Deadly Petard Read Online Free

the heart, she’d offered him some of what remained of the Mars Bar. He’d broken off about two-thirds for himself.
    His motto in life had always been a simple one: what’s yours, we share; what’s mine, stays mine. Once, she’d complained about his selfishness. He’d jeered at her and then she hadn’t seen him for days and the loneliness taught her not to complain again.
    He’d always had a precocious curiosity: a desire which was almost a need to poke his nose into everything in case he might find something of advantage to himself. So when she’d told him that her father was carrying out experiments in a room always kept locked, and that if these experiments were successful he’d make a fortune, Keir had demanded to see the room . . .
    Her father had been out. She could remember getting the key from the kitchen drawer: leading the way along the dark, narrow corridor which smelled of mildew: putting the key in the lock, turning it, and opening the door: Keir pushing past her . . . But then there was a blank and no matter how much she tried to break through the mental fog she could remember nothing more until he was screaming and shrieking that she’d killed him by spilling the acid over him.
    Her father, shocked that by disobeying him she’d been responsible for causing such injuries, had forced her to go to the hospital. Keir, lying in the end bed in the children’s ward, had told her that the pain was so terrible he kept fainting. He didn’t faint while she was there. That night she had lain in bed and prayed that she could be hurt as terribly as he’d been hurt by her, so that by her suffering his could be relieved. She had failed to experience any blinding outburst of pain.
    Time had blunted her sense of guilt and increasing age had enabled her to realize that logically one could not realistically be held responsible for an accident which had happened when one was young: but her need to make amends, in so far as this was possible, had grown no less. When he wanted her to do something, she did it. Her father, casual enough over most things, had taught her a set of old-fashioned values: to steal was totally wrong. Yet when Keir had needed her as an accomplice, she had helped him steal . . . And, seemingly perversely, she had refused to make friends with others of her own age. Perhaps, subconsciously, she’d realized that had she done so, she’d have gained a far more balanced outlook and then wouldn’t have been nearly so ready to follow him . . .
    Her first job had been as a trainee shop assistant. Her first wage packet had been shared with him. (One could hardly have expected him not to take advantage of the circumstances.)
    Her father had died suddenly and very soon afterwards Keir had left the neighbourhood, with no one knowing or caring where he’d gone. She’d experienced a crushing loneliness, but by now she found it almost impossible to make friends. Personal relationships of any depth seemed to be beyond her.
    Not quite by accident, yet neither by design, she’d discovered that she had a considerable talent for painting. Her father had often told her that his grandfather had been a famous painter and she’d discounted such a story because he was a great romanticist, but she’d suddenly begun to wonder whether he had, after all, been telling the truth. She’d had a few lessons from a man in Wealdsham who’d possessed some technique but little talent, but who had possessed the ability, and generosity of artistic spirit, to recognize talent in others. He’d encouraged her when her self-doubts had threatened to prevent her fulfilling her early promise and it was he who’d persuaded her to apply for a grant to go to an art school—something she would never have done if left to herself.
    Three months after leaving art school, she’d sold her first painting: four years after that she’d been making a reasonable living: and one year later Keir had re-entered her life.
    He’d developed a slick