Killing Me Softly (3 page)

David Neale swung round from the computer screen, his face lit with pleasure when he saw it was Clare who'd brought his morning pot of coffee. He was especially pleased to see two cups on the tray.

‘If you've come about the budget, I'm afraid it's not quite ready yet.' He indicated the spreadsheets on his desk. ‘This afternoon, maybe?'

‘That's all right, David, we weren't expecting any figures yet. I just wanted a chat.'

‘Make yourself at home.' He took the tray from her, drew a chair closer to the desk and poured coffee for both of them, remembering that she took it black, unsweetened, adding both cream and sugar to his own.

‘Have a biscuit.' Clare offered the plate of cherry shortbread, a batch she'd just now thrown together, pandering to his sweet tooth. ‘Your favourites, straight out of the oven.'

He smiled as he took one, and she reflected how easy it was to like him, how well he'd fitted in here. A tall Scot, a little reserved, but with an expression behind his spectacles that was kind and thoughtful. A nice smile with white, even teeth. Always well-dressed, in a conservative way, today in a grey suit, a finely striped maroon and white shirt, a discreetly patterned tie. Business attire, though he needn't have bothered. They were pretty relaxed about dress, here at Miller's Wife.

‘One of the nicest things about working here is the food,' he commented, munching shortbread appreciatively. ‘Where else would I get home-made biscuits with my coffee?' Occasionally, too, he was roped in as a taster for new lines. Not to mention being able to pick up something to take home for his evening meals. He lived alone and was glad enough not to have to cook when he arrived home at night.

‘I hope it's not the only thing that keeps you here. We'd be lost without you, now. Though if anything else turns up –'

‘This suits me very well, Clare,' he said quietly.

She thought this must seem very small beer to him after his previous job, but as the financial director to a big international construction company, the frenetic pace had taken its toll, by way of a slight heart attack at an age much too young for it, though it was hardly possible to believe, now, twelve months later, he looked so fit and energetic. A warning, his doctor had called it, but David admitted it had thoroughly shaken him. He was barely forty-five.

His doctor had insisted, however, on the need for him to slow down, and the work here was undemanding. In fact, any reasonably competent clerk could have coped, and Clare had been afraid he would very soon find it boring. But he seemed content, for the moment, to stay on.

‘It suits me fine,' he repeated, his eyes following the graceful movement of her arm as she lifted the cup to her lips. She had slipped on a colourful knitted jacket to come upstairs in place of the overall she wore to work in, and its rich, stained-glass colours warmed her skin, reflected blue into the grey of her eyes.

‘I've more free time than I ever had,' he continued, ‘besides being near enough to walk to work.' He walked wherever he could, worked out twice a week, even played squash. Doctor's orders, Clare guessed, though she'd soon been made aware that the last thing he wanted was concern about his health. ‘For heaven's sake, I'm not in a wheelchair, yet!' he'd protested.

She said neutrally, ‘Walking to work must be a plus point. I can't tell you what the journey here this morning was like. Thank the Lord I didn't have to do the driving! Luckily, Tim was able to run us in.'

David was conscious of the slight constraint, the wariness that clouded her eyes when she spoke Tim's name, and he himself stiffened with distaste. Had he been made differently, he might have walked round the desk and put his arm around her and reassured her, promised her that she would always have his protection, that she need fear nothing from Wishart, but she was still another man's wife. Despite everything, she remained loyal, misguided though that might be. Clare was a woman who stayed true to her marriage vows, once made, and his Scottish upbringing had not made him the sort of man to encourage her to break them.

She finished her coffee and put the cup back on the tray. ‘One thing I wanted to talk to you about, David, was Barbie. Ellie and I think some sort of pay rise should be on the cards. I imagine we can justify it, can't we? She's worth her weight in gold, really –'

‘In which case we couldn't afford her at all!' he said drily.

‘Too true!' Barbie took jokes about her size in good part. It wasn't a sensitive issue with her, but it suddenly struck Clare that she'd never before heard David join in the general good-natured ribbing they all indulged in against each other. It was a good sign, she thought, he was learning to take things a bit less seriously. She said, ‘Barbie'll turn her hand to anything. She's due for a rise.'

‘I'll look into it,' he promised. He had his own reservations about Barbie Nelson. She'd been taken on at his suggestion, so he knew what she was capable of, but it wouldn't do for her to get ideas. She wasn't, in any case, doing too badly, moneywise. The flat above the premises more than made up for any inadequacies in salary, in his opinion, and she'd worked her way into the firm's good books perhaps too easily for his liking. Even so, she wasn't as tiresome as most of the string of women who'd worked here from time to time. ‘A moderate rise,' he added temperately, picking his pen up and jotting a note.

‘Good.' She was collecting the coffee things when he spoke again.

‘Clare, if you're free on Saturday, might I ask you a favour? Maybe it's an imposition, I know weekends are a family time, but...'

‘You should tell my family that! No, no, just joking, they've got beyond the stage where they want to do anything with Mum and Dad in their free time.'

‘And Tim?'

‘Oh, I think he's planning on his usual sporting activities,' she said casually. ‘How can I help?'

‘The fact is,' he answered, having banked on Wishart occupying himself as he almost always did on Saturdays, ‘I'm thinking of putting my house on the market, looking for somewhere smaller. Since Jane died, I rattle around like a single pea in a large pod. I want to get rid of it.'

‘I can understand that.' Her voice was warm with sympathy.

‘A place where you've once been happy ...'

‘Yes,' he agreed quietly.

It seemed to have become darker in the office and he leaned back in his chair, stretching out a well-manicured hand to switch on the floor lamp behind him, glancing out of the window as he did so. The fog was still thick enough to obscure the buildings opposite. He frowned. ‘Flood warnings out last night. But at least if the rain keeps off, the river levels should stay down.'

‘You're not worried about your garden, surely?'

He owned one of the larger properties with a long garden fronting the river. Like the house, the garden was immaculately kept. Clare had never known his wife, Jane, but she'd evidently been a woman of discrimination. The house was beautifully and expensively furnished with antiques, some marvellous paintings and Chinese porcelain, all in perfect taste – but too perfect for Clare's liking. It had felt chillingly like a museum to her, the one time she'd had occasion to visit.

He smiled. ‘No, it's big enough to survive a few feet of flood water. The house, too, come to that, though I believe the basement did flood once, sometime in the past. But the garden's one of the reasons I want to move. I'm not passionate about gardening, and I could do with somewhere less time-consuming. I've seen a small property near Brome, in need of some renovation and with a more reasonably sized garden, that might, or might not, do. Seems ideal, on the surface, but at the same time, I'm not sure I want to live out of the town. I know I'm the one who has to make the ultimate decision, but I'd appreciate another opinion. Clare, would you care to look at it with me?'

‘Well, if you think I can be of any help, certainly.' She was surprised and flattered.

‘Thank you,' he said gravely. ‘Would Saturday morning suit you? I could collect you about eleven, and then, afterwards – perhaps you'd lunch with me? Brome Country Club does very decent food, I hear.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, but I've promised to have lunch with my father. The afternoon would be fine, though.'

‘No problem. One time's as good as another,' he said easily. ‘Shall I call for you at your father's house?'

‘Do. I'll make sure we have an early lunch,' she answered, thinking that he should make use of that attractive smile more often. ‘I'll look forward to going with you.'

When Clare told Ellie she was going out with David Neale on Saturday, she was put out by Ellie's downbeat reaction.

‘Well, Clare, honestly!'

Was she, just a teeny bit, jealous of a perfectly innocent occasion? Ellie, with all her men friends? Jealous of an outing with
David
? A stuffed shirt, she'd called him when he'd first started with them, laughing at Clare's championship of him, unable to see that beneath the reserved Scottish exterior, David Neale was pure gold.

Or was she having an attack of guilty conscience?

‘You can't!' she said, looking utterly disbelieving. Which was unfair, and rich, coming from Ellie. But Ellie's mores were her own.

The ancient house at the end of the area known as the Bagots had, once in its chequered history, been an inn. Every now and then, a little more of it collapsed into ruin, leaving a shrinking but still rambling confusion of small rooms and unexpected staircases. It resembled an illustration out of a Dickensian novel, tumbledown, leaning, with roofs sloping almost to the ground, crooked chimneys and sagging lintels. It had what might be described as a floating population, which, it seemed to Jem, might one day be literally true, if the river rose far enough. It was another contributory factor to all the things which were worrying him just now, though it was nothing new. The water which regularly seeped through into the cellar was an ongoing problem.

Tonight, when he'd taken a flashlight and gone down to make an inspection, it had been awash with several inches of water. It didn't bother anyone else living in the house because none of the other occupants ever ventured down the gruesome, slimy steps, not even Morgan.

The damp had risen throughout the house. Clusters of black mushroom growths fruited in the corners of the kitchen ceiling, skirting boards were rotten, and what paper was left on the walls hung down in great swathes, where it wasn't drawing-pinned up. There was a sweetish odour of mould and rot, mingled with other smells, mainly cannabis.

The house today, as always, reeked of it. Luce drew the line at anything else, she was very strait-laced about some things and it was her house, left to her by her grandfather. She was away for a few days, however, and Jem wouldn't trust the newcomers, Ginge and Sheena, not to take advantage of her absence. The house hadn't been worth much when Luce inherited it, but now that the developers had won their battle to pull it down, Morgan told her she'd be quids in, able to name her price, though Jem had his doubts, and even Col goggled at the thought of anyone giving good money to buy this dump.

Jem, Col, and Luce, a well-established trio. Christened Jeremy, Colin and Lucinda, nice middle-class names given to them by their nice middle-class parents. Some of whom might have smoked more than the odd joint in the sixties, lived in squats and worn flowers in their hair, but had now reformed and didn't take kindly to their children following the same pattern.

The three of them, with Morgan, formed the core of the house, others drifted in, as and when. Jem wished they were still on their own, as they'd once been, but Luce had this thing about sharing her good luck with others.

She had her own standards. Usually, whenever she went home on one of her rare visits, she'd wear her most far-out gear, the clothes calculated to cause maximum annoyance to her mother, which meant they'd quarrel and she'd come back cross and moody, unlike her usual sunny self. But yesterday, when she'd had this letter from home, telling how the house had been burgled, ransacked, and her mum left in a state of collapse, she'd been off like a shot, wearing the sort of straight clothes she wouldn't normally be seen dead in.

Morgan had also taken himself off somewhere, though not with Luce, although she was his woman. He'd gone before she got the letter. Jem wished he knew when they were both likely to be back. His giro cheque had come and he had food to buy, for one thing. They mostly ate vegetarian, since it was cheaper, unless there was free food to be acquired, and not having any fridge to keep things fresh, vegetables had to be bought on a daily basis. He would need to calculate how much to buy. Jem was cursed, he sometimes thought, by this feeling of responsibility for everyone, not only for Col. Col was different, though, he needed Jem to take care of him.

And that was another problem. Jem had the chance of some work, only a few hours a week, but the sort of job they all took when they could get it, casual work without too much effort needed, no responsibility and no questions asked. But if he took it, he was worried what might happen to Col if he wasn't there to look out for him. Although Col was so clever, he was sometimes unpredictable, and you could never be certain what he'd take it into his head to do.

Abigail Moon looked up from the pile of reports she'd been working on, hesitated, then determinedly swept them all together into a drawer. Sod the lot! She'd been up half the night on that useless surveillance, which in the end had fizzled out like a damp squib, and she'd sworn she was going to leave the office on time tonight if it killed her. Already she was twenty minutes later than she'd intended, having been overtaken by events, a not unheard-of occurrence. She had colleagues who thought she was in clover, working out in the sticks, here in Lavenstock. Let them just try it.