Hell Is Always Today Read Free Page A

them over coolly, unbuttoning her coat with one hand, then sauntered to the other end of the bar and hoisted herself on to a stool. When she crossed her legs, her skirt slid all the way up to her stocking tops. She took a cheap compact from her bag and started to repair the rain damage on her face.
    “There’s someone who doesn’t give a damn for a start,” Faulkner observed.
    Morgan grinned. “Perhaps she doesn’t read the papers. I wonder what the Rainlover would do to her?”
    “I know what I’d like to do to her.”
    Meadows shook his head. “Her kind of custom I can do without.”
    Faulkner was immediately interested. “Is she on the game then?”
    Meadows shrugged. “What do you think?”
    “What the hell, Harry, she needs bread like the rest of us. Live and let live.” Faulkner pushed his glass across. “Give her a drink on me and I’ll have a re-fill while you’re at it.”
    “As you say, Mr. Faulkner.”
    He walked to the other end of the bar and spoke to the young woman who turned, glanced briefly at Faulkner, then nodded. Meadows poured her a large gin and tonic.
    Faulkner watched her closely and Morgan tapped him on the shoulder. “Come on now, Bruno. Don’t start getting involved. We’re late enough as it is.”
    “You worry too much.”
    The girl raised her glass and he toasted her back. She made an appealing, rather sexy picture sitting there on the high stool in her mod outfit and he laughed suddenly.
    “What’s so funny?” Morgan demanded.
    “I was just thinking what a sensation there would be if we took her with us.”
    “To Joanna’s party? Sensation isn’t the word.”
    Faulkner grinned. “I can see the look on Aunt Mary’s weatherbeaten old face now—the mouth tightening like a dried prune. A delightful thought.”
    “Forget it, Bruno,” Morgan said sharply. “Even you couldn’t get away with that.”
    Faulkner glanced at him, the lazy smile disappearing at once. “Oh, couldn’t I?”
    Morgan grabbed at his sleeve, but Faulkner pulled away sharply and moved along the bar to the girl. He didn’t waste any time in preliminaries.
    “All on your own then?”
    The girl shrugged. “I’m supposed to be waiting for somebody.” She had an accent that was a combination of Liverpool and Irish and not unpleasant.
    “Anyone special?”
    “My fiancé.”
    Faulkner chuckled. “Fiancés are only of secondary importance. I should know. I’m one myself.”
    “Is that a fact?” the girl said.
    Her handbag was lying on the bar, a large and ostentatious letter G in one corner bright against the shiny black plastic. Faulkner picked it up and looked at her enquiringly.
    “G for…?”
    “Grace.”
    “How delightfully apt. Well, G for Grace, my friend and I are going on to a party. It occurred to me that you might like to come with us.”
    “What kind of a party?”
    Faulkner nodded towards Morgan. “Let’s put it this way. He’s dressed for it, I’m not.”
    The girl didn’t even smile. “Sounds like fun. All right, Harold can do without it tonight. He should have been here at seven-thirty anyway.”
    “But you weren’t here yourself at seven-thirty, were you?”
    She frowned in some surprise. “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “A girl after my own heart.” Faulkner took her by the elbow and moved towards Morgan who grinned wryly.
    “I’m Jack and he’s Bruno. He won’t have told you that.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
    “Experience…mostly painful.”
    “We can talk in the car,” Faulkner said. “Now let’s get moving.”
    As they turned to the door, it opened and a young man entered, his hands pushed into the pockets of a hip-length tweed coat with a cheap fur collar. He had a narrow white face, long dark hair and a mouth that seemed to be twisted into an expression of perpetual sullenness.
    He hesitated, frowning, then looked enquiringly at the girl. “What gives?”
    Grace shrugged. “Sorry, Harold, you’re too late. I’ve