Deadly Petard Read Online Free PDF Page A

know the score. A broken arm to jog the memory.’
    She was frightened by the mental picture of his being beaten up. ‘Then you need some money?’
    ‘Nothing like that. I’ve enough to keep him sweet.’ He tapped the breast pocket of his very sharply cut sports jacket. ‘The trouble is, seeing him to pay what I’ve got and persuading him to agree to wait a bit for the rest. He’s only available at night. But Babs doesn’t like being left on her own after dark and she’s always wanting to know where I’m going . . .’
    Perhaps Babs wasn’t such a blind fool after all, she thought.
    ‘I told her this evening I was coming to see you because I’ve heard you’ve had the ‘flu and were feeling all depressed and I reckoned to cheer you up a little. She agreed that was a good idea, provided all the doors of Middle Manor were double locked. But Babs can be . . . I don’t want to sound disloyal, but she can be unnecessarily suspicious and she might just take it into her head to ring and check I’m here. If she does that, will you tell her I’ve been with you right up until five minutes before, when I took off for Petercross to try and buy you some aspirins, you having run out of ‘em? Will you do that for me?’
    ‘Frankly, I don’t like it.’
    ‘Knowing the kind of person you are, Gertie, I’m sure you don’t. But please, to help me, just this once . . . I’d hate like hell to end up in hospital.’
    ‘All right.’
    ‘You’re wonderful, plain bloody wonderful . . . Tell you what. Just to prove I’m human, I’m going to change my mind. Can I have that drink after all?’
    As she stood, she thought that he must be under an even greater strain than she had first judged. But then he’d always been terrified by the prospect of physical pain.
     

 
CHAPTER 5
    After she’d finished a painting, she always knew a period when she was so dissatisfied with the work that she considered destroying it. ‘That damnable gap between intellectual intention and artistic execution.’ Self-honest to a degree—except where her emotions were involved—she could always see how far short of her aims she had fallen because, however successful in a commercial sense, she was not brushed with genius.
    She was mooning around the house, trying not to think of the painting on the easel upstairs, unable to concentrate on anything for long, when West drove into the yard. He parked by the wooden shed that was the garage, walked down to the garden gate, and continued on round the brick path to the front door.
    When she saw the expression on his face, she drew in her breath sharply because it was obvious that something had severely shocked him. What in God’s name had happened the previous night when he’d met the man to whom he owed all that money . . .?
    ‘Gertie . . . Oh, Christ!’ he said hoarsely.
    ‘How much does he want? I can help. I can draw it first thing tomorrow morning.’ She gripped his right arm, almost pulling him into the house.
    He was bewildered. ‘What the hell are you talking about? It’s Barbara. She’s dead.’
    ‘Dead?’ she whispered.
    ‘When I got back home last night . . .’ He gulped.
    She cradled him against herself and murmured words which barely made sense, but were merely intended to soothe. ‘How ghastly! How terrible! Poor Keir! Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Come and sit down.’
    They went into the sitting-room and she poured him out a brandy which he drank quickly and without pleasure. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘At first, I thought she was just asleep . . .’
    ‘Don’t talk about it unless you want to.’
    ‘I’ve got to tell someone or I’ll go mad.’ He turned away so that she should not see his face. He spoke in a low voice. ‘I didn’t get back home until just before midnight. I locked up, set the alarms, had a bit of a nightcap, and then went upstairs. I thought she might still be awake, so I looked into her bedroom . . . We’ve been using