Read Online By a Narrow Majority by Faith Martin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Faith Martin
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didn’t stand, but then she probably didn’t dare for fear of banging her head.
Hillary showed her credentials, smiling pleasantly as she did so. ‘DI Greene, Thames Valley. I was wondering if I might have a word with Mr George McNamara?’ She managed to make it sound like an order, not a request, but without throwing too much weight around. Janine wondered just how she did that.
The secretary nodded quickly and reached for the phone. She was one of those women who’d come back to secretarial work after taking a break to have children, and her dyed blonde head drooped a little over the phone as she all but whispered the summons to her employer upstairs. When she put the receiver down, she turned a tight smile their way.
‘Please, go right on up. Mr McNamara’s office is second on the left.’
Hillary thanked her and climbed the deep, narrow stairs, holding on to the banister carefully as the boards creaked underfoot. At the top, thick and old glass window panes turned the sunlight a sort of milky colour, which reflected oddly against the hard-wearing, dark grey carpeting underneath . The door in question opened before they reached it, and a man popped his head out. He wasn’t tall, not much over Hillary’s own five feet nine, and he had sandy blond hairturning silver. She saw his dark brown eyes run over her in quick summation. What he was seeing, she knew, was a woman with a Junoesque figure, a shoulder-length bell of nut-brown hair with chestnut tints, and, if he could see them in the odd light up here, wide, brown-coloured eyes.
She was not surprised when his gaze moved on to Janine and widened slightly. Janine, with long blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, and a svelte figure with all the youth of a mere twenty-six- year-old, was used to hogging more than her fair share of male attention.
‘DI Greene?’ George McNamara said, his eyes going straight back to Hillary. ‘Please, come in. I must say I was surprised when Clare told me you were here. We don’t do criminal work, you see,’ he added, as she hooked a dark brown eyebrow up in a silent question.
‘Ah,’ she said. Not the traditional enemy then. More of a neutral? ‘I’m afraid we’re here on a criminal inquiry, however, Mr McNamara,’ Hillary said, as she took a quick glance around the office. A pair of uninspired but well-enough executed watercolours, one of Port Meadow in Oxford, the other of Worcester Cathedral, hung on opposite walls. Tomes and tomes of thick books in dark shades of leather lined both sides of a disused fireplace, and a couple of green and thriving pot plants sat on a broad windowsill. The floorboards underneath undulated as much as the roof, and she saw Janine totter slightly as she made her way to one of the comfortable-looking padded chairs facing a cherry-wood desk. Obviously, the firm did well for itself.
‘Really? I’m intrigued. Tea, coffee?’ the solicitor offered, waving her with a hand towards the other unoccupied chair.
Hillary never turned down the chance of caffeine.
In spite of the appearance of working in a lawyer’s office that could have been lifted straight from Dickens, George McNamara reached out to press down the switch of a very modern intercom system and asked somebody called Daisy if they wouldn’t mind popping in with the coffee pot.
‘Well, I can’t think which of my current clients could have fallen foul of the law, Inspector,’ George McNamara said, leaning back in his chair. He was well padded, with amiable button-like eyes, and wore a dark blue bow tie. Hillary hadn’t seen a bow-tie in years.
‘It’s about your political rival, Mr McNamara. Mr Malcolm Dale,’ Hillary corrected him calmly.
McNamara’s eyebrows shot up, and he suddenly straightened in the chair. ‘Malcolm? But surely he can’t have got into any trouble.’ For all the words expressed doubt, Hillary saw definite hope and glee spring up in the other man’s face.
‘But if he had been caught out doing something he
Hillary showed her credentials, smiling pleasantly as she did so. ‘DI Greene, Thames Valley. I was wondering if I might have a word with Mr George McNamara?’ She managed to make it sound like an order, not a request, but without throwing too much weight around. Janine wondered just how she did that.
The secretary nodded quickly and reached for the phone. She was one of those women who’d come back to secretarial work after taking a break to have children, and her dyed blonde head drooped a little over the phone as she all but whispered the summons to her employer upstairs. When she put the receiver down, she turned a tight smile their way.
‘Please, go right on up. Mr McNamara’s office is second on the left.’
Hillary thanked her and climbed the deep, narrow stairs, holding on to the banister carefully as the boards creaked underfoot. At the top, thick and old glass window panes turned the sunlight a sort of milky colour, which reflected oddly against the hard-wearing, dark grey carpeting underneath . The door in question opened before they reached it, and a man popped his head out. He wasn’t tall, not much over Hillary’s own five feet nine, and he had sandy blond hairturning silver. She saw his dark brown eyes run over her in quick summation. What he was seeing, she knew, was a woman with a Junoesque figure, a shoulder-length bell of nut-brown hair with chestnut tints, and, if he could see them in the odd light up here, wide, brown-coloured eyes.
She was not surprised when his gaze moved on to Janine and widened slightly. Janine, with long blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, and a svelte figure with all the youth of a mere twenty-six- year-old, was used to hogging more than her fair share of male attention.
‘DI Greene?’ George McNamara said, his eyes going straight back to Hillary. ‘Please, come in. I must say I was surprised when Clare told me you were here. We don’t do criminal work, you see,’ he added, as she hooked a dark brown eyebrow up in a silent question.
‘Ah,’ she said. Not the traditional enemy then. More of a neutral? ‘I’m afraid we’re here on a criminal inquiry, however, Mr McNamara,’ Hillary said, as she took a quick glance around the office. A pair of uninspired but well-enough executed watercolours, one of Port Meadow in Oxford, the other of Worcester Cathedral, hung on opposite walls. Tomes and tomes of thick books in dark shades of leather lined both sides of a disused fireplace, and a couple of green and thriving pot plants sat on a broad windowsill. The floorboards underneath undulated as much as the roof, and she saw Janine totter slightly as she made her way to one of the comfortable-looking padded chairs facing a cherry-wood desk. Obviously, the firm did well for itself.
‘Really? I’m intrigued. Tea, coffee?’ the solicitor offered, waving her with a hand towards the other unoccupied chair.
Hillary never turned down the chance of caffeine.
In spite of the appearance of working in a lawyer’s office that could have been lifted straight from Dickens, George McNamara reached out to press down the switch of a very modern intercom system and asked somebody called Daisy if they wouldn’t mind popping in with the coffee pot.
‘Well, I can’t think which of my current clients could have fallen foul of the law, Inspector,’ George McNamara said, leaning back in his chair. He was well padded, with amiable button-like eyes, and wore a dark blue bow tie. Hillary hadn’t seen a bow-tie in years.
‘It’s about your political rival, Mr McNamara. Mr Malcolm Dale,’ Hillary corrected him calmly.
McNamara’s eyebrows shot up, and he suddenly straightened in the chair. ‘Malcolm? But surely he can’t have got into any trouble.’ For all the words expressed doubt, Hillary saw definite hope and glee spring up in the other man’s face.
‘But if he had been caught out doing something he
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