A Species of Revenge Read Free

was magnificent. On a clear day you could see the Rotunda in Birmingham.
    â€˜And that reminds me, Mr Voss,’ Mrs Burgoyne went on swiftly, ‘did you pull that door smartly to, as I told you? I didn’t hear you, come to think of it, and if you didn’t, it won’t have closed properly. Mr Fitzallan won’t be pleased to come home and find his front door wide open, I can tell you. It’s these little things that count.’
    Dermot, restless, chafing under the weight of all this instruction, running his hand through his black curls, smiled disarmingly and admitted ruefully that he couldn’t remember.
    â€˜I’ll go up and check,’ Sarah offered, looking at her watch. ‘You’d better get off, hadn’t you, if you want to get Mrs Burgoyne to the station to catch her train?’
    Dermot flashed her a relieved smile. ‘I’ll be about half an hour, then I’ll take you and the children straight to the hotel – we’re staying at the Saracen’s Head for a couple of nights, Mrs Burgoyne. An early night for all of us seems indicated in view of what we’ve to face in the next few days.’
    â€˜Monday’s when your furniture arrives, isn’t it?’ Mrs Burgoyne asked, eyeing Sarah, clearly not equating a short skirt and bare legs with someone capable of dealing with the removal, as though she would dearly have loved to superintend it personally to prevent anything going wrong. But finally, with a last sharp look round, though with what seemed to Sarah an ultimately unregretful eye, she departed with Dermot for the train which was to carry her to retirement in her south-coast bungalow.
    Sarah checked that the children were still safely and happily occupied – Allie, for one, was dreamily accident prone, seeming destined to go through life permanently sticking-plastered somewhere about her person; a recently broken collar bone and a small chip off one of her permanent front teeth from a fall off her bicycle was present testimony to this.
    She ran up the two flights of stairs to the attic flat, to find its front door was, after all, closed. But when she leaned her hand against it, it gave against her weight, and swung open. Before giving it the required slam, natural curiosity made her step forward a few paces and take a look round the room. Mrs Burgoyne certainly hadn’t spread herself here with regard to the furniture. The few cheap and unmistakably second-hand, unrelated pieces added nothing to the room’s character, nondescript with all-over, porridge-coloured paint and a curtainless window. This wasn’t, however, the big, ugly protruding window at the side, with its vaunted view. Evidently, this room in which she was standing was the first of two rooms, and the window in question was in the second one, through the opposite door. She felt a sudden urge to see it for herself, curious to know whether you really could see as far as the Birmingham Bull Ring ... She walked across and tried the door handle.
    â€˜It’s locked.’
    She whipped round. A man stood in the doorway. Mr Fitzallan, I presume. She had a feeling he’d been standing there for some time, and she was distinctly put out to know that guilty colour had flown to her cheeks, to hear herself stumbling apologies like an adolescent schoolgirl. He had, after all, given his permission for the flat to be inspected. If not by her.
    â€˜I – didn’t hear you coming up the stairs.’
    He inclined his head, not deigning to reply to this fatuously obvious statement. Mrs Burgoyne’s warning had conjured up an elderly fusspot, a cantankerous, intolerant person. Looking at him, she saw no reason to change her opinion, except in regard to age. In his mid-forties, maybe, over six foot, wide-shouldered with tousled dark hair, wearing a beautiful slate-blue silk shirt and an unstructured suit in cream linen, polished loafers. Casually cool and elegant in a