A Summer of Secrets Read Free Page B

unhelpful comment on to every ringing of the doorbell.
    Momentarily deserting her tea-making duties, she wandered along the hall and pulled open the front door to find Joe, the window cleaner, on the step, come to collect payment for services rendered earlier that day.
    ‘Evening, Miss Rutter. How are you?’ he asked, with a smile that instantly lifted Jenny’s spirits.
    ‘Very well, thank you, Joe,’ she lied, forcing the corners of her own lips upwards. Jenny liked Joe. He had what she termed “a sunny personality”, and he did a brilliant job cleaning the windows. She’d never had to so much as rub a sill down since he’d taken over the round a year or so ago. ‘How’re things with you?’ she asked, reaching for her purse on the hall table. ‘Keeping busy?’
    ‘Snowed under,’ replied the young man, accepting the ten-pound note Jenny handed him. ‘The round’s going from strength to strength.’
    ‘That’s because you do such a good job,’ Jenny replied. ‘No wonder your services are so in demand.’
    A strange sound came from Joe’s throat, which he quickly turned into a cough. ‘Er, thanks,’ he muttered, a flush spreading over his cheeks. ‘Well, I’d best be off. You take care and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.’
    Jenny’s smile widened as she stood in the open doorway, watching Joe lope down the lane. She’d heard a bit of tittle-tattle around the village about his window-cleaning exploits – or should that be
sexploits –
and she couldn’t say she was surprised. He was a good-looking, likeable lad. He should be making the most of his youth; enjoying himself. Savouring every minute of his life because, as Jenny could vouch with authority, it passed you by in the blink of an eye. That depressing thought whirring about her head, she closed the door and headed back into the kitchen to the biscuit barrel.
    ***
    ‘You cannot be serious.’ Echoing the words of an ageing tennis player, Jasper Pinkington-Smythe’s plummy voice raged across the North Atlantic at his sister. ‘I thought Dad was minted.’
    Portia sighed wearily. Despite his advancing years, her brother still acted like a sulky, spoilt adolescent. And although he hadn’t actually said it, his actions had made it blatantly obvious that he viewed their father’s death as nothing more than a minor inconvenience, which had rudely interrupted his long sojourn at a friend’s villa in Cuba. Appearing fleetingly for the funeral, he’d stayed two nights, then flitted off again, leaving Portia to tie up all the loose ends. Of which, she had since discovered, there were many threadbare ones.
    ‘None of us thought money was an issue,’ she explained. ‘But we never gave any consideration to where it came from. A combination of poor investment decisions, low interest rates and excessive spending means lots has been going out, and nothing’s been coming in.’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ seethed Jasper. ‘Well, what am I supposed to do now, with no allowance?’
    The question ignited a dart of red-hot fury in Portia’s gut. ‘For God’s sake, Jasper, you’re forty years old. You’ve milked Dad your entire life. And I hate to say it, but you have to take some responsibility for this state of affairs. Isn’t it about time you got off your backside and went out and found a job? Did something useful for a change? Like normal people.’
    ‘But I’m not normal,’ he whinged. ‘And I can’t do anything. Who’s going to give me a job? No, there’s nothing else for it. We’ll have to sell Buttersley Manor.’
    Portia’s fury intensified. ‘Over my dead body! There is no way we’re selling the manor,’ she spat. Before jabbing the end call button.
    Shaking with rage, tears rolling down her cheeks, she wandered out onto the balcony of her Canary Wharf apartment. Despite it being June, the afternoon was dull, the grey sky heavy with the threat of rain. Dressed in only a T-shirt and cotton skirt, her long legs bare, she shivered