Shades of Murder Read Online Free Page A

of people who want to rent. Where’s the house?’
    ‘Here in Bamford. It’s my place in Station Road – just an end of terrace early Victorian cottage. It’s not the sort of splendid place you usually deal with, but it’s just been completely redecorated and refurnished.’
    ‘Such a dreadful experience to find your place vandalised like that, as Pam was saying.’ Geoff shook his head in commiseration.
    ‘Yes, it was.’ Meredith couldn’t keep the revulsion from her voice.
    Juliet, only an occasional visitor to the town, asked, ‘What happened? I didn’t hear about this.’
    ‘Someone didn’t like me,’ Meredith said. ‘She thought I’d done her a bad turn. So she did me a bad turn back.’
    ‘Scary,’ said Juliet in sympathy.
    ‘You better believe it. She daubed red paint all over the place and chopped up my clothes. Anyway, since then I’ve been sharing Alan’s place. At first I planned to move straight back in once my house was fit for habitation again, but somehow I don’t fancy it and Alan I have been thinking . . .’ She glanced at Markby.
    ‘That we might look for somewhere together,’ he said. ‘My place was all right for me on my own. It doesn’t really suit the two of us.’
    Meredith thought he sounded just a little defiant, as if people might not believe what he’d said. Those who knew them well had said things like, ‘Thought you two were each too independent,’ or even, ‘It’s taken the pair of you long enough’. With the defiance there was just a touch of satisfaction. He’d got what he wanted. She still didn’t know if it was what she wanted, too.
    Juliet eyed them both, business acumen written all over her. ‘What sort of place do you want?’
    ‘Hang on,’ he protested mildly. ‘Can’t afford your fees.’
    ‘I wasn’t proposing to charge you a fee. I agree, you probably wouldn’t want to pay me what I’d ask. But I hear of things on the market, you know, surplus to my requirements, or my clients’ requirements. I could drop you the word.’
    ‘That’s very decent of you,’ he said.
    Juliet was staring thoughtfully at Meredith. ‘I’ll let you know about your house. I’d need to have a look at it.’
    ‘With pleasure. Let me know when you want the key. It’s near the station if anyone wanted to commute, like me, to the Great Wen every day.’
    ‘Still at the Foreign Office, then?’ asked Juliet.
    ‘Still stuck there at a desk.’ She was aware of an apprehensive glance from Alan. She wondered if he was still afraid, after all this time, that should some mandarin relent and offer her an overseas posting, she’d take it like a shot, be off.
    Would I? she wondered. Is that why I’ve been so unwilling to tie myself into any permanent relationship, even with Alan? He knows, even though we’re at last sharing a roof, that what finally made me move in was my place being rendered temporarily uninhabitable.
    Beside her, Alan was fidgeting. He was backed against a bookcase and wedged there by Meredith on one side and James Holland’s bulky frame on the other. ‘Nice to see you down here from the big city,’ he said to Juliet, easing his elbows free.
    ‘I couldn’t miss the grand house-warming!’ A little ruefully, she added, ‘I also had a business visit to make – to Fourways House.’
    ‘The Misses Oakley?’ Geoff exclaimed. ‘Don’t tell me one of your wealthy Middle-Easterners wants to live at Fourways and is ready to buy out the Oakley ladies with wads of cash?’
    ‘No – A Middle-Eastern client wouldn’t look at the place. It’s far too dilapidated. The reason I went there was because Damaris Oakley wrote to me and asked me to call.’
    She hesitated. ‘It’s hardly a secret that both Damaris and her sister have been struggling for years. They’ve decided to sell up for whatever they can get and move to a suitable retirement flat, preferably on the ground floor and by the seaside. I admit I did look the place over pretty thoroughly