Duffy Read Online Free

Stanley knife.”’
    Bayliss looked up and smiled in a self-satisfied way; then he nodded to Willett, who dug in his notebook and quoted back Mrs McKechnie’s words: ‘“Something like ‘Time for Stanley’”.’
    Bayliss still looked pleased with himself. McKechnie couldn’t imagine why the neutralisation of one of the very few clues Bayliss had should afford him any pleasure. Bayliss explained,
    ‘Well, before we were looking for everyone called Stanley. Now we’re only looking for people with Stanley knives. It must increase our chances a little.’
    McKechnie didn’t know if he was being flippant or simply foolish.
    The following week Bayliss and Willett came up to McKechnie’s Rupert Street office. They were shown in by his new secretary, Belinda. He’d deliberately told the agency that he wanted a really efficient girl because he was fed up with tarts in short skirts who doubled the size of his Tipp-Ex bill and tried to make up for it by flashing their panties at him when they were filing. The agency understood what he was saying, wrote ‘Religious’ on the back of his card in their private shorthand, and sent him Belinda, a girl with a slight limp who wore a huge silver cross between her breasts as if to ward off sweaty male hands. McKechnie was happy with her, even though she wasn’t noticeably more efficient than the girls who cutely pointed their gussets at him on their first afternoon.
    As Bayliss arrived, he asked casually how long Belinda had worked there; but McKechnie was already prepared for that. He always had temps, he said, because he found them more reliable, and it wasn’t hard to master the work, and he sometimes closed down the office for a few weeks, and anyway, the office was too small to risk getting stuck with a secretary you didn’t get along with. Oh, he got them from all sorts of temp agencies – sometimes one, sometimes another; he couldn’t even remember where he’d got Belinda from – they could ask her if they wanted to. His previous secretary’s name? Oh, Sheila, and before that, Tracy, and before that, oh, Millie or something.
    When Bayliss and Willett left, McKechnie felt as if he had just pulled off a deal. He walked up to Bianchi’s and treated himself to the best the kitchen could offer, just to show how pleased he was with himself.
    The next week he got the first phone call. Belinda told him that there was a Mr Salvatore on the line.
    ‘Mr McKechnie?
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And how are you today?’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘Quite sure you’re all right?’
    ‘Yes, quite. What can I do for you?’ These immigrants did go on a bit – thought it was all part of British civility. McKechnie knew one Greek retailer who, by the time he got to the end of all his preliminary bowing and scraping, had usually forgotten what he was ringing about. Then he had to ring back with his order later.
    ‘And your wife, Mr McKechnie, is she well?’
    McKechnie bridled, though the man’s tone hadn’t changed. ‘She’s fine. What can I do for you?’
    ‘Because where I come from, we have a saying – a man’s wife is the centrepiece of his table. Don’t you think that is a pretty phrase, a gallant phrase?’
    McKechnie hung up. Whoever the man was, he could either come to the point or bugger off. Besides, McKechnie wanted a little time to think what might be going on.
    He didn’t get it. The phone went again almost at once, and Belinda said apologetically,
    ‘You’re reconnected, Mr McKechnie. Sorry you got cut off, one of mythats must have slipped.’ That was the sort of secretary you got nowadays – the old sort, and even some of the gusset-flashers, at least knew when they’d cut you off. This lot didn’t know whether they had or not; they merely assumed – and it was a correct assumption – that they had.
    ‘Terrible, this telephone system of yours, Mr McKechnie,’ said the voice. ‘They tell me it all went wrong with nationalisation, but of course I do not remember that