Flyaway / Windfall Read Online Free PDF

due cause. You’re over-reacting, Max.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, I’ll look for outside money if only to keep you from blowing your top.’ He glanced at the magazine cutting on my desk. ‘What’s that?’
    ‘A story about Paul Billson’s father. You know—the accountant who vanished from Franklin Engineering.’
    ‘What’s the score on that one?’
    I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. At first I had Paul Billson taped as being a little devalued in the intellect—running about eighty pence in the pound—but there are a couple of things which don’t add up.’
    ‘Well, you won’t have to worry about that now. Franklin is part of the Whensley Group.’
    I looked up in surprise. ‘So it is.’ It had slipped my mind.
    ‘I’d hand over what you’ve got to Sir Andrew McGovern and wish him the best of British luck.’
    I thought about that and shook my head. ‘No—Billson disappeared when we were in charge of security and there’s still a few days to the end of the month.’
    ‘Your sense of ethics is too strongly developed.’
    ‘I think I’ll follow up on this one myself,’ I said. ‘I started it so I might as well finish it. Jack Ellis can stand in for me. It’s time he was given more responsibility.’
    Charlie nodded approvingly. ‘Do you think there’s anything in Billson’s disappearance—from the point of view of Franklin’s security, I mean?’
    I grinned at him. ‘I’ll probably find that he’s eloped with someone’s wife—and I hope it’s Andrew McGovern’s.’

FIVE
    I went down to Fleet Street to look for Michael English, the journalist who had written the article on Peter Billson. His office thought he was at the Press Club, the Press Club invited me to try El Vino’s. I finally ran him to ground in a pub off the Strand.
    He was a tall, willowy, fair-haired man whom I disliked on sight, although what he had written about Billson might have influenced my feelings. He was playing poker dice with a couple of other journalists and looked at me doubtfully when I gave him one of my business cards to prick his curiosity.
    ‘Security!’ he said. There was a shade of nervousness.
    I smiled reassuringly. ‘I’d like to talk to you about Billson.’
    ‘That little twit! What’s he put you on to me for?’ Apprehension surrounded English like a fog.
    ‘You’ve seen him recently?’
    ‘Of course I have. He came to the office making trouble. He threatened a law suit.’ English snorted with unhumorous laughter. ‘Our lawyer saw him off smartly on that one.’
    I was deliberately obtuse. ‘I’m surprised he bothered you. If your article was correct he stands a good chance of a jail sentence—although his grey hairs might save him, I suppose.’
    English looked at me in surprise. ‘It wasn’t the old man. It was someone who claimed to be his son—said he was Paul Billson. He made quite a scene.’
    I looked around and saw an empty corner table. ‘I’d like to talk to you about it. Over there where it’s quiet. What will you have?’
    English hesitated, then shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. Make it a double scotch.’
    As I ordered the drinks he said, ‘I suppose you’re investigating for the insurance company.’ I made an ambiguous murmur, and he said, ‘I thought they gave up years ago. Isn’t there a time limitation on a crime like that?’
    I smiled at him as he splashed water perfunctorily in his glass. ‘The file is still open.’
    English had been called into his editor’s office the day after the article had appeared—the day before Billson went missing. He found the editor trying to cope with an angry and agitated man who was making incoherent threats. The editor, Gaydon, said in a loud voice, ‘This is Mr English who wrote the article. Sit down, Mike, and let’s see if we can sort this out.’ He flicked a switch on the intercom. ‘Ask Mr Harcourt if he can come to my office.’
    English saw trouble looming ahead. Harcourt was the resident lawyer and his