Read Online The Damage (David Blake 2) by Howard Linskey - Free Book Online

naked dozens of times but when she stepped from the shower that morning and saw me, she immediately covered up before I got so much as a glimpse of her. I didn’t understand what that was all about, but I’d come to the conclusion there was a great deal I’d never understand about women.
    ‘Be a good girl while I’m away,’ I told her as I bent to kiss her on the forehead, ‘try not to sleep with the Gurkhas.’
    ‘I’ll try,’ she smiled sweetly back up at me, ‘but I can’t promise. I get so bored and what’s a girl to do?’ This time I bent lower and kissed her on the lips.
    ‘Thanks for that comforting thought.’

     
    Being the boss has its advantages. Wherever I go these days I get treated like the head of any decent-size corporation, which of course I am, and I’m shown straight into the first class lounge before I board the plane. It’s fine in its own way but I am getting a bit too used to this sort of thing to really enjoy it.
    A pretty young thing appeared from nowhere and gave me a smile like I was the centre of her universe, but it was all in the lips, her eyes were expressionless. I wondered how many fat, bald chief executives fall for this and try it on with her.
    ‘Champagne or orange juice, Sir?’ she asked me, and her ruby-red, heavily-glossed lips formed themselves into an inviting ‘O’ as she said ‘orange’ and, for a moment, I wondered what those lips would be like around me and if her blonde, tied-back hair would stay in place while she moved her head up and down. Christ, I am going to have to do something about the drought I’m in. It’s not Sarah’s fault that’s she’s suffering from depression. I understand, I really do, but this no-sex thing is turning me into a dirty old man.
    ‘Champagne,’ I answered, and she took a long glass by the stem and handed it to me. It’s daft really. I’ve got cases of the stuff back at the house in Hua Hin and all of it better than this bought-in-bulk inferior fizz the airline offers, but there’s still a poor, Northern boy trapped inside me somewhere who would shout ‘don’t be daft man, it’s free!’ if I refused it. I don’t think my mother ever had a glass of champagne in her life, except maybe at a wedding.
    I sat for a while waiting for my flight to be called and tried to read a book. Somewhere there’s a serial killer on the loose and a maverick detective with a liking for hard drink is tracking him down. Years ago I could have read the whole thing on my flight home and enjoyed it for what it was, but I just can’t get into it. I’ve got a lot on my mind, what with Sarah not doing so well. Then there’s Toddy’s case and now even Jaiden Doyle has given me something to think about. Who would want to shoot one of my men? Lots of people probably, for a whole variety of reasons, but I have to work out who stood to gain most from the act and actually had the balls to go ahead and do it.

     
    *

     
    I glanced out of the window and watched as the large black Lexus pulled up outside the café. The driver parallel-parked it, taking a moment to get the vehicle straight against the kerb. There wasn’t much room between the two vans but he rocked it quickly back and forth until it was slap bang in the centre of the space. The car came to a halt, the driver’s door swung open and out stepped the hardest man in the north-east of England.
    Joe Kinane was so big he made every car he drove look like a toy. He reminded me of Noddy in fact, always out of scale, far too large for the car he drove around in. Kinane stretched like he’d been cooped up in the car for too long, then he glanced towards the window, saw me sitting there, nodded and walked up to the café, frowning all the way.
    The door swung open like someone had just kicked it but that wasn’t misplaced aggression, it was just Kinane’s natural awkwardness. Here was a bloke who really didn’t know his own strength. Joe Kinane was around six-four in his socks and