In The Garden Of Stones Read Free

how you did it? Probably not, because you’ll be
so self satisfied with your 'success', you won’t even notice that
you’ve destroyed the peg in the process.
    “– would you like some, Grace?”
    His
question shatters the silence like a brick through a glass window,
startling her out of her skin.
    “ Wha’? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
    “ I said I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready for my
mid-afternoon caffeine fix. Would you like some coffee? Or
tea?”
    “ Erm … coffee, please. If it’s no trouble.”
    “ None at all. How do you take it? Black? Milk? Cream?
Sugar?”
    “ Cream no sugar, please.”
    “ Want something to eat? Sandwich? Biscuit?”
    After a
meagre breakfast of soggy cereal, sweaty toast and cold tea, and
lunch consisting of a bowl of tepid soup and roll so stale it could
have been used as a cobble stone, she’s starving, and the mere
thought of coffee and biscuits makes her stomach rumble.
    Mal
smiles and points at her, index finger and thumb cocked like a gun.
“I know what you’d like.”
    He
scrambles to his feet and pokes his head through the door to have a
word with his secretary in the outer office. When he returns he
flops down into his chair with a sigh, for all the world as if he’s
settling down to watch football on the television. He looks so
relaxed that his ease bleeds into her. Grace feels a smile touching
her lips. She didn’t put it there, he did, and with it comes the
first tickle of trust. She might be ready to talk after
all.
    “ Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself, Grace?” he
says. “Nothing much. Only what you’re comfortable with. Name, rank
and serial number. We’ll call it an icebreaker.”
    She tips
her head toward the folder lying on the coffee table. “It’s all in
my file.”
    “ I haven’t read it.”
    “ That’s a bit remiss of you. Forewarned is forearmed, don’t
they say.”
    “ I didn’t read your file because they are not my notes in there, and
I don’t want my findings tainted by someone else’s preconceptions.
I like to do my learning first hand. I would prefer you to offer me
information willingly and let me make up my own mind, not have it
made up for me.”
    “ What you see is what you get,” she says. “Move along.
Nothing to see here.”
    His
smile broadens. “I doubt that very much.”
    “ Okay, bare facts. Grace Elizabeth Dove, age 34 and three
quarters, single, mentally unbalanced, former interior decorator
with my own –”
    A knock
on the door interrupts, and Mal calls over his shoulder. “Come
in!”
    The door
opens and his secretary enters, carrying a tray laden with a
cafetiere, two mugs, a jug of cream, a small dish of pale brown
crystals, and a plate with two plain digestive biscuits sitting
alongside a pair of red and gold oblongs. Tunnock’s tasty caramel
wafers. Grace’s favourite. How did he know?
    The
woman sets the tray down on the occasional table and depresses the
plunger on the cafetiere.
    “ Thank you, Denise.”
    When
Denise has gone, Mal plays 'mother', pouring coffee into the mugs
and topping it up with cream from the jug. He digs the spoon into
the dish, drawing out a little pile of sugar, halting before he
tips it into Grace’s mug.
    “ Oh, you said no sugar, didn’t you,” he says, diverting it
to his own mug. “Sweet enough, eh?
    A second spoonful follows the first and he gives both mugs
a thorough stir with the teaspoon, before tinging it on the side, a high pitched
annoying noise that sets Grace’s teeth on edge.
    He
offers the unsweetened drink to Grace. “There you go. See how that
suits you.”
    She
takes it and risks an experimental sip. It’s hot, aromatic and
quite delicious. No supermarket bargain brand this.
    “ It’s really nice. Thank you.”
    “ If something’s worth having, have the best you can afford,”
he says. “And good coffee is always worth having, don’t you
think?”
    “ Yes. Yes I do.”
    He
settles back in his chair. “You were