Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page B

everything from trying to build a skateboard to asking why Mum was crying into the cat. How her parents had ended up together, she never did fathom. While Darcus Darling wanted to rescue the world, his wife just wanted to save him the last biscuit, which generally meant taking it off Tess.
    Not that Tess had complained. If Dad had ever stuck around long enough to covet her biscuits, she’d have given him the packet. That was the thing about Dad. He could ignore her for six days out of seven, only to hound her into the kitchen for a photo shoot with
The Observer Magazine
. She forgave it all for the smile he gave her when the flash went off.
    Growing up, Tess felt special only when Darcus Darling turned his full beam of charm on her. It never lasted. All too soon, his beam swung on to more exciting, more gratifying projects than trying to teach his clumsy daughter how to navigate her way through life. Tess was left lonely, stupid… and determined. After years of watching her mother try – and fail – to earn Darcus’ love with tepid suppers and tentative smiles, Tess decided to go big – and save the world. Just like Dad.
    Aged 11, she started subscribing to Amnesty International magazine and gave herself nightmares for a year. At 12, she ran away to join a Greenpeace protest, only to have Dad complain when the police brought her home, because she trod mud into the rug and the Dimblebys were coming for dinner. At 15, she started a petition against mobile phone masts. Despite forging 36 signatures in 12 shades of pen, she failed to get her father’s support. “He’s a git,” said Miller, when she returned crestfallen from Darcus’ study. “But please don’t cry. There’s always telly. Look, there’s a new show coming on – there’ll be singing, I bet, and dancing,” he said. “It’s called the Sopranos.
    When Darcus Darling finally
did
take a chance on his unsatisfactory daughter, he did it on a major scale. He staked his professional reputation on her, and the resulting catastrophe saw her parents’ marriage crumble, and Tess bolt. For three years, she bummed round the world, tending bar and waiting tables from Dublin to Bondai. Fleeing a failure, she discovered the joy of booze – and everything that came with it. “Man alive!” she thought, sliding down a well-oiled lifeguard by the Pacific Rim. “Isn’t this
glorious
?”
    Previously, Tess had not had much to do with Things of the Flesh. She’d spent her formative years trying so hard to be good, she’d not realised how much fun could be had heading in the other direction. Sex, it turned out, was something she
could
get right. Admittedly, she may not score too high on technicalities, but a sturdy combination of ardour, amazement and sheer bounceability generally ensured her – and him – a wonderful time.
    Relieved to find an outlet for her passionate nature, Tess was a generous lover. In return, she received two things she’d never got from her parents: affection and applause. Too much of either, however, and she’d start to panic, get grumpy and bugger off. Since returning to England, even her immediate after-glow was starting to fade. Lying in a man’s grateful grip, she’d find herself calculating another hour spent with him was an episode of
America’s Top Model
she could never get back – and she’d be off.
    To find Miller.
    Twenty-four hours after digging Jeenie’s body, he was the reason Tess was now parking her battered Fiat across the road from 13 Squarey Street. Because ever since Keith Chegwin had married Maggie Philbin and proved dreams could come true, Miller had wanted to work in TV. Having serenely skipped most of school, he’d not been able to pursue an academic route to media success. While Tess graduated college–and then worked her way round the world–Miller stayed in South London and got a job in his local DIY store. By day he stacked shelves and polished lawn mowers to raise the money for a professional-grade DV