LITMIR.BIZ

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      CONTENTS

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      ‘IT’S awful. Like a mausoleum. You couldn’t pay me to live there.’

      ‘It’s quiet. Jessie needs to be quiet to work.’

      ‘No children, no pets, no music loud enough to escape through the walls. It’s not natural.’

      ‘Jessie doesn’t like cats, is terrified of dogs and has no children.’ Kevin didn’t add ‘lucky woman’ because, although that was the way he felt right now, he was fairly sure that lack of sleep was warping his point of view.

      ‘She never will have any children if she doesn’t get out from behind that computer and get a life.’

      ‘Is it compulsory?’

      ‘Don’t be flippant. Jessie thinks she’s making the right decision but we can’t let one rat of a man do this to her. And working from home doesn’t help. At least if you go out to work you’re forced to talk to people, interact with them, face-to-face…’ They exchanged a helpless look. ‘You could die in the quiet of Taplow Towers and no one would ever notice.’ The baby, who had been quiet for all of thirty seconds while he gathered breath, resumed his anguished protest against the imposition of teeth upon his tender little gums.

      ‘No chance of that here.’

      Faye ignored her husband, murmuring soothing noises of comfort to their infant son. It made no difference. He was suffering and he intended that the world should suffer with him. ‘Did you see the look that woman in the lobby gave poor Bertie when we were leaving?’ she continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted. ‘As if he was contagious or something.’ She paused to wipe the dribble from her darling’s mouth. Then she said, ‘I thought Jessie would be over Graeme by now. She was too calm about it, too controlled… She needs to let rip, get really angry—’

      ‘Fall in love again?’

      ‘Exactly! And the sooner the better. Cutting herself off like that isn’t normal—’

      ‘This isn’t normal.’ Giving up any hope of sleep, Kevin rolled out of bed, took his small son from his wife and couched him under his chin, with scarcely a break in the stride pattern that was beginning to wear a path in the carpet.

      ‘He’s teething. It won’t last,’ Faye assured him as she collapsed into bed.

      ‘You said that last week.’

      ‘We just need a good night’s sleep.’

      ‘A good night’s sleep? What is that, exactly? I have this dim recollection—’

      ‘Stop complaining and think while you walk. We’ve got to do something to help your sister. She’s about to sign a five-year lease on that horrible place—’

      ‘It’s not horrible. It’s a very nice apartment. Safe.’

      ‘She’s too young to want “safe’’. It won’t be good for her, Kevin.’

      He caught the reflection of himself as he passed a mirror. Dark shadows, grey complexion. ‘This isn’t good for me. I need to sleep. Not just for a night. For a week.’ He turned to his wife; she didn’t look any better. ‘So do you.’

      ‘Yes, I do. We do.’ And then she smiled, drowsily. ‘That’s it, then. Problem solved.’

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘PLEASE, please, please, Patrick! Everyone’s going. There won’t be a soul left here in London—’

      Patrick Dalton resisted, without much difficulty, the urge to smile. ‘Just you and the other seven million—’

      ‘Don’t laugh at me! I’m being serious!’

      Laugh? She had to be joking. He wasn’t in the mood for laughing. Or indulging his niece. The way things were going, she’d be off the hook soon enough; meantime, it wouldn’t hurt her to behave herself for once.

      ‘So am I, Carenza.’ The formal use of her name was usually sufficient warning that she was pushing her luck. ‘You seriously promised to look after the house while I was away. And I seriously trusted you to keep your word or I would have used my usual house-sitting service.’

      ‘I thought you said they couldn’t find anyone at such short notice?’

      She was so sharp it was a wonder she didn’t cut herself with her own tongue. ‘I believe I said it would be difficult for them to find anyone at such short notice.’

      ‘Oh, don’t be so…so…lawyerish!’

      ‘Don’t knock it, Carrie, it pays the bills. Quite frequently they have your name on them.’

      Unabashed, she changed tack. ‘You could call the house-sitters now and ask if they could find someone. Couldn’t you?’ Even the hollow echo from the communication satellite couldn’t disguise the wheedling tone that was supposed to have him twisted around her little finger.

      ‘Now? Correct me if I’m wrong but, whilst it’s the middle of the day here, I’m pretty sure that it’s the middle of the night in London. I don’t think the agency—’

      ‘Later, then,’ she pushed, her keenness apparently undiminished by his obvious lack of enthusiasm. ‘You could call the agency later.’

      ‘I could,’ he agreed tersely, ‘but what would be the point?’ A fraud case that he’d put weeks of work into and was scheduled to be in court for a minimum of three months was collapsing about his ears, which left him disinclined to submit to the wheedling of his eighteen-year-old niece. ‘You haven’t got the money to go gallivanting around

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