Read Online I Remember You by Martin Edwards - Free Book Online Page B

perfectly. And by the way, I thought you sounded good on Pop In this morning, Very plausible. Just like Finbar, in fact. Goodbye.
    She hung up and left Harry looking angrily at the receiver. He cursed Finbar. What was the bugger up to now? He resented being dragged into the deception of Melissa. But he wasn’t prepared to take it up with Finbar - he had other things to think about. He turned to the Graham-Brown file.
    Conveyancing was foreign to Harry. By temperament, as well as training, he was a litigator; someone who liked to work with people rather than documents of title, preferring the quirks and inconsistencies of human beings to those of the law of real property. Yet Jim’s files were organised with a neatness and method unexpected in a big, ungainly man and it did not take him long to pull together the strands of the transaction. Everything was happening at speed and contracts were almost due to be exchanged. Even he could manage that.
    Suzanne buzzed him. ‘Mrs. Graham-Brown to see you.’
    Five minutes early. Harry was accustomed to clients who turned up late or not at all, but he reminded himself that someone selling a house confronts the legal process from a very different standpoint to that of a person facing financial ruin, divorce or jail. He pushed the wad of papers to one side. No need to lose sleep over this particular matter. It was always easier to sell than to buy: caveat emptor and all that. Besides, Jim had already done the hard work, juggling non-committal answers to otiose preliminary enquiries and preparing the contract. Harry did not have much left to do except renew his acquaintance with the client.
    His heart beating faster, he went to reception, where Suzanne was updating her bulletin on Jim’s condition with more reliance on morbid imagination than solid fact. Faint scepticism turned up the corners of Rosemary Graham-Brown’s mouth; he liked her all the more for that.
    â€˜I’m glad to meet you again,’ he said, and shook her hand. It was small and warm and he took ten seconds too long to release it. Rosemary gave a small pleased giggle; he could feel Suzanne’s eyes boring into the back of his head as he led the way through into the corridor.
    â€˜I do appreciate your taking the time to see me,’ she said. ‘You must be rushed off your feet. I’m so sorry to hear about Mr. Crusoe. Your receptionist was telling me the whole ghastly story of the accident - it sounds horrific.’
    Trust Suzanne to turn a pile-up into a holocaust. The truth unvarnished was bad enough.
    â€˜He’ll live,’ said Harry. Then he remembered Heather Crusoe’s anxiety and regretted the lightness of his tone.
    â€˜I’m hardly an expert on property law,’ he admitted, ‘but I didn’t want to hold up your transaction. I gather there’s some urgency.’
    â€˜Yes, very much so. That’s why I’ve brought the contract myself. We signed it last night and I don’t want to trust to the post.’
    â€˜This is my room. Let me clear some papers off that chair. I only hope you don’t suffer from claustrophobia.’
    She wriggled between a filing cabinet and a mound of documents as tall as a child, her figure hugged by a white trouser suit which must have cost more than Harry’s entire wardrobe.
    â€˜No problem,’ she said. ‘I’m quite good at getting out of tight corners.’
    Her lips parted in a teasing smile. He grinned, watching her settle into the chair and enjoying the sight. Perhaps office-bound conveyancing had its compensations after all.
    â€˜Sorry to be a nuisance in the circumstances,’ she said, ‘but as you’ll have gathered, things are moving quickly and I - that is, my husband and I - would hate to lose the momentum.’
    â€˜So I see from the file. The two of you are emigrating, then?’
    She nodded, the light of excitement he had noticed on their first meeting