We may need to remember it often for the next few years.”
    Frances nodded. Around them were the other gardens, the mixed perfume of flowers. The walls hung heavy with roses and honeysuckle, their colours whitened in the strong moonlight. The deep shadows of trees, blurring the outline of the other houses, were pierced here and there with the lights from uncurtained windows. The giant elms in the Magdalen deer park stood sentinels of peace.
    She said suddenly, “Richard, let’s go up the river; just for half an hour.”
    “The dew is heavy. You had better wrap up well.”
    “I shall. It won’t take five minutes.” She kissed him suddenly and left him. He heard her running upstairs, the banging of the wardrobe door in their bedroom. So Frances had this feeling too, this feeling of wanting to say goodbye.
    She came downstairs in less than her five minutes dressed in a sweater and trousers, and with one of his silk handkerchiefs round her neck. They walked the short distance to the boathouse in silence. They got out the canoe in a matter-of-fact way, as if they were defying the moonlight to weaken them. They paddled swiftly up the narrow river. White