Read Online Family Business by Michael Z. Lewin - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t.’
    â€˜I’ve done the bank. I thought I’d have a word with this Kit Bridges. Has Sally been in yet?’
    Gina went through what Salvatore reported.
    â€˜I agree with you,’ Angelo said. ‘Something’s missing. I’ll see what the Bridges woman has to say. Then I’ll try to find her friend from the pub.’
    Gina said, ‘How was Jack Shayler?’
    â€˜There’s something wrong there, too,’ Angelo said. ‘He left the house at 7.40 and he went to work. That much is like the wife said. But the route was different.’
    â€˜She said he always goes the same way.’
    â€˜Not today. From Bartlett Street he was supposed to turn at Bennett Street. But he turned at St Andrews Terrace, along the raised pavement.’
    â€˜What’s there?’
    â€˜Antiques and pizza on one side. A drop to a row of garages on the other.’
    â€˜And does St Andrews Terrace lead to The Circus?’
    â€˜At the end you turn right, up a passage, and you get to The Circus by carrying on across the forecourt of the Assembly Rooms and turning left on Bennett Street. It’s about the same distance. But something else happened,’ Angelo said. ‘In front of the Assembly Rooms.’
    â€˜Isn’t that where the Costume Museum is?’
    â€˜In the basement, yes.’
    â€˜So what happened,’ Gina asked. ‘He tried on a dress?’
    â€˜He sat down on a bench. There’s a phone box and a bench. As he walked past the phone box he looked at his watch. Then he sat down on the bench. He stayed there for two minutes. 7.49 to 7.51.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜He got up again and walked to his office. He went through the door there at 7.54. Apart from two minutes on the bench he didn’t stop, or talk to anyone, or nod or look into a window or wave at a girl. He didn’t pick up any packages or drop off any envelopes or shoot anybody.’
    â€˜How curious,’ Gina said. ‘What do you think?’
    â€˜Why tell his wife that he needs to go the same way every day but then go a different route today? What’s the point of lying about things like that? It can’t be important, can it?’
    â€˜You mean if a man lies to his wife it should only be about important things?’
    â€˜That’s my policy,’ Angelo lied.
    Kit Bridges lived in a basement flat in one of the crescent terraces which ranged up the city’s hillsides like an audience of toothy grins. She was home when Angelo arrived but she was about to leave. She was wearing faded denims and a black singlet and she looked stunning. Angelo was stunned.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ Kit Bridges asked.
    Angelo nodded. Then he said, ‘We’ve put together a description of the detective who’s looking for you.’ Angelo repeated the details Salvatore had given Gina, down to the knobbly hands. ‘Does it sound like anyone you know?’
    â€˜No,’ Kit Bridges said. ‘Cheryl described him too, but I can’t think of anyone who looks like that.’
    Cheryl, the friend who worked part-time behind the bar at the Rose and Crown, had a home address in the East Twerton part of the city. Kit Bridges also supplied Cheryl’s phone number and the name of her own modelling agency. Then Angelo walked her to her car.
    Mrs Shayler did not come to the office until just after lunch. When she arrived she went straight to a chair by the window with the plants. She looked pale and pained. She said, ‘I can’t go on like this. I can’t. I’ve just painted three thatched roofs blue. It’s unbearable.’
    Gina made tea and even held Mrs Shayler’s hand for a few minutes. Although the two women were about the same age Gina treated her client as if they were separated by a generation. Only after watching Mrs Shayler finish her tea and consume a digestive biscuit did Gina ask about events in the Shayler household