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.She soon regretted it.Comings and goings at all hours of the night.Keeping his room locked all the time.And that horrible smell, like someone had opened a butcher’s shop on the landing.She watched him creep furtively around in the back garden, then climb over into Mr Henderson’s.It was dark, and her eyesight wasn’t as sharp as it used to be, so as he crept towards the back wall she couldn’t quite make out what he was doing.He seemed to crouch down at Mr Henderson’s conifers, then to disappear, so she assumed he had gone in behind them.Then he emerged again, stood up and headed quickly back towards the guest house.As she wasn’t a nosy person, she thought no more of it.She had seen many more suspicious things in the back gardens at night – everything from sleepwalking to unmentionable behaviour by that seemingly respectable and middle-aged Italian couple – and knew it was wisest to just turn a blind eye.But then a couple of days later old Mr Henderson came round with a tear in his eye and told her he had found Ruffle.She said nothing as he led her, seemingly inevitably, to the conifers, and pointed out the part of the wall from where the stone had fallen, telling her not to look behind the small trees lest the sight upset her.When he apologised and claimed it was his fault for not keeping the dry-stone dike in good order, she told him not to be silly and that she didn’t blame him in the least.And when he offered to bury Ruffle there she thanked him for relieving her of an unpleasant task, then silently walked back home, around Mr Henderson’s house, along past the front gardens and in through her front door.There was a large brown envelope sitting behind the storm door in the porch, addressed to Mr J Bond, obviously dropped off by hand, going by the absence of postage stamps.She took the envelope to the kitchen and for the first time in her life opened someone else’s mail.It contained a pair of black leather gloves, a packet of black hair colouring, and a copy of that day’s Evening Capital.She unfolded it and noticed a faint black ring around part of the main picture on the front page.Opening the paper, she found that the faint mark was the reverse of a harsher ring in heavy felt pen on page two, around a story headlined: Ponsonby murder: cops seek nine-fingered fiend.She put on her glasses and read on: Police investigating the brutal murder of City doctor Jeremy Ponsonby today stated that they were looking for a nine-fingered man in connection with the crime.In a fresh appeal for new information, Inspector Hector McGregor (52), who is leading the investigation, said that the man they were looking for is at least 6’5” tall, has brown hair with silver highlights, and is missing his right index finger, which was lost during the murder.Mrs Kinross replaced the items and re-sealed the envelope, then put it back where she found it on the porch.***‘It’s fish for dinner, Mr Bond,’ she said cheerily, emerging from the kitchen as he came along the hallway, heading for the stairs with the envelope in his arms.‘Would you like batter or breadcrumbs?’Mr Bond just stared at her for a moment, then muttered ‘batter – an’ I wannit in me room,’ and lumbered up the stairs, where he opened his envelope and cursed that stuck-up cunt who didn’t think he’d be smart enough to have already been wearing gloves.Mrs Kinross went back to the kitchen and prepared Mr Bond’s fish, using a special batter enhanced by the powdery contents of several sleeping capsules from the bottle left by that jumpy Austrian woman last year.NINETEENAs oily creeps go, Clive Medway was deluxe multigrade.If he had been American, Parlabane decided, he would have had a ponytail, even though he was losing it both at the front and on top.He had the roundest head Parlabane had seen outside of Peanuts, above a shiny blue tie and a designer suit which conclusively proved that shelling out a fortune for your clothes doesn’t stop you looking like a complete tit.He had a whiny, nasal voice which frequently degenerated into a whiny, nasal laugh at his own witticisms, or insincere chuckling at anyone else’s.He made Parlabane want to take a shower to wash his presence off, but he felt slightly guilty thinking all these uncomplimentary thoughts, as Clive was introducing him to numerous ‘important’ people and firmly instructing them to tell Parlabane absolutely anything he wanted to know.He took Parlabane on a brief tour of the administration block first, explaining which office dealt with which aspect of running the Trust, and allowing him to familiarise himself with the layout of the place.‘Impressive facilities, great decor,’ Parlabane said, passing another minor brushland of potted plants.‘It’s important to have the right environment for people to work in, I think.’‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Clive replied.‘You can’t expect trained professionals to work in a pig-sty, can you? Ha-ha-ha.You have to show personnel that they are valued and respected if you want them to be team players.’‘I wouldn’t imagine all this was cheap, but it’s certainly money well spent,’ Parlabane offered, reeling him in.‘Well, it couldn’t be cheap.This is the corporate face of the Trust, the business image we project to the marketplace.It wouldn’t impress anyone out there for us to look impoverished [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]