Thieving Fear Read Online Free PDF Page A

them you fired him. That wasn't till this girl followed him to Doris's room one night and found him touching her. He got hold of her and tried to throw her out while she was asking Doris about it. I heard it all, and I'll tell you what else, don't talk to me about drinking. That stuff he used to smoke in the back garden and some of the rest of them did, that was worse than any drink.'
    'That's entirely news to us,' Jack Cremorne said. 'Isn't it, dear?'
    The lawyer held up his skinny hands between the couple and inclined his balding but unruly head towards the chairman. 'In any case the people mentioned aren't the subject of this enquiry.'
    'I see that, Mr Bentley. Have you any further questions, Miss Lomax?'
    'Would you say I neglected the residents, Muriel?'
    'I would not,' Muriel said and squinted at the tribunal. 'She cared so much about us she lost her job reporting the place to the authorities when this pair wouldn't listen.'
    'Thanks, Muriel. No further questions.'
    Muriel was gripping the edge of the table as an aid to standing up when the lawyer said 'I won't detain you long, Miss Stiles.'
    As her wrists continued to tremble once she'd subsided onto the chair he said 'You've told us a number of things you didn't see Miss Lomax do. Can you tell us anything you actually saw besides her enjoying a glass of wine at the party Mr and Mrs Cremorne were kind enough to have the home put on for you?'
    'I said how she dealt with that animal in Doris's room.'
    'I understood you to say you only overheard what may have happened. I think the incident proves my clients were quite willing to take action whenever there was the need. Was there anything you saw with your own eyes?'
    'There was plenty. I saw what was his name, the one with the face like a bloodhound, Billy kicking Anna's legs because she wouldn't go to bed and saying she'd hurt herself falling. And I saw –'
    'May I ask you to confine yourself to Miss Lomax? This hearing is about her.'
    'I'll say everything I said all over again if you like. And I'll tell you this, she was the only one we trusted out of the lot of them. Even the ones who never did anything to us wouldn't speak up for us.'
    'Very well, if that's all. Thank you, Miss Stiles. I can see it's been a strain.'
    Muriel seemed as confused by his ending the interrogation as the Cremornes were pretending not to feel. The nurse was helping her up when she leaned towards Ellen. 'Can I wait and see how we did?'
    'If you wouldn't mind waiting outside,' the chairman said.
    Muriel stared as if she wondered what it had to do with him. 'I will,' she told the nurse.
    As the lawyer held the door open for them he called 'We're ready for you, Mrs Nash.'
    So Peggy had shown up. A nurse wheeled her forwards as Muriel hobbled out of the room. Did she mean to make a point of not recognising Peggy, or was she taken aback by the wheelchair? Peggy greeted the Cremornes and then peered with her magnified eyes through her glasses at the tribunal. 'Where do you want me sitting?' she said.
    'It looks as if you already are, Peggy,' Ellen remarked with a gentle laugh.
    'I'm not speaking to you.'
    'That could pose a problem,' the chairman said. 'Please sit wherever you're comfortable.'
    'I was at the Seabreeze,' Peggy said and stared at Ellen before telling the nurse 'Put me here.'
    As she settled at the end of the table facing the tribunal, the lawyer said 'Mrs Nash, can I just establish you're here of your own free will?'
    'Don't insult me. My body may have let me down but there's nothing wrong upstairs.'
    He handed her the oath to take and followed it by asking 'Is it the case that you're still living at the Seabreeze Home?'
    'You know I am.'
    'I have to ask you these things for the record. Could you tell us how you came to take up residence there?'
    'I met my husband Gerald when he was posted to Nairobi in the fifties. He wasn't like most of them. Most of his troop, they looked down on us and let us know it. The sergeant, he was the