Read Online Off the Record by Dolores Gordon-Smith - Free Book Online Page A

Carrington?’
    ‘But it is Carrington,’ he said, puzzled. ‘He told us so. I knew about his Lithuanian granddad, if that’s what you mean.’ He pulled her to him. ‘Don’t be such a goose. It isn’t important.’
    ‘No,’ said Molly. ‘No, I don’t suppose it is.’
    In the bedroom of his bungalow in the village of Stonecrop Ash, Oxfordshire, Colonel Maurice Willoughby, late of the First Battalion, The Bedfordshires, folded up the newspaper – a careful reading of The Evening Standard was part of his inflexible nightly routine – and, leaving it on the bedside table, got ready for the night.
    He was relieved to see there was nothing about that fool, Otterbourne or that lunatic, Carrington, in the paper. He had known Carrington (not that that was his real name, of course!) would come to a bad end.
    Neither of his sisters had shown the slightest sense or respect for family tradition in the men they’d married. All the Willoughbys had been service people as long as anyone could remember. It was ingrained in them. Agatha’s marriage to Walter Lewis, a City type, had been just about acceptable, but Edith had married Carrington in the teeth of her father’s horrified disapproval. By jingo, that had been a scene and a half but Edith had inherited the family streak of stubbornness and no mistake. Colonel Willoughby stroked his moustache into place with a wry smile. He couldn’t help admire that in a way. It showed spirit, at least. There was nothing admirable about the Otterbourne’s of this world. These fellers who set themselves up to change the world were all the same: starry-eyed dreamers, socialists and hypocrites, the lot of them.
    A spell in India would have sorted him out pretty damn quickly. Juldi as they used to say. Juldi! It meant quickly. Damn quickly. There was no one he knew now who would understand the word, he thought wistfully. No one who could understand his longing for those days of purpose and discipline, of an ordered world shot through with the intense heat and dazzling colours of India. No, there were very few friends left and not much family to speak of. Carrington’s son – he was still waiting for a reply to his letter – and Stephen, of course. He sighed.
    Although Stephen was a likable boy with a decent war record, he lacked the spirit, the grit, of the men he’d known in India. He smiled grimly. This truly was a new world with new ways. He didn’t, he thought, as he drifted into sleep, care much for it.
    It was the noise that woke him. He stirred uneasily in his bed, drifting on the edge of sleep. The noise, a stealthy, creaking noise, sounded again. With the sense of danger very near, the need for action pulled him towards wakefulness. He mumbled the word khitmagar , but his khitmager and all the servants belonged to another Maurice Willoughby, a younger Maurice Willoughby, who had lived half a world away in India.
    ‘Koi hai?’ Is anyone there? He said it out loud, abruptly shaking off sleep. He sat up in bed, wincing as he jarred his knee. Arthritis and all the discomforts of old age flooded back. There was someone in the next room. For a moment his hand went to the bell, then hesitated. If he rang the bell, what would happen? Not a rush of able-bodied menservants excitedly offering help, but Mrs Tierney, the housekeeper, sleepy and worried, asking what was the matter. No. He was the only man in the house. It was his house and his responsibility and he had never shirked responsibility.
    He swung his legs over the side of the bed, listening. There was definitely someone in the next room. Damnit, hadn’t he been told? ‘There’s been a spate of burglaries in the villages roundabout, sir,’ Horrocks, the village constable had said only last week, looking over the gate into the garden. ‘Make sure your windows and doors are properly fastened. You can’t be too careful.’
    He reached for his dressing gown and his walking stick. There it was again! He was being robbed, by