Ugley Business Read Online Free PDF

and she’s deaf and blind.”
    “It’s not serious,” I tried, and Maria snorted.
    “We’re talking about Luke, right? The only serious relationship he’s ever had is with his SIG.”
    This is true. The gun goes everywhere with Luke, and you do not touch the gun. My baby is Tammy. His is his SIG.
    “Exactly,” I said. “We’re just having fun.”
    “You’re sure that’s all?”
    “I’m not made of metal and I don’t have a slide latch, so I’ll never capture his heart,” I said lightly, although I wasn’t joking. Luke is fantastic and we have an incredible time together, but I’m not sure if I could cope with being loved by him. I think my head might explode or something.
    We pulled up at Maria’s house and I took her bag inside. The place was light and airy—or would have been had it not been locked up for two months. Luke and I had been round once or twice to check up on the place, stack her mail so that the front door could be opened, make sure nothing was leaking, but it was still mostly hot and airless inside. Maria went around opening windows and brushing dust away with her fingers. Her house, like mine, has lots of secure shutters and locks, but all of them on the inside so as not to look weird. Or spoil the period detailing, as the case is for Maria’s house. I’m not sure a twelve-year-old flat can have period detailing. I have socks older than that.
    She was just debating whether to walk to the shop or drive to Tesco for something cold and sinful to drink, when my phone rang.
    “Why didn’t you answer before?”
    It was Luke.
    “I switched it off in the hospital, like a good girl. And then I was driving.”
    “You’re a paragon,” Luke said drily. “Where are you now?”
    “Maria’s. We’ve just got back.”
    “Can you come up to the office?”
    Eek. “Both of us?”
    “Yes. And—” he lowered his voice, —”try to look respectable.”
    “Is she scary?”
    “That doesn’t begin to cover it.”
    Marvellous. I ended the call and turned to Maria. “All work, no play. We have to go and present ourselves to the new boss.”
    “Fantastic.” Maria was wandering upstairs. “Just let me get changed. My clothes smell of hospital.”
    She came back down in low-slung jeans and a tight black top that rode up to show the new scar on her stomach. Not respectable entirely, but a clever reminder of why she’d been off work. “Let’s go.”
    It only took her about half an hour to lock everything up, and then we were off, rattling up to the nondescript airport business park, where SO17 has its office. The sign by the door reads “Flight Services Inc.”, and once you get past the swipe card entry there’s a normal-looking inner and outer office inside.
    Luke was waiting in the outer office, fiddling with the leaves of a pot plant. “I said respectable,” he said, looking me over with an expression of despair.
    “This is as respectable as I get,” I said. “Anyway, isn’t Macbeth coming?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Next to him I’ll look like a paragon of virtue.”
    Macbeth was Maria’s protégé, a huge black man who looked as if he’d be more at home at the door of an exclusive club. He could break through pretty much any lock and, he said, disable a car alarm in two seconds. I fully believed him.
    However, Luke did not obviously fully believe me. I didn’t see why. In my mind, denim shorts, a cotton camisole and sandals are very respectable in late June. I glanced over myself. Maybe the chipped polish on my toenails wasn’t too fetching. Or the biro’d shopping list sweating off the back of my hand. Or the cheap sunglasses pushed up into my hair, which was starting to revert back to its usual scruffy blonde.
    Luke, of course, was looking immaculate in chinos and a white shirt. Bastard.
    “Shall we go through?” he said, gesturing to the closed door that led to the director’s office.
    “I feel like I’m on detention,” I said.
    “Not yet,” Luke replied