Troubled Deaths Read Free Page A

pity you don’t run the world for it would be a much happier place if you did.’
    She laughed. ‘I don’t know about that - I think it would most likely blow up in total confusion . . . But one thing’s for sure. It’s all arranged that you should join Ramon as a partner.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Maybe nothing.’ She reached across the table and put her hand on his. ‘Something will turn up, I can feel it in my bones. And they never, ever lie.’
     

 
CHAPTER III
    At the time of their sudden deaths, Caroline’s parents had been married for twenty-four years and during the whole of that time they had found no cause to regret anything. She had never heard them have a row and even their arguments had always been reasonably light-hearted. For years, she had thought all marriages were more or less like theirs and she had been quite shocked to discover that most weren’t: shocked because she knew that happiness was more important than anything else in the world.
    To be ready to, even to want to, believe the best of anyone and everyone was, in an age of growing cynicism, not only unusual but also not without possible dangerous consequences. But she was protected from such dangers by a keen sense of humour, a fund of common sense which allowed her to recognize rottenness when she met it, and an inner strength not immediately apparent. When the PC had called at the house to break the news that her parents had been killed in a very bad crash, she had naturally been totally shocked. But instead of giving way to her grief and demanding help, the kind of help which comes from accepting support from the strength of others, she had fought her own battles and, dry-eyed, had faced the world which had suddenly turned so black.
    When it was all over, she’d decided to give herself a complete break by returning for the winter to where she and her parents had had the happiest of their many holidays. As any cynic would have told her, this must prove disastrous - the one unvarying rule of travel is, never return . . . And on top of that, there would be all the painful associations . . . She returned and found the peace and beauty she had remembered and when she thought about her parents it was not with a throat-tightening sorrow, but with a sense of thankfulness that they had been permitted to die together after having known so much love together.
    She’d first met Mabel Cannon at a cocktail party given by an ex-property tycoon between wives. She’d noticed the lumpy, awkward, badly-dressed woman who sat in a cane chair at the far end of the immense sitting-room and typically she had immediately felt sorry for this person to whom nobody could be bothered to speak. She’d gone straight over and introduced herself. Initially, Mabel had been suspicious of Caroline’s motives, but her sincerity had been too obviously genuine to be misinterpreted, even by a very lonely woman who was always, in the company of the rich, the successful, the good-looking, and the well connected, all too painfully aware of her own very limited attractions.
    Her suspicions allayed, Mabel had responded to the younger woman’s friendship with a gratitude that could have been embarrassing. Had it been directed towards anyone else, there would undoubtedly have been speculation whether there was a lesbian base to it, but not even the sharpest tongue in the area - and few came sharper – suggested such a thing. So great was Mabel’s gratitude that had Caroline gone to her and asked for a loan of one and a half million pesetas for herself, she would have given it without question. But, knowing this, Caroline felt in honour bound to explain precisely what she wanted the money for.
    Mabel shifted in the armchair and crossed her legs, careless about the way in which the pleated skirt revealed her thick thighs. She riddled with the arm of the chair, where one of the cords of the material had frayed. She was no more concerned about the way in which the house was furnished