Read Online XPD by Len Deighton - Free Book Online Page A

with, but now he could see her with clearer vision.
    ‘Daddy has been quite wonderful!’
    ‘Sending me to California, you mean?’
    ‘Isn’t that supposed to be secret?’ she said. There was no mistaking the rebuke. She stabbed a small section of dry lettuce and put it into her tiny mouth. She never ate food that might dribble down her chin or drip on to her clothes. That was how she always managed to look so groomed and clean.
    ‘I have no secrets from you, Jennifer,’ said Boyd Stuart.
    She looked, up from her plate and smiled to acknowledge that her ex-husband had won the exchange. ‘You haven’t come across that inlaid snuff box, I suppose?’
    ‘I’m sure it’s not in the flat, Jenny.’
    ‘Nor the gold watch?’
    ‘No,’ said Stuart.
    ‘It’s inscribed “Elliot” … an old watch, a gold hunter.’
    ‘You’ve asked me a dozen times, Jenny. I’ve searched high and low for it.’ In response to Stuart’s signal the waiter served coffee.
    ‘I’ve brought a list,’ she said. She reached into her Hermès bag for a small leather pad and gold pencil. He had always dreaded those little lists which she presented to him. There were shopping lists and reading lists, appointment lists and, only too often, lists of jobs that others had to complete for her. ‘I found the photo of mummy in the silver frame,’ she said, carefully deleting that from the list of possessions before passing it to him. ‘Jennifer Ryden’ was engraved at the top of the sheet of watermarked paper and the handwriting was neat and orderly without errors. ‘It’s the gold watch that is most important,’ she added. ‘That detective story book is from the London Library; if we can’t find it, I shall simply have to pay them … Did you look in the tiny drawer in the dressing table, the one that sticks?’
    ‘I’ve told you, Jennifer, if you don’t believe I’m capable of finding these odds and ends, you can look around yourself. You still have your key.’
    She gave a theatrical shiver. ‘Seeing all the furniture and things would bring all the horrors back to me.’
    ‘You’ve taken most of the furniture,’ said Boyd Stuart, ‘and the bedroom and the hall have been redecorated.’
    ‘It was daddy’s watch. He’s so attached to it. I do wish you would have a proper look.’ She tipped her head to one side and gave him her most winsome smile.
    ‘Are you meeting someone?’
    She swung round to see out of the window. There was a spindly young fellow waiting outside. He looked like the sort of young man Jennifer had always had to carry parcels, hail taxis and hold umbrellas over her. His checked cap was pulled low over his eyebrows and he wore a regimental tie and a well-cut suit. He saw Jennifer getting to her feet and waved to her. She didn’t wave back. ‘Now don’t just say you’ll look for them,’ she said, touching the sheet of paper, ‘and please arrange for someone to forward my mail.’
    ‘Jennifer, darling,’ said Boyd Stuart, ‘divorcing you is going to make me the happiest man in the world.’
    ‘That’s loutish,’ said Jennifer Ryden, using one of her favourite terms of disapproval.
    ‘I am a lout,’ said Boyd Stuart. ‘I’ve always been a lout.’
    ‘Well, don’t be a lout about daddy’s gold watch,’ she said.
    ‘I’ll search for it,’ said Boyd Stuart.
    She looked at him as she drew the fur coat over her shoulders, and felt bound to offer an explanation. ‘It has sentimental value. Mummy and daddy are furious with me for losing it.’
    ‘Jennifer, you didn’t let yourself into the flat and force open that antique desk of mine, did you?’
    ‘Boyd! How could you suggest such a thing?’
    She glanced at herself in the mirror and touched her hair in a gesture which reminded Stuart of her father. She kissed him goodbye but, heedful of her lipstick, she did not allow their lips to touch. Boyd Stuart watched her as she walked out, saw the effect she had upon the eager young man