In a Good Light Read Online Free PDF

didn’t realise you were such an expert at subterfuge.’
    â€˜Well, it’s all my divorces. They’ve made me devious.’
    â€˜Evidently. But for someone like me who doesn’t have your underworld connections . . .’
    â€˜The internet. You can get anything off the internet,’ she said confidently.
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜I don’t know. We’ll have to ask one of the geeks in the kitchen. Who is this woman anyway?’
    â€˜She was my brother’s girlfriend. His first real girlfriend. When I was fifteen they . . . split up.’ I hesitated over the phrase: it made their predicament sound so ordinary. ‘It was a horrible, disastrous split that should never have happened. I think he got over it quicker than I did. Anyway, he had bigger things to worry about – like being paralysed.’
    It was twenty to one by the time I pulled up outside the house and, unusually, Christian’s light was still on. This slight deviation from our routine gave me a moment’s anxiety, and I wondered if he might be feeling ill, but as I approached the house I could hear Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter, loudly, so I guessed he must be okay. Playing music at an unneighbourly volume in the early hours is one advantage of living in a detached house on a large plot that we don’t exploit often enough.
    Christian rolled into the hallway to greet me while I was still on the threshold trying to free my key from the lock. He was wearing his blue towelling bathrobe and his hair was sticking up in wet spikes as if he had recently been in the bath, and he had a curious expression on his face – an unnerving combination of smugness and guilt.
    â€˜Hi Pest,’ he said, cheerfully, reverting to a childhood nickname that fell out of use at least twenty years ago. This only fuelled my suspicions.
    â€˜Are you all right? What’s going on?’ I asked, slinging my bag over the corner of the settle.
    â€˜Nothing. Well. Come in and sit down. Do you want some wine?’
    I glanced at my watch. We quite regularly exchanged news and conversation over a drink, but not at this time of night. Sunday evening is Happy Hour. Christian opens the drinks cupboard at about six o’clock and starts mixing cocktails. About a decade after they went out of fashion we’re suddenly hooked. He’s working through a recipe book I bought from the remainder shop next door to Rowena’s, and sometimes he’ll throw in one of his own invention, just to catch me out. The Tequila Mockingbird is probably his best creation.
    I was wide awake now, and if he was in confiding mood, I decided it might be a good time to bring up the matter of replacing Elaine, so I followed him into the sitting room and sat on the couch. The music cut out while he fiddled with the controls, and then resumed at a friendlier volume. On the coffee table, beside an open bottle of claret, were a couple of wine glasses, but as I went to help myself I realised they had both been used. One of them bore the imprint of a lipstick crescent at the rim.
Company
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    â€˜How has your day been?’ Christian went on, bringing a fresh glass from the recess in the wall. ‘How did you get on at the school?’
    â€˜Fine,’ I said, warily. ‘The kids were sweet.’ I made no mention of my encounter with Cassie. Penny is a subject that is never raised any more. I upended the wine bottle and a scant thimbleful of black dregs slid into the bottom of my glass.
    â€˜Oh,’ said Christian. ‘We must have finished it. Shall I open another?’
    â€˜No. I wasn’t desperate,’ I said. ‘So what is it, then?’
    â€˜Nothing bad. I just want your advice about something. Because it affects you. It’s Elaine.’
    â€˜Oh, I’m so glad you’ve brought this up,’ I said, and was about to launch into my plea for her dismissal, when something in