This Body of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

roofs.”
    “Day in and day out?”
    “That’s ’bout it.”
    “And for entertainment? For relaxation? For a diversion? A break?”
    He tilted his chin to indicate the dog. “That’s what she’s for.”
    “Hmmm. I see.” She bent to Tess and petted the dog where she liked it best, just outside her ears. If the retriever could have purred, she would have done so. Gina seemed to reach a decision, for when she looked up, her expression was thoughtful. “Would you like to come out for a drink with me? As I said, I know no one in the area and as you do continue to seem quite harmless and as I’m harmless and as you have a lovely dog …Would you like to?”
    “I don’t drink, actually.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “You take in no liquids at all? That can’t be the case.”
    He smiled, in spite of himself, but he made no reply.
    “I was going to have a lemonade,” she said. “I don’t drink either. My dad …He hit it rather hard, so I stay away from the stuff. It made me a misfit in school but in a good way, I think. I’ve always liked to be different from others.” She rose then and brushed off the seat of her trousers. Tess rose as well and wagged her tail. It was clear that the dog had accepted Gina Dickens’ impulsive invitation. What was left for Gordon was simply to do likewise.
    Still, he hesitated. He preferred to keep himself distant from women, but she wasn’t proposing involvement, was she? And, for God’s sake, she looked safe enough. Her gaze was frank and friendly.
    He said, “There’s a hotel in Sway.” She looked startled, and he realised how that declaration had sounded. Ears burning, he hastened to add, “I mean Sway’s closest to here and they’ve got no pub in the village. Everyone uses the hotel bar. You can follow me there. We can have that drink.”
    Her expression softened. “You are really the loveliest-seeming man.”
    “Oh, I don’t expect that’s true.”
    “It is, really.” They began to walk. Tess loped ahead and then, in a marvel that Gordon would not soon forget, the dog waited at the edge of the wood where the path curved down the hill in the direction of the bog. She was, he saw, pausing to have the lead attached to her collar. That was a first. He wasn’t a man to look for signs, but this seemed to be yet another indication of what he was meant to do next.
    When they reached the dog, he attached her to her lead and handed it over to Gina. He said to her, “What did you mean, no relation?” She drew her eyebrows together. He went on. “No relation. That’s what you said when you told me your name.”
    Again that expression. It was softness and something more and it made him wary even as he wanted to approach it. “Charles Dickens,” she said. “The writer? I’m no relation to him.”
    “Oh,” he said. “I don’t …I never read much.”
    “Do you not?” she asked as they set off down the hillside. She put her hand through his arm as Tess led them on their way. “I expect we’ll have to do something about that.”

JULY
     
     

Chapter One
     
    W HEN M EREDITH P OWELL AWAKENED AND SAW THE DATE on her digital alarm clock, she absorbed four facts in a matter of seconds: It was her twenty-sixth birthday; it was her day off from work; it was the day for which her mum had suggested a gran-spoils-the-only-grandchild adventure; and it was the perfect opportunity for apologising to her best and oldest friend for a row that had kept them from being best and oldest friends for nearly a year. This last realisation came about because Meredith shared her birthday with that best and oldest of friends. She and Jemima Hastings had been thick as thieves from the time they were six years old, and they’d celebrated their birthdays together from their eighth one on. Meredith knew that if she didn’t make things right with Jemima today, she probably wouldn’t ever do it, and if that happened, a tradition that she’d long held dear was going to be destroyed.