The Ambiguity of Murder Read Free

the bottle without spilling a drop. ‘The barman at the Ritz couldn’t have done better.’ She filled the two flutes, handed him one, carried the second across to an armchair and sat. She stared through the French windows. Because the house and garden were on a slight downward slope, there was a view across to the Estart Caves. In a nearby field, pink almond blossom provided a swirl of colour. Jane had told her that pink trees produced bitter almonds and to eat too many of these was dangerous because they contained prussic acid. She’d fantasized about buying a couple of kilos and feeding them to Jerome, but couldn’t forget that Jane was a font of misinformation … To look at the fields, the hills, the mountains, and the blue sky, was to recall Sunbury-by-the-river: here, all was beauty; there, all had been ugliness and even the river had been more like a sewer …
    â€˜What are you thinking?’ he demanded.
    â€˜How lovely it is here.’
    â€˜Where it isn’t ruined.’
    She drained her glass. ‘Would you like a refill before I go through to get lunch?’
    â€˜If you want.’
    She stood, moved the occasional table with the champagne on nearer to him so that he could reach it, refilled his glass, said: ‘By the way, I should be back for tea, but if I’m not I’ll leave everything ready so that you have only to put the machine on the stove for coffee.’
    â€˜What are you talking about? Back from where? Where d’you think you’re going?’
    She said lightly: ‘I told you earlier, bunnikins; before I went out to do the shopping.’
    â€˜You didn’t tell me anything.’
    She moved until she could bend down and nuzzle his cheek. ‘I promise you I did. You were just too busy thinking great thoughts to make a note of what I told you.’
    â€˜What’s it all about?’
    â€˜Theo’s picking me up at half past two, which is why we’re having a slightly early lunch.’
    â€˜Why are you always going out with that little toad?’
    â€˜You’re always nasty about him!’
    â€˜I call a spade, a spade.’
    â€˜But he’s so amusing. And he knows nearly everyone so that through him we meet more people.’
    â€˜If they’re his friends, I don’t want to.’
    â€˜Aren’t you being just a little old-fashioned?’
    â€˜Nothing wrong with that.’
    â€˜But things have changed so. I mean, these days people can do their own thing and no one worries.’
    â€˜Which is why England’s become a sink.’ He drank deeply. ‘Still, if you’re out with him, I know what you’re not doing.’
    That was very amusing, but she was careful not to smile.
    *   *   *
    Theodore Lockhart enjoyed nothing more than raising someone’s hackles, most especially when that someone was one of the stuffier expatriates. He had a sharp mind, a spiteful character, and a wide knowledge of modern art. He dressed with expensive taste, sported a gold Boucheron and an ornate gold medallion, drove a BMW, lived in a large flat overlooking the bay, and always claimed to be as poor as a church mouse because that caused considerable speculation as to whom was financing him.
    He braked to a halt in front of Ca’n Jerome and hooted twice. The front door opened and as Karen came out and down the two steps on to the gravel, he studied her with approval. She had an attractive face and knew how to make the best of it, a slim, shapely figure which she took care to highlight without being too obvious, could talk intelligently, and was a bitch.
    She opened the front passenger door and climbed in, sat.
    â€˜How is his excellency this shining day?’ he asked.
    She clicked her seat belt home. ‘More boorish than ever because he thinks he’s dying.’
    â€˜Life is seldom that generous.’ He drove round in a circle, headed for the gateway.