Family Business Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘Ever since he left for work.’
    â€˜Did he leave at his usual time?’ Angelo asked.
    â€˜Twenty to eight. Yes. He always leaves at twenty to eight. Jack is a very organized person.’
    â€˜And you didn’t ask him?’ Gina said. ‘About the bottle?’
    â€˜Good heavens, no!’ Mrs Shayler said. ‘I couldn’t possibly do that.’
    Angelo and Gina waited for Mrs Shayler to explain further, but her silence made it clear that while one can consult private detectives about one’s husband, some things are beyond the pale.
    Finally Angelo asked, ‘What does Mr Shayler do for a living?’
    â€˜He’s an accountancy clerk. He’s worked nineteen years for Whitfield, Hare and O’Shea. In The Circus? Do you know it?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜And every morning, rain or shine, summer or winter, Jack leaves the house at twenty minutes to eight and he walks to The Circus.’
    â€˜He walks?’ Angelo said.
    â€˜Up the passage from Walcot Street to the London Road. Along the London Road, crossing at the lights, and then to Bartlett Street. Up Bartlett Street to Bennett Street and then left to The Circus.’
    â€˜Arriving at work?’
    â€˜In time to get himself settled before starting promptly at eight.’
    â€˜Excuse me for asking,’ Gina said, ‘but how do you know his route so exactly?’
    â€˜He always goes the same way. It helps him organize his mind for the day’s work. I don’t want to leave you with the impression that my Jack is never spontaneous or is a machine. But he does know what he likes. And he does know what he needs. And at the start of a new day he needs to be organized.’
    Gina nodded and said, ‘When you tried to remember whether he had a hot drink last night, what did you decide?’
    â€˜He had his mug as per normal,’ Mrs Shayler said. ‘Of that I’m certain. But what was in it, and whether it was hot, that I can’t remember for the life of me.’
    â€˜I see,’ Gina said.
    â€˜Sometimes I notice the little steams rising up. Or I smell the Horlicks if he’s made his extra strong recipe because he’s working on accounts for an important client. But last night, I simply don’t recall, and I wouldn’t want to make it up when I didn’t really remember. To tell the truth I was so wrapped up in my book that I just didn’t notice. I should have, but I didn’t. I’m a bad and neglectful wife.’
    â€˜So what’s the bottom line?’ Salvatore asked. ‘What put this guy off his stroke and made him leave the bottle out?’
    â€˜That’s the critical question,’ Angelo said.
    â€˜The critical question,’ the Old Man said, ‘is will she pay? An accountant’s clerk? I hope you weren’t soft-soaped by saying how clever you are?’
    â€˜She left a substantial retainer, Papa,’ Angelo said.
    â€˜How much?’
    â€˜She left five hundred pounds.’
    â€˜Five hundred,’ the Old Man said. He was not displeased. ‘So where does she get this five hundred?’
    â€˜She works, Papa,’ Angelo said. ‘She paints ceramic cottages. Do you know them? The “quaint” cottages in the tourist shops?’
    â€˜These she paints?’ the Old Man said.
    â€˜She does them at home. She saved the money for our retainer from that.’
    â€˜Cottages,’ the Old Man said. ‘They never get the colour of the stone right, the warmth. Huh!’
    â€˜But Dad,’ David said, ‘what are you going to do for her?’
    â€˜She wants a strategy that will find out what Jack’s problem is.’
    â€˜The problem,’ the Old Man said, ‘is this wife doesn’t have enough cottages to paint so she spends her time counting bottles in, counting bottles out.’
    â€˜She struck us as genuinely worried, Papa. And we’ve got to take the facts as