Nothing Like Blood Read Online Free Page B

longed to ask ‘What amount? ‘but resisted it.
    â€œWhen it came out it was quite a shock. Nothing for him, though he had all the life insurance which, by what I can hear, is a good many thousand pounds. She couldn’t leave that away from him because it was in his name all along, but all the rest she did. Even that Miss Grissell, being an old friend of hers—well, school-friends they were—got I don’t know how many thousands, and she didn’t forget Jerrison and me. Not by a nice sum, she didn’t. That’s what’s caused a lot of the talk.
    â€œHe’s never said a word out of place, though. Mr Mallister, I mean.’ It was Lydia’s money,’ he told Mrs Derosse, ‘and it was for her to decide what she wanted to do with it. She knew I was amply provided for by the insurance on her life, for which we had been paying an enormous premium.’ No, he’s never said a word against her, fromwhat I’ve been told. But I thought her will was spiteful. Really I did. She only made it a month or two before she died.”
    I was assimilating all this so eagerly that I had not noticed we were coming into the outskirts of Belstock.
    â€œYou know what it was, don’t you? “A rhetorical question, I thought, if ever there was one. “It was him going about with that Esmée Welton. That’s what put her back up. I don’t know whether they thought she didn’t know, or what, but they were running off together morning, noon and night …”
    â€œNight?” I questioned bravely.
    â€œWell, quite late enough, it was. He works in a bank in Belstock and she’s manageress of a shop I’ll show you presently, so it’s ten to one they used to meet here every day. And she must have got to hear. I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t that Sonia told her, because she and Mrs Mallister got very thick towards the end. Oh, very thick, they got. Sonia was up in her room at all hours. Well, here we are at the bus stop and I don’t suppose you want to hear all this. Only you did ask whether things hadn’t changed since your friends were here and I had to tell you.”
    â€œOf course I want to hear, Mrs Jerrison. It’s all most interesting. I wonder whether perhaps you’d have tea with me, if there’s somewhere nice? Then you can tell me all about it.”
    â€œTo tell you the truth, it’s a relief to, because my husband won’t talk about it, and there are times when I have to say something or bust with what’s going on, and there’s no one up there I feel like talking to about it. Yes, there’s a nice café on the front. The Sunnyside, it’s called. Not two minutes from here. What I was going to say is that Sonia very likely put a spoke in, hoping for something herself, I daresay, though, if so, she was disappointed. It turned out this last will was made before she got so thick with Mrs Mallister, else there might have been.”
    â€œBut, Mrs Jerrison,” I managed to interpolate, “Mrs Mallister died quite naturally …”
    â€œIf you
call
that natural,” conceded Mrs Jerrison. “It was her heart, they said, and the doctor gave a certificate straight away. Well, so it may have been her heart, but that’s not to say someone didn’t do something to help things on a little, is it? This is the Sunnyside. Nice, isn’t it? It’s kept by three ladies and they make ever such nice cakes and that. I mean there are heart attacks and heart attacks, aren’t there? And no one knew about this new will, from what I’ve been told.”
    â€œAre you really suggesting that Mrs Mallister was murdered?”
    â€œI wouldn’t go as far as to say that. Not in S Q many words. But I’d like to know what
is
going on in that house if something didn’t happen. I mean you can see for yourself the way they carry on. All looking at one another as