Trial by Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

thirty-eight, but not for a while, or at least not regular. Maybe last week, maybe not, I don't know, why should I? Only remember her because I tried to chat once, asked her name, and she wouldn't say. "What's it to you?" she said. "Suit yourself," I said, but I like asking names.
    Maybe last week, maybe not.'
    Bailey could imagine some clandestine mistress recoiling from the suggestion she supply her credentials, especially to a request barked like the cross-examination Bernadette used in lieu of small talk to customers, smiled at the thought. 'Anyone else?' he asked mildly.
    The Featherstones sat at their long kitchen table amid the crumbs of breakfast, their faces a study of concentration.
    Across the wooden floor of the bar came footsteps and a calm but carrying voice. 'Is your mother in?' A muttered response, heavier footsteps thudding upstairs, Amanda Scott pushing open the door with a pleasant hello on her face, fading as she encountered the glower from Bernadette, all at odds with the leer from Harold. `May I come in?' she said prettily. 'Your son said you were here.'
    William, son and heir. Bailey had forgotten him; he had a sad naïveté about children.
    William, listening at the door, poor daft child, a lifetime of listening at doors. Bailey had a vision of the boy —Harold's pale skin on a vacant face, none of Harold's cunning or vapid good looks, clumsy and lonely. A door slammed in the distance; a thump upstairs as the boy threw himself on to his bed. Found out, careless, bored.
    Bernadette spoke rapidly, words addressed to Bailey while keeping her eyes and savage expression fixed on the face of Amanda Scott as if she would like to throw a blanket over that immaculate presence. 'Don't speak to William, will you, Geoffrey? Not today if you don't bloody mind. He's in one of his moods.'
    Bailey watched Amanda, sensed her waiting in vain for some sign of authoritative insistence from himself, replied calmly, 'No, of course not, if you would rather I didn't. May have to another time once we know more, perhaps not. When it suits him.'
    Bernadette relaxed and recovered. 'Who the hell are you, then, Miss Squeaky-Clean?'
    she asked Amanda in a deliberate attempt to embarrass. 'His bit on the side?'
    Even Bailey could not suppress a hidden grin at the brief spasm of furious indignation on that smooth face. He added quickly, Àmanda is the privilege of another, Bernadette. Miss Scott is my detective constable.
    Arrives in time to stop me drinking.'
    Amanda was mollified slightly, but, as Bernadette intended her to be, uncomfortable, anxious to get on and out, mystified by the aimless chat that followed, disgruntled by Bailey's lack of desire to allocate tasks. There's been a murder, for God's sake, she said to herself, and you stand chatting in dirty kitchens. Not even insisting on seeing that lunatic thug who was listening at the door. Suspect if ever was, known for inclination to violence.
    Come on, Superintendent, please, come on. I don't like it here, and they don't like me.
    There are days when I do not care for you or admire you as much as others do, however handsome you are. There is nothing here, there never is. Come away, please, before I doubt you. Stood silent and smiling instead. Bernadette disliked her quite intensely.
    The feeling was mutual. Bailey was sorry for the discomfiture of both.
    Upstairs, half on, half off his unmade bed, William listened with his ear to the floor and his heels drumming quietly on the wallpaper, his head uncomfortably full of blood and little else. William had chosen this small and unpromising room five years ago on the eve of his twelfth birthday, stuck in it ever since although he had outgrown both bed and furniture, and in this Edwardian barn he had the choice of other rooms far more dignified.
    There was a theory that most of the seven bedrooms were reserved for guests, but few stayed, only the odd misguided travelling salesman who failed to return, or the even odder couple