Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

his work. With his sharp brain and wide skills, he would have made a good consultant, but though he’d completed two years as a senior houseman he had failed the big surgical exams and never given them another shot. This had caused my father much grief, not because of the failure itself, but because David hadn’t had the backbone to persevere. For my father, lack of effort was almost the greatest sin of all, and doubly so when you were blessed with inherited money. He believed that financial security gave you a duty not to depend on it, that it was almost immoral to rely on the sweat and tears of previous generations. It seemed to Pa that David had succumbed to the easy option, and he never quite got over it.
    I looked nervously at my watch.
    David stood up. ‘I’ll fetch Mary.’
    But he made no move towards the door. Instead he glanced back at me and said in his cool professional voice, ‘You heard about Sylvie Mathieson?’
    ‘I did, yes. Awful.’
    ‘She was stabbed apparently.’
    ‘God,’ I breathed.
    ‘Dumped in the river.’
    ‘They have no idea who—?’
    ‘No.’
    I wasn’t sure I wanted more details, but I couldn’t stop myself asking, ‘Where did they find her?’
    ‘On the first bend there, near the Anchor Stone. The body was caught against a rock. Dead less than a day, they think. Wrapped in plastic, tied up with rope.’
    ‘God.’
    David picked up a pen and examined the nib, then put it down again as if it had been guilty of distracting him. When he spoke again his tone was hedged with reservations, as though he were still debating the wisdom of mentioning the subject. ‘She was all over the place, you know.’
    I stared at him, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Oh, the full bit,’ he said airily. ‘Lovers. Drugs.’
    My stomach tightened. I felt an unreasonable anger. ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Oh . . .’ His shrug implied contacts in the right places. ‘One hears.’
    I wanted to ask him why he was so quick to believe such rumours, but I pushed myself to my feet instead so that he couldn’t read my face. ‘She was always a free spirit,’ I proclaimed. ‘She always went her own way.’
    I didn’t have to look at him to know he was wearing a sceptical expression.
    ‘Thought you’d better know, that’s all.’
    I turned. ‘Me? Why?’
    ‘Well, you were in love with her once, weren’t you?’ He spoke in the curt voice he used to distance himself from anything that bordered on the emotional.
    ‘Yes . . .’ Why had I thought he meant anything else? ‘Yes, I was. Yes.’ And saying it, I had a fleeting memory of those distant feelings, so intense and innocent and full of hope. ‘A long time ago.’
    ‘Look—’ David began irritably.But he broke off at the sound of footsteps in the hall.
    Mary came in and her face lit up. ‘Hugh!’ she sang.
    I went to kiss her cheek but, with the reproving tut of a mother hen, she pulled me into a generous hug. Standing back to inspect me, she cried, ‘How are you?’
    ‘I’m fine.’
    She shook her head and rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. ‘I don’t know . . . Is it worth it? Just look at you!’
    ‘Don’t you start,’ I protested. ‘David’s bad enough, giving me pills.’
    ‘It’s not pills you want, it’s a rest! Isn’t it, darling?’ she flung at David. Turning back to me. ‘You’ll stay for lunch at least?’
    ‘I’ve got to leave at two.’
    ‘Hopeless!’ she declared. ‘Hopeless!’ And her eyes flashed with their habitual amusement.
    I said, ‘I can always come back again if we don’t get through it—’
    ‘I meant, you have to eat! I’ll go and fetch something now.’ She threw a questioning look at David. ‘Shall I?’
    ‘Well, perhaps we can just get started . . .’
    ‘Fine!’ she said immediately. ‘In a minute then!’ She perched on the chair David had pulled up for her and fixed me with a bright stare. I had always liked Mary. S he was a determined extrovert who