Pix (Volume Book 24) (Harpur & Iles Mysteries) Read Free Page A

or Indian, simply decide and let me know – chutneys, garlic bread, anything.’
    Shale often drove the Jaguar himself these days following the extremely problematical death of his chauffeur, Denzil. * He’d have to speed a bit to make the Severalponds meeting at six o’clock. That search of the rectory and then the conversation with Hilaire Chandor had been necessary but they messed up Manse’s timetable. He always liked to be at Severalponds ahead of Sybil and the children, as a courtesy factor, and because he did not want them wandering unaccompanied in the service station building.
    He went back to the naked drawing-room wall safebefore starting out and fully loaded one of the Heckler and Koch automatics, then waist-holstered it. Lately, he’d begun to prefer this to shoulder harness. Unless you had some shapeless bloody anorak on, a shoulder holster would generally produce a bulge and scream ‘Gun aboard!’ But a jacket covered the waist weapon without no evidence of it.
    He liked to dress in decent style when going to Severalponds. It gave a ceremonial flavour. As a matter of fact, he had a couple of made-to-measure Paul Mixtor-Hythe suits himself. Sybil and the children must not see he came armed on a family occasion such as this. That would brand him so damn thuggish and jumpy, like someone who had a job with Hilaire Wilfrid Chandor. Manse always did go armed on these Severalponds runs. This was no exceptional precaution tonight – not brought on only through that trouble at the rectory and the call to Chandor. Shale never felt at ease in service stations. The crowds and the wide-openness of the car park and the restaurants worried him. That had been so even before Chandor showed off all his dirty research earlier. And so, tool up as standard. They had put a jolly sort of country-scene name on this place, Severalponds, because in old times there must of been several ponds here and maybe tadpoles and ducks and other Nature elements, but that did not make it harmless now. They wanted to seem relaxed – not Threeponds or Eightponds, but Several, like ‘Who’s counting?’
    The regularity of these rendezvous – a mistake. Manse had known that. But he would hate to scare Sybil or the children by suggesting they should constantly switch venues, which would have been wiser. Severalponds it must be. Otherwise, he could imagine Sybil going back to that potter or vet she lived with and saying in bed, when winding down and canoodling in a domestic style after intimacy, yes, telling him how right she had been to quit someone in the illegal substances trade whose profession made him frightened all the time that he or she or the children might get wiped out, or all of them. Tears seriously blurred Manse’s eyes as he visualized that bed sceneand imagined the conversation, and he brought the Jaguar down to 40 mph for a few miles on the motorway.
    Of course, he had to think what might be behind as well as ahead. Chandor’s information on the Severalponds meetings must of come by someone tailing the Jaguar previous. Manse realized he had been so dreamy and slack about watching the rear-view mirror on these trips. That was something Denzil would never of done. He really knew the tricks of driving, although sometimes he refused to wear the chauffeuring cap Shale bought. Manse did a lot of mirror now, but what point? There’d be no need to tail him today. Chandor knew everything, didn’t he, even though he’d had such a short time to discover it. Shale thought he could understand part of Chandor’s game, but not all. Why put on display in that phone talk so much of what he’d dug out re Manse and his family? And then that disgusting raid at the rectory. Had some of Chandor’s animals really gone wild, beyond his instructions and wishes,
against
his instructions and wishes, thieving and, as an extra, attacking each other, resulting in a death?