The Lily-White Boys Read Online Free PDF

place. Jim Penrose and the abandoned van Miss Tovey’d reported. Best tread carefully here.
    â€˜And the two lads are called White, you say. Christian names?’
    â€˜Gary and Rob. Robert.’
    That definitely struck a chord, a more longstanding one. ‘Did they have any form of transport, sir?’
    â€˜Aye, a van. They’re window-cleaners, like.’
    â€˜Could you describe it?’
    â€˜Well, it’s not up to much. Dark green Ford Escort. Can’t recall the registration offhand.’
    â€˜Any distinguishing features?’
    â€˜Only the rack on top, for the ladders.’
    Something in the sergeant’s manner sharpened Sid’s apprehension. ‘You’ve heard something, haven't you?
    â€˜It’s possible we might have something on the van. One answering to this description was abandoned in North Park on Monday night.’
    â€˜Abandoned?’ Sid stared at him. ‘Then where are the lads?’
    â€˜I couldn’t say, sir.’
    â€˜No.’ The old man shook his head positively. ‘It can't be theirs, not in North Park. They never go up there.’
    â€˜Might have been on their way back from somewhere and run out of juice.’
    â€˜Then where are they? It’s nearly two days ago!"
    Fenton regarded the agitated little man. His concern seemed genuine, and it wasn’t motivated by self-interest since the boys didn’t owe him money. He wondered how much he knew about his lodgers’ activities. Might be worth checking to see if he had form himself. Not, he reminded himself, that they’d been able to pin much on the White twins other than causing a disturbance at football matches. Too fly by half, that pair.
    â€˜Thank you for reporting the matter, sir,’ he said formally.
    â€˜We’ll keep you informed.’
    It was lunch-time again, and once more Claudia and Abbie sat at the kitchen table. It was their first meeting of the day; Claudia’d had an early breakfast before leaving for a dental appointment.
    â€˜How was the dinner-party?’ Abbie asked.
    â€˜All right.’
    â€˜No need to rave about it!’
    â€˜Actually, I didn’t enjoy it as much as usual. I don’t know why.’ She did, though. After her daughter’s comment yesterday, she’d paid more attention to Eloise and her husband, and what she’d seen made her faintly uneasy. Which, after all these years, was ridiculous. Damn Abbie for sowing doubts in her mind.
    â€˜Was Theo there?’
    Claudia dragged her attention back. ‘Yes, and Jeremy and Primrose.’
    â€˜Oh, Primrose !’ said Abbie with scorn. ‘Poseuse supreme!’
    She took a mouthful of spaghetti. ‘Who else?’
    â€˜Only the Toveys and George.’
    â€˜The usual gang, in fact. What did you eat?’
    â€˜Salmon and garlic mousse, veal cutlets and a kind of bombe thing.’
    â€˜Good?’
    â€˜Yes, delicious. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood. How was the cinema?’
    Abbie launched into a description of the film she’d seen the previous evening, and Claudia’s thoughts wandered again. What exactly did she know of Harry and Eloise’s past connection? Simply that they’d met at the tennis club when Eloise was still at Ashbourne, and become engaged on her eighteenth birthday. Then, some months later, she’d met Justin – through Monica, Claudia seemed to remember. And, as Harry himself had told her, Eloise lost her head over him. ‘After all,’ she remembered him adding caustically, ‘the Teals are one of Shillingham’s oldest families.’
    So the engagement was off and within a month or two Eloise married Justin. It was more than two years later that Claudia’s family moved to Shillingham – too long, surely, for any suspicion that he’d turned to her on the rebound.
    The fact that they were still so friendly with the Teals had bothered her not all. She and