Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

I have. And’ – I gave a weak chuckle – ‘quite a lot I don’t. I’m borrowing as much as I can.’ And far more than was safe or wise, though I didn’t say that.
    I tried not to think of how much I stood to lose if the buyout failed, and how much I had at risk if it succeeded. I tried to forget how very overextended I already was. Ginny and I had a lifestyle that didn’t come cheap. We had second homes in Provence and Wiltshire, we had staff and cars, until last year we had bought good modern pictures, and we entertained on what could only be described as a grand scale. Even allowing for all this, the outpouring of cash was so relentless that I could never quite grasp where it went. Since last year when the HartWell dividends had plummeted and I had taken a voluntary reduction in salary, w e had tried to cut back. Ginny had been in charge of the economies, but for some reason I could never understand her cuts seemed to make little impact on our bank balance, and whenever I thought of the future I felt an upsurge of panic.
    Mary screwed up her face in an extravagant imitation of alarm. ‘I hope you’re not expecting us to do the same!’
    ‘Of course not. I wouldn’t want you to. You must only invest what you can afford.’
    David drawled, ‘And if the company goes down the plughole?’
    ‘It won’t.’
    ‘But if it does?’ he insisted with a tinge of impatience.
    ‘Then the banks would get first call.’
    ‘And we’d get—?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    He grimaced, ‘ Exactly! ’
    I was aware of Mary watching me closely again. She gave a sudden chuckle. ‘A bit of a gamble then!’ She made it sound like a flutter on the horses.
    David sat forward. ‘We’ll need time to think about it.’
    ‘Of course.’ I looked from one to the other. ‘Though it would help enormously if you could give me some idea of how long you’ll need.’
    David pursed his lips. ‘I don’t know—’ He shot a look at Mary. ‘The weekend? Say, Tuesday?’
    She shrugged her agreement.
    ‘Tuesday then.’
    It could have been worse. Suppressing the urge to press my case further, I mustered a grin.
    In the short silence that followed, Mary jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll go and do that lunch!’
    ‘I’m not sure I’ve got time, Mary.’
    She wagged her finger at me. ‘It’s only a sandwich. Won’t take a moment.’ There was something brittle, almost peremptory, in her tone. She paused at the door. ‘Have you told Hugh about Dittisham, David?’
    ‘Ah . . . no.’
    Mary caught my eye and, reverting to her more familiar role, made a face of jokey forbearance as she disappeared into the hall.
    ‘The thing is, we might have a buyer,’ David told me when she had gone. ‘Someone who wants it pretty quick. We heard this morning. Prepared to pay the asking price.’
    I felt a pinch of loss. Dittisham had been the home of our childhood, the place in which I had spent many untroubled years, the house in which our parents had lived all their married lives. Until our mother’s death twenty years ago, it had stood at the very core of the family. Yet while the child in me hated to think of other people living there, the realist knew that, with Pa dead too, it had to go.
    ‘When do these people want it?’ I asked.
    ‘In a month.’
    ‘You’ll let me know, will you? I’ll need to clear some stuff out.’
    ‘You can’t clear it out now?’
    ‘No chance.’ Reminded as always of the time, I reached for my briefcase and jumped to my feet.
    ‘Hugh—’
    There was something about his tone, a warning note, which made me pause. He came round the desk and, half sitting on it, folded his arms. ‘The thing is . . .’ he said with a sigh of annoyance, ‘the police have been asking about Sylvie.’
    A small pull in my chest somewhere. ‘Asking?’
    ‘They came to see me yesterday.’
    ‘You? Why you?’
    David frowned as if I were being particularly dense. ‘Because she was my patient.’
    I must have let some of the surprise