Highbridge Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    There. She’d done it again. Found the nutshell. It was what attracted him to her in the first place. Just after her breasts. And her legs. And her sense of independence. He had met Sandra while auditing an engineering factory. While he was employed by an independent firm of accountants and was there on a four-week assignment, she worked through an agency and was on a six-month maternity cover. To Sean, out of the two of them, she seemed to have the better idea. She basically worked for herself and could come and go and dress as she liked, which often hardened opinions and various other male body parts. Although he also moved from company to company he still had to conform to the sombre suit and sensible shoes dress code of his almost Dickensian accountancy practice.
    Everything about her used to fascinate him. He was captivated by everything from the works of art she would often dangle from a swinging crossed leg to the speed she pounded away at what was probably one of the last old-fashioned electric typewriters. Then there were the looks on his colleagues’ faces when he told them how much she earned for preferring not to have a proper job and the fact that, as a temp, he could chat her up without risking a sanction for fraternising with the clients. However, it was only when it was time to wrap up and move on that he realised he wanted more than the office banter. That coincided with a small retirement party for one of the older secretaries and that led from one thing to another and one room to another until he and Sandra found themselves well and truly caught beyond fraternising.
    While Sean moved to another job, Sandra simply never went back, continuing to see him until the inevitable consequence. He fell in love with her and out of love with being an auditor. It was not long before they had moved in together, into a dingy flat above a dingy shop, and despite Sandra’s ability to see things coming and his ability to add up, it wasn’t long before one and one made three and what would become known as Noah was on his way.
    That wouldn’t have been so bad if it had not been for the night when Sean was so depressed and tired with all the travelling and sleepless nights that he found himself almost hitting Sandra when she insisted he got up and looked after their increasingly noisy second child, Megan. It was the lowest point in their relationship but the starting point of their future strength as Sandra took him once again to find the nutshell: life should be better than this. They should stop living as everyone expected them to live; stop trying to meet or feel guilty about not meeting the so-called standards that everyone else set. Sandra, with her own previous nomadic lifestyle, gave Sean both the confidence and support to decide to live his life for himself not for what his father, mother, teachers or employers expected of him.
    They agreed it was daft paying dead money in rent, or even accepting the life sentence of a mortgage as, after working out how much it cost them both simply to go to work, they figured out they could live on less, bought a motorhome and decided to travel the world. They could live, work and eat wherever and whenever they wanted. So they did.
    Yes, that was why she was still here. He’d be lost without her. He followed her out, grinning.
    So how does he pass the gear over? Luke was wondering as he watched Fatchops go back and forth preparing for the night’s business. Same routine. Fresh white warehouse coat: fryers on; warmers on; check the wrappings; stock up drinks cabinets; float in till; shouts at the part-timers to get the food on the go, and then the bit that Luke always found curious. Fatchops would meticulously wipe down all the surfaces. Here was a bin bag of balloons, dealing drugs in a chippy, but with an obsession with cleanliness.
    They’d been watching him for about two weeks now and he never varied. The first thing he did when opening up and the last thing he did