More Deaths Than One Read Online Free PDF

to have a poke around and see if there’s ever been anything between Mrs. Salisbury and Fleming,” he told Kite when they’d left. “I should think that’s a very long shot, and it may have nothing to do with this if there was, but I think it’s worth following up. Salisbury was a bit cagey. I should think that’s a natural condition with him, but he strikes me as the sort who could be jealous as hell.”
    â€œWith a wife like that, who can blame him?” Kite said.

FOUR
    â€œPray resolve me one question, lady.”
    â€œIf I can.”
    â€œNone can so sure. Are you honest?”
    LONG BEFORE that first death occurred Alex Jones had been aware of something seriously amiss in her sister’s life, though the cause of it had to be largely speculation, since Lois was naturally secretive, never speaking much about her private life with anyone. Latterly, not even with Alex. That’s what being a police sergeant did for you, it lost you the trust of your friends and sometimes family, even of the naturally confiding ones. And Lois had never been that.
    â€œShe’s quite capable of sorting herself out, so relax,” Mayo said. But he knew that this worrying was just Alex being Alex, something she couldn’t help. She couldn’t bear situations she couldn’t do anything about; she had an inborn compulsion to sort them out. It sometimes got her into trouble, occasionally upset people, and created a variety of conflicting emotions in Mayo, ranging from exasperation to an amused tolerance, because he knew he’d never change her. “Can’t see what you’re bothering about,” he told her, “she’ll work things out her own way.”
    â€œNor can I, really,” answered Alex, frowning. “Just that things don’t seem right, somehow. Nothing you can put your finger on ... little things. You know, suddenly buying all those new clothes she doesn’t need. And she bit my head off when I said that new haircut didn’t suit her.”
    â€œWell, it doesn’t. Same cut as yours, but it makes her look scraggy.” He grinned, not really joking. The short, sleek haircut suited Alex’s clear profile, gave her that clean-cut, cameo look that went so well with her creamy skin, showed off the good shape of her head and the irresistible curve at the back of her neck – but not Lois.
    â€œScraggy! For goodness sake don’t let her hear you say that! No, she’s upset about something and it’s making her quite waspish.”
    â€œWhat’s new?”
    â€œCome on, that’s not fair, Gil.”
    And it wasn’t, really. Piquant rather than waspish, you’d have said if you were being truthful. Amusing with it, but not lately.
    â€œIt has to be a man, of course.”
    â€œSurprise, surprise,” rejoined Mayo, who was prejudiced. For some time he’d been convinced that Lois was behind Alex’s determination not to marry him, knowing as he did of Lois’s aversion to marriage on principle. She egged Alex on in her fight to keep what she saw as her independence, he was sure ... but that was only one of her attitudes that irritated him. He was irked by what he thought was her pretentiousness, was wary of her sharp wit.
    And she was the only woman, apart from his mother, who insisted on calling him Giles.
    Lois, who ran an interior decorating business with great success and élan, was not so lucky in her relationships with men – and there had been quite a few, apart from her divorced husband. Unlucky, or wanting something most of them couldn’t live up to. Alex wasn’t in any position, however, to criticise on that score. The sisters didn’t always pick their men well, either of them, though for different reasons.
    There wasn’t much to go on at all, really. But it bothered Alex.
    And then the body of Rupert Fleming turned up and the whole of the Lavenstock police force,