Painkillers Read Online Free PDF Page A

everything and screaming abuse at the poor sods at Phillips whenever a piece didn't make its reserve. 'And how long has it been open?' He tented his fingers in front of his mouth, waiting for the response. His hands, smooth and plump as a child's, always unnerved me.
    'Eighteen months,' Eva told us. 'The returns are excellent, especially with all the work that's going on in Greenwich.'
    The trouble with Eva was, she had to talk everything up. She had to compete. Our cafe wasn't anywhere near Greenwich - the Millennium Dome was two whole bends in the river further east - it was in Southwark. When the new Tate opened at Millbank, then we'd have more trade than we could cope with. But we'd spent the past eighteen months serving sandwiches to road builders, and olives and focaccia to a handful of corporate refugees from Sea Containers House. It was a slow business but a promising one. In fact the reality of it was much more exciting than all her nonsense about the killing we were making but weren't.
    But oh no, Eva had to compete. 'It's a bit of fun,' she said, with a casualness any fool could have seen through. 'Just while Adam gets started again.'
    I stared at her. Brenda and Flora exchanged glances. Loh fixed me with his speculative smile.
    'That's so good,' his wife, Angelica, enthused. She laid her perfectly manicured hand on Eva's wrist. 'It's a great idea.' She was a dreadful Polly-Anna, but she knew how to keep potentially acid evenings like this bright and bubbling; I was grateful.
    'Red, anyone?' I said - my own attempt at social lubrication. Very suave. Very urbane. Everyone here knew I'd not be 'starting again' any time soon. How could I, given the cloud surrounding my departure?
    Against all evidence, I had given Top Luck a clean bill of health. If now the enquiry did not think I was culpable, it was only because my subsequent performance provided me with a dismal kind of alibi. I spent a lot of time between '92 and '97 on sick leave. Dreadful, shrieking stomach pains, like talons, shredding my insides, had me in and out of clinics for months. The doctors couldn't find anything. And the rum smell in my skin and hair, the long lunch-hour, the tie askew and the three day-old shirt gave personnel more straightforward reasons for my poor results.
    'And how are you, Adam?' said Angelica, treating me like an invalid as usual. 'How are we?' I'd half-expected her to say - though I saw her difficulty. The codsup I had made of Hong Kong was hardly for the dinner-table. If it hadn't been for the Handover, I wouldn't have lasted the year. As for another appointment - well, word travels fast in this business.
    Easier, then, to make out that I'd suffered a misfortune, a breakdown, ME - something for which I could not be held culpable. 'Oh, keeping busy,' I said, in my best duffer-pottering-about-the-garden manner.
    'Eva keeps me in trim.'
    David Kwok laughed a dirty laugh. Eva coloured up.
    'And you, David,' I said, feeling the heat of the second bottle of merlot rise in my throat. 'Flogged any treasures recently?'
    Nobody else missed my tone - Loh's spectacles were flashing like there were LEDs built into the rims but David Kwok was too fat and too happy with himself ever to notice a hit from me. 'You must come,'
    he went on, explaining about his latest venture, a fine arts gallery in Dering Street. 'It's next to Anthony D'Offay.'
    He had new pieces arriving from mainland China every couple of months. How he got away with it I could never figure. Most of it belonged in a museum, which is probably where it originated. David Kwok was going up in the world. The first time I met him he was churning out fake Alexander McQueen for Stanley Market.
    The phone rang. I stood up. David, bless him, decided he still wasn't getting enough attention, and got to the phone before me. 'Wai?'
    I took the receiver off him. He winced and shook his hand, like I'd hurt him. As if.
    'Adam?'
    'Yes.'
    'It's Money.'
    I swallowed. 'Uh-huh.' I couldn't have