At Risk Read Online Free PDF Page B

said nothing to anyone it was clear that the game had moved beyond the realm of acceptable risk into crazy-land. He was playing with her, drawing her inch by inch towards self-destruction.
    Taking a deep swallow of her drink, Liz called up his mobile. She was going to do it right now—finish the thing once and for all. It would hurt like hell and she would feel wretched beyond description, but she wanted her life back under her own control.
    She got his voice mail, which probably meant that he was at home with Shauna. Where he bloody well should be, she mused sourly. Pacing around the flat, she was brought up short by the sight of the washing machine, and the inverted semi-circle of greyish water. Last week’s washing had now been stewing there for two and a half days. Despairingly, she reached for the knob, and the machine lurched into life.

 

    A nne Lakeby woke to see Perry standing in front of the open bed room window, looking out over the garden towards the sea. The day was a clear one, sharpened by the suggestion of a salt breeze, and her husband looked almost priestly in his long Chinese dressing gown. His hair was damp, and had been smoothed to a dull gleam by the twin ivory-backed hairbrushes in the dressing room. He also appeared to have shaved.
    The old bugger certainly brushed up well, she thought, but it was unlike him to take quite this much trouble so early in the day. Squinting at the alarm clock she saw that it was barely 7 a.m. Perry might have been a passionate admirer of Margaret Thatcher, but he had never shared her predilection for early rising.
    As Perry pulled the window shut, Anne closed her eyes, feigning sleep. The door closed, and five minutes later her husband reappeared with two coffee cups and saucers on a tray. This was truly alarming. What on earth had he got up to in London the day before to prompt a gesture like this?
    Placing the tray on the carpet with a faint rattle, Perry touched his wife’s shoulder.
    Anne mimed her own awakening. “This is a . . . nice surprise.” She blinked drowsily, reaching for the glass of water on the bedside table. “To what do I owe . . .”
    “Put it down to global warming,” said Perry expansively. “I was expecting a titanic hangover after last night, but a benign deity has stayed his hand. The sun, moreover, is shining. It is a day for gratitude. And possibly for burning the last of the autumn leaves.”
    Anne pulled herself into a sitting position against the pillows and struggled to collect her thoughts. She was not sure that she quite believed in this considerate, coffee-making version of her spouse. He was definitely up to something. His bullish manner reminded her of the time when he had got her to buy those Corliss Defence Systems shares. The breezier his demeanour, in her experience, the closer to the wind he was sailing.
    “They really are the bloody end though, aren’t they?” Perry continued.
    “Who? Dorgie and Diane?” Dorgie was Anne’s nickname for Sir Ralph Munday, whose snouty features reminded her of one of the Queen’s corgi-dachshund crosses. Inasmuch as the Lakebys and the Mundays owned the two largest and most consequential properties in Marsh Creake, they considered themselves “neighbours,” although in reality their houses were a good half-mile apart.
    “Who else? All that awful shooting talk. High cocks . . . full choke at fifty yards . . . he sounds as if he’s learned the whole thing from a book. And she’s worse, with her—”
    “Where does he shoot?”
    “Some pop-star syndicate near Houghton. One of the members, Dorgs was telling me, made his money out of internet porn.”
    “Well, you shoot with an arms dealer,” said Anne mildly, stirring her coffee.
    “True, but that’s all very ethical these days. You can’t just flog the stuff to African dictators off the back of a lorry.”
    “Johnny Fortescue paid for the restoration of the library ceiling at Holt by selling electronic riot batons to the