Read Online Gagged & Bound by Natasha Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

the expensive heat floated way out of human reach to hover just under the high ceilings, but she could live with that.
    She’d never be able to hang her paintings anywhere smaller. The pride of her collection, an early Nina Murdoch, would look absurd in George’s kind of house, even if there were a wall big enough to contain it. His decoration could take ancestral portraits and gentle landscapes, but not much else.
    This isn’t the time for the battle of the styles, she thought. Not with Caro looking like hell.
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘I need your advice, Trish. When will David get home?’
    ‘He’s in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. I’ll tell him you’re here in a minute, but first give me the gist of the problem.’
    ‘I’ve been told that my chief rival for the job I told you about is taking bribes, and I’ve got to decide what to do about it. I know I said I couldn’t talk about the job, but you always have good ideas, and you’re the only person I can trust with this.’
    ‘It’s going to take time, isn’t it?’ Trish said, touched by the admission. ‘We’d better have tea with David first; then you and I can go upstairs and thrash it out. OK?’
    Caro nodded just as David emerged from the kitchen, carrying a large plate.
    ‘Ham and cheese, with tomato between the layers so it doesn’t make the bread go squishy,’ he said, looking down at his wobbling load, ‘and a bit of pesto for extra taste. Who was it at the door?’
    ‘Me,’ Caro said.
    ‘Hey!’ His smile was nearly as big as the one with which he’d announced his triumph. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. Have this and I’ll go and make another one.’
    ‘It’s OK,’ Caro said. ‘I’m not really hungry.’
     
    Upstairs in her bedroom under the eaves, while David was getting on with his prep, Trish listened to a long explanation of the background to the allegation against Caro’s chief rival for the new liaison job.
    ‘Why are you so angry, Caro?’ she asked at the end.
    ‘Am I angry?’
    ‘I think so. You’re certainly showing all the signs.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Your jaw’s so tight it’s affecting your voice; the little muscles under your eyes are clenched, which makes it look as though something’s pulling at the eyes themselves from inside your skull, and the edges of your nostrils are dragged down halfway to your mouth.’
    ‘Charming! I suppose you learn to look for this sort of thing when you’re trying to trick witnesses into telling you their secrets in court.’
    ‘I’m not sure I like the word “trick”,’ Trish said lightly. ‘You’re furious, and I don’t understand why. Is it because you think this woman is lying to you?’
    Caro shook her head. Her neat hair stayed tucked behind her ears, but the gold anchor earrings danced like sycamore seeds in a gale.
    ‘She’s put me in an impossible position.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘If I report the allegation, it’ll look as if I’d stoop to anything to rubbish a rival who might get the job I want, which obviously means I wouldn’t get it. But if I say nothing, I risk the selectors putting a Slabb crony at the heart of the fight against them.’
    ‘Tricky.’
    Caro tugged at a piece of hair. ‘But what’s really bugging me is the idea that the selectors could have set this up and be using it to find out what I’m made of; how I’d handle the conflicts that are bound to arise in this sort of job. In which case, if I don’t say anything, they’ll decide I’m not ruthless enough to do it.’
    ‘Would they do something like that?’ Trish could feel she was frowning and deliberately loosened her facial muscles.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Caro said, still fiddling with her hair. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’
    ‘I’ve never seen you so dithery. What makes you think the selectors could be involved?’
    ‘Because my source said plenty of people know that both this man and I are on the shortlist, and that’s not possible. I was told I had