Jack Higgins Read Online Free

wondered just how deep that surface toughness went.
    She heaved herself up on top of a square stone tomb and sat on the edge, legs dangling. “I forgot my cigarettes. Can you oblige?”
    I produced my old silver cigarette case and passed it up. She helped herself and paused before returning it, a slight frown on her face as she examined the lid.
    â€œWhat’s the crest?”
    â€œFleet Air Arm.”
    â€œIs that where you learned to fly?” I nodded and she shook her head. “The worst bit of casting I’ve seen in years. You’re no more a bush pilot than my Uncle Max.”
    â€œShould I be flattered or otherwise?”
    â€œDepends how you look at it. He’s something in theCity—a partner in one of the merchant banking houses I think. Some kind of finance anyway.”
    I smiled. “We don’t all look like Humphrey Bogart you know or Jack Desforge for that matter.”
    â€œAll right,” she said. “Let’s do it the hard way. Why Greenland? There must be other places.”
    â€œSimple—I can earn twice as much here in the four months of the summer season as I could in twelve months anywhere else.”
    â€œAnd that’s important?”
    â€œIt is to me. I want to buy another couple of planes.”
    â€œThat sounds ambitious for a start. To what end?”
    â€œIf I could start my own outfit in Newfoundland and Labrador I’d be a rich man inside five or six years.”
    â€œYou sound pretty certain about that.”
    â€œI should be—I had eighteen months of it over there working for someone else, then six months freelancing. The way Canada’s expanding she’ll be the richest country in the world inside twenty-five years, take my word for it.”
    She shook her head. “It still doesn’t fit,” she said, and obviously decided to try another tack. “You look the sort of man who invariably has a good woman somewhere around in his life. What does she think about all this?”
    â€œI haven’t heard from that front lately,” I said. “The last despatch was from her lawyers and distinctly cool.”
    â€œWhat did she want—money?”
    I shook my head. “She could buy me those two planes and never notice it. No, she just wants her freedom. I’m expecting the good word any day now.”
    â€œYou don’t sound in any great pain.”
    â€œDust and ashes a long, long time ago.” I grinned. “Look, I’ll put you out of your misery. Joe Martin, in three easy lessons. I did a degree in business administration at the London School of Economics and learned to fly with the University Air squadron. I had to do a couple of years National Service when I finished, so I decided I might as well get something out of it and took a short service commission as a pilot with the old Fleet Air Arm. My wife was an actress when I first met her. Bit parts with the Bristol Old Vic. All very real and earnest.”
    â€œWhen did you get married?”
    â€œWhen I came out of the service. Like your Uncle Max, I took a job in the City, in my case Public Relations.”
    â€œDidn’t it work out?”
    â€œVery well indeed by normal standards.” I frowned, trying to get the facts straight in my mind. It all seemed so unreal when you talked about it like this. “There were other things that went wrong. Someone discovered that Amy could sing and before we knew where we were she was making records. From then on it was one long programme of one-night stands and tours, personal appearances—that sort of thing.”
    â€œAnd you saw less and less of each other. An old story in show business.”
    â€œThere seems to be a sort of gradual corruption about success—especially that kind. When you find that you can earn a thousand pounds a week, it’s a short step to deciding there must be something wrong in a husband who can’t make a tenth of that