Fate Worse Than Death Read Online Free Page A

Good girl –’
    As a parting gesture, he patted her bottom. It was not a form of caress that Lois greatly cared for at the best of times and she particularly disliked it when, as then, it was done absent-mindedly. But she took it as conclusive proof of what he was up to.
    She recognized all the symptoms. He was on the prowl again. Whenever he was dissatisfied and restless, he went looking for excitement with another woman. She minded, of course; but she knew better than to take any of his affairs seriously. Phil was always full of talk, but not much use when it came to action.

Chapter Five
    The Flintknappers Arms opened at ten-thirty in the morning, every day of the week, and closed finally at eleven at night. The Goodwins did all the work themselves, except on Saturday mornings when they employed Beryl Websdell to give the bar room a thorough cleaning.
    They rarely got to bed until well after midnight, and were always up again before seven each morning. There was always so much for both of them to do: last night’s final glasses and dirty ashtrays to be washed, the bar towels to be laundered, the ladies’and men’s lavatories to be swabbed out, everywhere to be cleaned and polished; hot and cold food to be prepared, the bar to be checked and restocked, the till to be cashed up, crates of empty bottles to be heaved out, crates of full bottles to be heaved in. The cellar work alone – disconnecting empty beer casks, cleaning the pipes, connecting full casks – took Phil Goodwin anything up to two hours a day.
    Lois had to fit in her ordinary domestic work in their private quarters as and when she could. One of her grievances about being tied to the bar from ten-thirty to two-thirty was that it was such a waste of her time when she had so much to do elsewhere. In a smaller, more compact building, it might have been possible for her to keep an eye on the bar from her kitchen; at the Flintknappers the two were separated by a lobby, a long passage and four doors. In a more civilized community, the regulars might postpone their visit to the pub until at least noon; in Fodderstone, Charley Horrocks was invariably on the doorstep at opening time every day of the week, every week of the year.
    â€˜Hottest August for half a century or I’ll eat m’hat!’ he boomed as he shambled past Lois on his way to his favourite bar stool. His massive body was clothed in a government-surplus khaki shirt and trousers of voluminous World War II cut, and his features were overshadowed by a solar topee as worn in India in the days of the British Raj. He frequently asserted that the hat had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, the third Earl of Brandon; but everyone in Fodderstone knew perfectly well that Charley had bought it for fifty pence at a village jumble sale.
    â€˜Hottest, or I’ll eat m’hat,’ he repeated as he sank panting on to the stool. His beetroot complexion was glazed with sweat. ‘Eat m’hat,’ he concluded, taking it off to reveal sparse grey hair hanging limp about his ears. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Lois was still at the double doors, fastening them back so as to let in as much air as possible, and having recovered his breath he summoned her by slapping his hand on the counter. ‘Service! Let’s have some service here!’
    Lois should have taken a firm line with him from the first, but she had been over-anxious to please every customer. Now it was too late for her to try to insist on courtesy. She glared at his back, pursed her lips above the pie-frill of her collar, and went round to her side of the bar, silent with a disapproval that Charley failed to notice.
    â€˜â€™Mornin’, m’deah,’ he boomed with lordly affability, as though he had only just seen her. Unlike her husband, he never shouted. He had no need to. He possessed the naturally penetrating voice of the horsey upper classes, having been bred to make