Until Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

the kids into their beds she had come out of their room to see the office door bounce against the run of shelving and begin to swing shut on Christos. In the three seconds before the closing door cut him from her view she had seen him pull the passports from his pocket and put them in their resting place. She had bent instantly to untie her sandal. Better if he didn’t know she had seen.
    ‘Mr Malamatos? What is this machine here?’
    ‘It stores the recordings from the cameras. They’re backed up on disk.’
    ‘We’ll need to take them.’ Georgie’s cheeks had returned to a normal colour, she was trying to reassert her authority.
    Christos wasn’t interested any more, he had his victory and the woman was just a nuisance now. He pressed a button and the green light on the camera nearest Kelly went black. The security system was off. She heard the home phone ringing and a moment later Florence called out from the top of the stairs that Sylvie needed to talk to Christos urgently. Kelly watched Christos walk out of the office and past her in the corridor to enter their bedroom. The nearest landline point was on the far side of the bed. He had to get round the king-size to the phone – twelve steps at least and then back out into the corridor.
    Kelly was halfway across the office before she even realised what she was about to do.
    Georgie was leafing through the filing cabinet as she reached it. She turned, surprised, but didn’t stop her as Kelly shut the top drawer with a confidence she didn’t feel and opened the one below it, hearing its screech above the battering of her heart. She prayed the noise wouldn’t bring Christos running; he knew people were in here. She reached in and pulled out the passports, not pausing to discard the one she didn’t need. Georgie looked at the passports in her hand and carried on searching.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    Kelly froze, and turned. Yannis was standing in the doorway, his palms pressed into the door frame on either side of him.
    ‘I’m helping the officers. Now get your school uniform on.’ She shoved the passports in the back pocket of her jeans. Yannis didn’t move as Kelly crossed the room towards him.
    ‘What’s going on?’ Christos stood behind Yannis in the doorway, the portable landline to his ear.
    Kelly wondered if she could find her voice. ‘The number of times I have to nag this boy to get ready for school …’ Kelly trailed off, walking past both of them and up the stairs. She felt Christos’s eyes boring into her back. The passports were a brick in her back pocket. Three steps, two steps, one step. She prayed Sylvie’s charms were enough at this moment to distract him sufficiently for her to get up the stairs and away. When she got to the living room her strength failed her and she had to sit on the sofa and let her heart return to normal. She saw the light above the camera in the corner of the room turn green.
    A few moments later she heard someone jogging up the stairs and Georgie appeared. She began walking around the room, assessing, forming opinions. ‘We won’t be here for that long.’ She opened the lid on the piano and glanced inside, looked over and smiled at Kelly. ‘It seems like a big intrusion, but by this afternoon it’ll be like we were never here.’ She stopped by the fish tank, put her hands in the pockets of her trousers and leaned in to look more closely. ‘I’ve got a goldfish at home.’ She tapped the glass, trying to get a reaction from the fish. They ignored her. ‘I have to make sure the lid’s always on, otherwise the cat would get him like that.’ She clicked her fingers as she said it. ‘What’s this boat at the bottom here?’ She was looking at the vessel half submerged in the stones at the bottom of the tank.
    ‘It’s a model of a competitor’s ship.’
    Georgie turned round. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
    Kelly’s laugh came out as a high-pitched squeal, bordering on hysteria. ‘No, I’m