Jago Read Online Free PDF Page B

heart’. The Jews invented terrorism and he relished the thought of them choking in Tel Aviv on their own medicine. Some time soon, when he’d stopped the festival, Danny was going to get back on their case. He’d been prodding the army and government for years. He had a scrapbook. He knew how many Irgun killers held high office in the Israeli government. They hadn’t paid their debt to Britain, their debt to Danny Keough, yet. But there was time.
    He’d walked as far as the blue van, and was in sight of the Maskell house. There was a group of people in the nearest field, standing among some skinny cows. One of the animals was down, and a man knelt by it. Maurice Maskell stood over them, eyes shaded by a tweed cap, hands on hips, listening. The farmer looked now as his father, Major Maskell, had done in the 1950s, weathered and authoritative. But he wasn’t the man the Major had been. He had never been to war, never faced the enemy.
    Danny found a concrete bridge, not that he needed one to get across this ghost ditch, and walked into the field. He waved his stick, but no one turned to take notice. He joined the group.
    The kneeling man was Donal Goddard, the local vet. Danny had taken his cats to him. Goddard was finishing a depressing diagnosis, which Maskell was doing his best to take on board.
    ‘It’s the heat,’ Goddard concluded, standing up, brushing dry dirt off his knees.
    ‘Umm,’ Maskell was thinking. The two other men in the group looked at the tall farmer. They were farm labourers, Reg Gilpin and Stan Budge. Everyone was worried.
    No one said anything, so Danny piped up. ‘Maurice, if I might have a word?’
    Maskell looked as if he didn’t recognize him for a few seconds, then snapped out of it. He grasped Danny’s hand and took hold of his shoulder, steering him slightly away from the others.
    ‘Danny, hello, good to see you. I’ve got something on right now. I’ll be with you in a moment. Go up to the house, and Sue-Clare will get you something cold. Okay?’
    ‘Righty-ho.’
    Maskell gave him a slight push, sending him across the field, toward the house, keeping him out of the group. Danny heard the vet talking. ‘There’s not much more I can do here, Maurice. Keep on as you have been, and I’ll give you a ring tomorrow.’ Maskell mumbled a goodbye, and Goddard started toward his van. When Danny got to the gate that separated Maskell’s concrete yard from the fields, he looked back.
    Maskell was talking to the men. Budge gestured angrily. Voices raised. The workman spat on the ground. It was obviously a rough day all round.
    In the yard, Maskell’s wife was greasing a saddle. She dressed like the land girls Danny remembered from the war, tight trousers and a loose man’s shirt. Her eyes were covered by beetle-black glasses. She smiled to see him coming, and waved a cloth.
    ‘Good morning, Mr Keough.’
    ‘Is it?’
    She ignored the comment. ‘Maurice sent you over, eh? I’ve got a jug of lemonade chilling in the fridge. Join us.’
    ‘I shan’t be stopping long.’
    Sue-Clare Maskell had her top two buttons undone. In the sticky heat, her shirt outlined her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Danny found it hard to understand. These days, this was the way a respectable woman dressed.
    ‘I’ve more calls to make,’ he said, holding up his new folder. ‘The petition.’
    ‘Excuse me, will you. I’ll get the juice. Maurice is coming. Be right back.’
    She went indoors, to her kitchen. Danny watched the seat of her riding trousers as she walked. She must be years younger than her husband. Their children, a weedy boy called Jeremy and a robust girl named Hannah, were barely old enough for school. Jeremy was the beginnings of a nuisance, wandering around in a dream, falling in ditches, having tantrums. Danny had heard that Sue-Clare Maskell had strange interests. Crystals and acupuncture, stargazing. She wasn’t from around here.
    He remembered the girls in Jerusalem who