Deadline Read Online Free PDF Page B

morning,' he told her.
She reached up and kissed him tenderly on the lips, feeling for that moment like the happiest woman in the world.
'I love it. Thank you.'
They spent the rest of the afternoon and much of the evening in bed. The lovemaking was some of the best Andrea had ever experienced. She could remember what they'd done together even now. The following morning, wearing that beautiful necklace and thinking that she'd really landed on her feet, she cooked Jimmy breakfast in bed, then went out to get the papers.
Glancing through the Sun on the way back to the flat, a photo caught her eye. It was of an ordinary-looking middle-aged man with a beard and a side-parting, and the headline beside him read 'Hundred K Robbery: Security Guard Fights for Life'. Even before she read the article, Andrea knew instinctively that Jimmy was involved. What followed simply confirmed her suspicions. It seemed that a gang of four robbers armed with a variety of firearms had held up a security van as it made a cash pick-up from a branch of Barclays Bank in Wembley. The security guard carrying the case containing the money, whom the paper identified as forty-seven-year-old father of two Alan Jones – the man in the photograph – had tried to resist when one of the gang had grabbed the case. In the ensuing mêlée he was punched savagely in the face several times and knocked unconscious, having struck his head on the concrete as he fell. An eyewitness was quoted as saying that the robber had then kicked him several times, even though it was obvious he was no longer any threat. He was now in intensive care where his condition was described as 'poorly but stable'.
Andrea saw that the time of the robbery was 2.10 the previous afternoon, barely an hour before Jimmy had turned up back at the flat looking dishevelled and wearing a makeshift bandage on his left hand. Jimmy had told her that at one time he'd been an amateur middleweight boxer and had won eleven of his twelve bouts, six by knockout. Not exactly overwhelming proof of guilt, but it didn't need to be. Andrea just knew.
Stupidly, she didn't say anything. Instead, trying to be as casual as possible, she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he lay in bed, casually perusing the paper, a cigarette in his mouth, as calm as you like. He went straight to the robbery story – she counted the pages – and read it twice before running through the sports pages at the back. Then, with a predatory half-smile, he chucked the paper aside and patted the sheets.
'Why don't you come back to bed, love? We've got some unfinished business to attend to.'
And she had, too, something which when she thought about it now made her cringe with shame. They'd made love again twice, and all the time she couldn't stop thinking about the security guard lying in a hospital bed connected to a load of tubes while his family sat round him, waiting for news. But Jimmy . . . Jimmy had forgotten him already. The whole thing was simply business to him, nothing more and nothing less.
After they'd finished, he got a call on his mobile and went out of the room, talking quietly. He returned a few minutes later, saying he had to go out. He was still acting casually, but she could tell he was tense.
And that's when she came out with it.
'You didn't have anything to do with yesterday, did you, Jimmy? You know, that robbery where the guard got hurt?'
'Course I didn't,' he answered, but she could tell that she'd rattled him. It was something in his eyes.
She looked at his hand. The handkerchief was gone now, but the knuckles were dark with bruises. He glanced down at them as well, then back at her. This time his expression had changed. There was a darkness in it.
'Why'd you think that?'
She immediately regretted asking. What, after all, was the point? He was always going to deny it.
'I don't know. I . . .' She stopped, not sure how to finish the sentence.
'I told you, I work in the building trade.'
She nodded. 'Sure, Jimmy.'
He