Clean Break Read Online Free PDF

straightforward case of car fraud. Only, as they say in all the worst police dramas, it all went pear-shaped. Spectacularly so. Richard ended up behind bars, his life in jeopardy, and I nearly got myself killed tracking down the real villains. As if that hadn’t been enough, I’d also been landed with looking after his eight-year-old son Davy. And me with the maternal instincts of a Liquorice Allsort.
    The physical scars had healed pretty quickly, but the real damage was to our relationship. You’d think he’d have been grateful that I sorted everything out. Instead, he’d been distant, sarcastic and out a lot. It hadn’t been grim all the time, of course. If it had been, I’d have knocked it on the head weeks earlier. We still managed to have fun together, and sometimes for nearly a week things would be just like they used to be; lots of laughs, a few nights out,
communal Chinese takeaways and spectacular sex. Then the clouds would descend, usually when I was up to the eyeballs in some demanding job.
    This was the first time since our run-in with the drug warlords that I’d asked Richard to do anything connected with work. I’d argued with Trevor Kerr that there must be a less complicated way for us to meet, but Clever Trevor was convinced that he was right to take precautions. I nearly asked him why he was hiring a dog and still barking himself, but I bit my tongue. Business hadn’t been so great lately that I could afford to antagonize new clients before they were actually signed up.
    With a sigh, I walked into my own bedroom and considered the options. Richard says I don’t have a wardrobe, just a collection of disguises. Looking at the array of clothes in front of me, I was tempted to agree with him. I pulled out a simple tailored dress in rough russet silk with a matching bolero jacket. I’d bought it while I’d been bodyguarding a Hollywood actress who was over here for a week to record an episode in a Granada drama series. She’d taken one look at the little black number I’d turned up in on the first evening and silently written me a check for five hundred pounds to go and buy “something a little more chic, hon.” I’m not proud; I took the money and shopped. Alexis and I hadn’t had so much fun in years.
    I stepped into the dress and reached round to zip it up. Richard got there before me. He leaned forward and kissed me behind the ear. I turned to gooseflesh and shivered. “Sorry,” he said. “Bad day. Let’s go and see how the other half lives.”
    The address Trevor Kerr had given me was in Whitefield, a suburb of mostly semis just beyond the perennial roadworks on the M62. It’s an area that’s largely a colony of the upwardly mobile but not strictly Orthodox Jews who make up a significant proportion of Manchester’s population. Beyond the streets of identical between-the-wars semis lay our destination, one of a handful of architect-designed developments where the serious money has gravitated. My plumber got the contract for one of them, and he told me about a conversation with one of his customers. My plumber thought the architect had made a mistake, because the
plans showed plumbing for four dishwashers—two in the kitchen and two in the utility room. When he queried it, the customer looked at him as if he was thick as a yard of four-by-two and said, “We keep kosher and we entertain a lot.” There’s nothing you can say to that.
    The house I’d been directed to looked more Frankenstein than Frank Lloyd Wright. It had more turrets and crenellations than Windsor Castle, all in bright red Accrington brick. “Sometimes it’s nice to be potless,” Richard remarked as we parked. It had a triple garage and hard-standing for half a dozen cars, but tonight was clearly party night. Richard’s hot pink Volkswagen Beetle convertible looked as out of place as Cinderella at a minute