The Shadow of Treason Read Online Free PDF

key.’
    ‘And why did you wait till one in the morning?’
    ‘I was here earlier, but this couple came in. They wanted to do their own search. And this bloke was bigger than me. Younger too, so I cleared out.’
    ‘A bloke was here searching? With a bird?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Did you know the bloke?’
    Into Cooper’s mean little mind came an unexpected chance of revenge. Clearly these men were hostile to Jefferson and therefore , probably, to his associates. ‘Yeah. His name’s Webber. Adam Webber. Room ten on the top floor. He was a mate of Jefferson’s. Very close, they were.’
    ‘Webber. Room ten. What’s he look like?’
    ‘Tall. Fair hair. About twenty. Cocky.’
    ‘What does he do?’
    ‘I think he works on Southend Pier. Marine Research, someone said.’
    ‘And the girl. D’you know her?’
    ‘Yeah. She lives here too. Landlady’s daughter. Dancer at the Windmill. Stuck-up bitch, throws her weight about. But quite a glamour-puss.’ Cooper looked round the room. ‘Those two took a lot of stuff from here.’
    ‘How d’you know?’
    ‘I saw them.’
    ‘You said they threw you out.’
    ‘Yeah, but I was watching from upstairs, wasn’t I? I saw them come out of here an hour later. He had a holdall, she had a carrier bag.’
    Cregan stared hard at Cooper. ‘Listen, Creeper, you’d better get this right. You were searching this room before those two got here, OK?’
    ‘Yeah. I hadn’t got very far. Just done a few drawers. Nothing worth lifting.’
    ‘Think hard. Did you see a blue notebook anywhere?’
    Cooper responded eagerly: he’d been given a chance to get on the right side of these hard men. ‘Yeah. I did. In one of the drawers. A blue notebook. Hard covers. Sort of like a logbook.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yeah. I remember, cos it was a big disappointment. It was in an envelope, see, and I thought it might be cash. But when I opened it, there was just this bleeding notebook. I left it there.’
    ‘Well, it wasn’t there when we looked. So those two chancers nicked it.’
    ‘I reckon they nicked a lot of stuff.’
    ‘Which is what you were aiming to do. Right, Creeper. This bloke scared you off, so they could clear the place.’
    ‘Like I said, he was bigger than me.’
    ‘OK. But now you’ve come back. Why?’
    ‘I could tell those two weren’t pros. I reckoned they wouldn’t know all the smart places to look for money. Loose floorboards and that. I thought there might still be something here for me. I thought I’d look again.’
    While Dave Clark listened to this interrogation, he’d been recalling the foul taste of Cooper’s bootleg whisky. As Cregan paused, he felt he was entitled to intervene. ‘That was a bad idea, Cooper. We don’t like slimy bastards who flog us bad booze for good money.’
    Cooper had started to relax. He thought he’d convinced them they were all on the same side. Now the fear came flooding back. ‘Look, if I flogged you some dodgy Scotch, it was a mistake.’
    ‘You bet it was.’
    ‘I mean, it wasn’t my fault. I’ve been having to use a new supplier. A Yank. Says he gets it from army stores.’
    ‘You lying toe-rag! You told us you had a mate in a Scottish distillery! Quality stuff, you said. And it turned out to be cat’s piss!’
    ‘I must have got confused. Look, I’ll give you your money back.’ And then Cooper made his big mistake. With a rancid smile and an attempt at mateyness, he added, ‘You must be the two blokes I met at the Bull.’
    For a moment there was silence.
    Then Cregan sighed, and growled at Clark. ‘See? I told you to keep your mouth shut. Now we got to croak him.’ Changing his grip on the revolver, he smashed the butt viciously into Cooper’s head.

    Jane had gone back to sleep, when a worried Adam returned to her room. He bent over and kissed her, and then shook her shoulder gently.
    ‘Darling! Jane! Sorry to wake you. Something weird’s happened.’
    Jane opened bewildered eyes. ‘What? Weird? What