Read Online Troubled Deaths by Roderic Jeffries - Free Book Online

think that’s being silly.’
    ‘Realistic’
    ‘Just because you can’t stand her . . .’
    ‘Listen, Carrie, I don’t actively dislike her, but between us there just aren’t any smoke signals. And I’m not talking like I am just because I don’t get on with her. There was a woman in the village back home just like her. She fell down the stairs in her house three times before she finally fell a fourth time and broke her neck.’
    ‘So what does that prove?’
    ‘That this woman was mighty clumsy.’
    The barman called out and Anson stood up and went over to the bar and collected the coffee. Caroline unwrapped the two cubes of sugar and dropped them into the cup. ‘I tried to get her to let me stay the night with her because she was in such a state.’
    ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll be nominated for a sainthood.’
    ‘Stop jeering,’ she said, with sudden anger.
    ‘Not jeering, just laughing. And if I couldn’t laugh at trouble, I’d’ve cut my throat years ago.’
    She stared up at him and thought that he would always fight back by laughing. But what lay behind that laugh? A compassion which life had taught him could come too expensively, or an indifference towards other people’s troubles? She could never be quite sure.
    ‘Carrie, you’ve done ten times as much for her as anyone else in this place, so stop worrying. And just remember something when you’re in danger of getting too upset. It’s always possible that Mabel likes to be kicked around by life.’
    ‘What a damn fool thing to say! You know what she thought of Geoffrey. She’s absolutely beside herself with grief.’
    ‘But she must have realized what kind of bloke he was. And how he’d chase after anything under twenty-five which wore a skirt. So why did she keep after him unless she liked to be hurt?’
    ‘I don’t think I like you very much tonight. Something’s happened to you, hasn’t it? Something not very nice. Has Ramon laid down a deadline for you becoming a partner?’
    He finished his brandy. ‘Carrie, you still have the capacity to amaze me. Who’d imagine that someone so far removed from the more sordid aspects of life would be able to pinpoint them so accurately?’ He looked at his glass, then very casually reached down to his trouser pocket to feel how much money he had left. ‘The next round’s on me,’ she said. He swore silently as he shook his head, but when she looked at him he picked up the glass and went over to the bar.
    ‘What did Ramon say?’ she asked, as he sat down again.
    ‘He wants to expand, he wants a partner who can really work and deal with the English-speaking tourists or residents, and he wants both in a hurry so he can plan for the next season. Can I or can’t I find the million and a half? . . . Very soon, I told him. Not to worry. But he’s a good Mallorquin and won’t believe a word until he’s got the pesetas in his hand.’
    ‘You must let me lend you the half million so that you can persuade a bank to give you the rest.’
    ‘I told you, forget the idea.’
    ‘But it’s ridiculous for you to sit back on your pride. . .’
    ‘You force me to further confessions . . . Despite my previous high-minded refusal of your money, I crept round to two of the local banks and put the proposition to the managers: I find half a million, you lend me a million. Nothing would give us greater pleasure, honoured customer . . . I’ll swear there were tears in their eyes. But money is so very short. All business is difficult and so have I a little security? Say a million pesetas’ worth? I’d have flogged it a long time ago, wouldn’t I? I told ‘em. So very sorry, honoured customer. We’d so have liked to help you . . . Always very polite, you see.’
    ‘Then maybe a third bank will help, or if not, a fourth. There must be one manager around with imagination.’
    ‘I doubt it: imagination isn’t a banking characteristic’ He smiled sardonically, mocking himself ‘In any case, I