The Judas Scar Read Online Free PDF Page B

already asleep.

C H A P T E R    F O U R
    ‘I can’t wait to see these photos, Will.’
    Will smiled and kissed Emma on both cheeks. ‘They’re good. There’s a gorgeous one of you – you look like a film star.’
    Emma beamed. ‘How exciting! But first,’ she said. ‘What can I get you to drink? Wine, beer?’
    ‘A beer would be great,’ said Will.
    ‘Could I have something soft?’ Harmony asked.
    ‘I’ve some elderflower,’ Emma said. ‘Ian’s mother made it. Though I hate to admit it, it’s delicious.’ She smiled conspiratorially.
    ‘Don’t ever tell her I said that.’
    As Emma went back into the kitchen, Will and Harmony walked through the living room and stepped out onto the terrace. The sun was high and bright, but not unbearably hot, and a light breeze carried the smell of freshly cut grass. There was a table laid with a pressed white tablecloth, a vase of yellow roses and a large white parasol shading half of it, as if a slice of Tuscany had been brought to North Oxfordshire. All trace of the party the week before had gone. The York paving, speckled with moss between the slabs, looked as if it had been vacuumed, and the lawn beyond rolled gently between extravagant flowerbeds in even emerald stripes that reached out like fingers to the strip of woodland that marked the garden’s boundary. The woods had been thinned so that individual trees stood like sentinels guarding the view of the undulating countryside beyond. There was a swing that hung from a beech tree, a wooden fort with a slide, and further into the trees was a platform high up in the branches with a zip wire that shot deeper into the wood below. Will heard his father’s ghost tut-tutting at these expensive, spoiling toys – No good done but to ruin a child, that muck! – and sat at the table facing away from the woods to silence his disapproval.
    He was glad to be out of London and in familiar company. The conversation he had to have with Harmony was hovering over them continuously like a low, black rain cloud. But how to tell her? Every time he tried to formulate the words he knotted up.
    Will lifted his laptop out of the bag and made space for it on the table. ‘I hope she likes them,’ he said to Harmony.
    ‘Of course she will. They’re great, and it was nice of you to spend the evening taking them.’ She tilted her face up towards the sun and closed her eyes in the warmth, like a cat.
    Emma came through the French windows and put a tray of drinks, a bowl of crisps and a small plate of swollen green olives on the table. She sat in the chair beside Will and slipped her sunglasses down from the top of her head to shield her eyes.
    ‘So, Em, who’s this nightmare colleague of Ian’s you’re making us eat with?’ Harmony asked.
    ‘God, don’t tell him I said that, whatever you do.’ Harmony laughed. ‘As if I would!’
    ‘It’s his lawyer – he worships the bloody man.’ Emma poured Harmony a glass of cordial from a jug filled with ice cubes and freshly cut mint. ‘He asked to meet you.’ Emma grinned at Harmony and lifted her eyebrows.
    ‘He did what? Who is he?’
    ‘You met him at the party. Good looking. Dark hair.’
    ‘And he asked to meet us?’
    ‘Not us , you.’
    ‘Sounds like I should be jealous,’ Will said, and sipped his beer.
    ‘Did he say why he wanted to meet me?’
    Will saw her sit forward, her interest piqued, brow furrowed. Emma shook her head. ‘I asked Ian but he was typically useless and said something along the lines of him having met one or two interesting people at the party and described you. Ian knew he meant you when he said your husband had mad white-blond hair. Ian said we were having lunch with you and Will and invited him.’ She reached for an olive.
    ‘That’s hardly asking to meet me.’
    ‘He could have said no to the invite.’ Emma gestured towards the laptop. ‘Come on, Will. Show me these photos before they get here and I have to start dashing