The Killing of Katie Steelstock Read Online Free PDF

end of that bout of mixed wrestling. Katie awarded him a quick smile, picked up the bag off the chair beside the door, slipped through the door and was gone.
    At least two other people saw her go. One was Tony Windle. The other was Sally Nurse. She never took her eyes off Katie for long. Katie represented her ideal. She admired the way she dressed and she modelled her own appearance unobtrusively on it. She admired the success Katie had made of her career, without much hope that she could do the same. It was selfless admiration, unspoiled by jealousy.
     
    “For goodness’ sake, Billy,” said Mrs. Gonville. “Get your father out of that bar. He’s been there for hours. I don’t know why he bothers to come to these dances. It’d be much cheaper and easier for him to do his drinking at home.”
    “It’s time all we oldsters were in bed,” agreed Beaumorris. He had not stirred an inch from his chair during the whole evening and had enjoyed himself enormously.
    Rosina, the youngest of the three Havelock children present, whirled past with Tony Windle in what they imagined was a Highland schottische.
    Mrs. Havelock said, “I left Roney and Sim in charge at home. I tremble to think what they’ll have been getting up to.” She waved to Roseabel Tress, who wandered up in an absent-minded manner which suggested that her mind was more on Vedic Hindu mythology than on the Tennis Club disco.
    “If you’re ready to go,” said Mrs. Havelock, “I’ll give you a lift. I don’t suppose the children want to come home yet, but they’ll have to do what they’re told, for once.”
    “Very kind of you,” said Roseabel, staring around the room. “Very kind.” The overhead lights had been dimmed and a zoetrope, operated from the stage, was throwing alternate jets of red and green light across the room. The tempo of the band had quickened to a jungle stomp.
    “Quite, quite pagan,” murmured Roseabel
    “Like demented traffic lights,” said Mrs. Havelock, heaving her bulk out of the chair. “Are you coming, Olivia?”
    “Walter will be driving me back,” said Mrs. Steelstock. “I expect he’ll be here in a moment.”
    “You’re so lucky to have such a reliable child.”
    Joe Cavey had many jobs. His main one was running the boathouse, seeing that the private boats were looked after and club boats shared out equitably. Another of his jobs was keeping an eye on the Memorial Hall. When it was used for a function, as it was that night, he undertook to see the last people off the premises, to turn off the lighting, to see that all the windows were shut and finally to lock the doors. He exercised a similar guardianship over the Tennis Club premises and ran the bar. He was paid a retainer for these activities and had the use of a cottage which stood at the point where Church Lane ran out onto the towpath.
    On this evening, he was standing outside his back door listening to the sounds of dance music coming from the Memorial Hall at the far end of the lane. His own dancing days had been ended by a shell splinter through his right thigh at the crossing of the Santerno River. It had severed an artery and he had been lucky not to bleed to death. Fortunately the medical orderly had known his job and had clapped on a tourniquet in time. Joe could still see the bright red frothy blood which had pumped out at such an alarming speed. He sometimes dreamed about blood. His right leg was stiff and ached in the cold weather.
    Mr. Cavey drew on his pipe and blew out a gust of smoke. His wife, who had objected to his smoking in bed, had been dead for fifteen years. He thought of her without regret. He preferred doing for himself. Most of his spare time was spent looking after his back garden, with its rows of early and main-crop potatoes, sprouts, onions and peas. He kept a shotgun in his kitchen and waged ceaseless war on the pigeons.
    Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw black shadows moving across the field beyond his garden