Sicken and So Die Read Online Free Page A

thought made him feel guilty. There was a tiny pang of disloyalty to Frances, with whom he’d made tender and extended love the night before. Obviously his wife’s body had to give Sally Luther’s twenty years, but it was still looking pretty terrific. And, he concluded virtuously after a covert look at Talya Northcott slipping into her costume, I don’t fancy that really young one at all. Neat little figure, nice blonde hair maybe, but it doesn’t do a thing for me.
    Goodness, thought Charles Paris, I am changing. If this goes on, I’ll soon be positively uxorious.
    Gavin Scholes came bustling into the office. ‘OK, are you set? The press – such as they are – are all here, and we’re ready to go.’

Chapter Three
    â€˜. . . BUT PERHAPS the Shakespeare is the jewel in our crown – though of course the Great Wensham Festival is a crown of many jewels – as you will be able to see from the press releases that are on the table over there. Anyway, we of the Festival Society are absolutely delighted to welcome, for the third year running. Asphodel Productions. I’m sure you all enjoyed their
Midsummer Night’s Dream
and
As You Like It
and I am confident that we can look forward to the same qualities of robust storytelling in this year’s
Twelfth Night
– whose performance, incidentally, is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Mutual Rel –’
    At a warning cough from a dark-haired woman beside him, the Festival Director, Julian Roxborough-Smith, hastily corrected himself. ‘– of a variety of national and local businesses which you will find listed in the press release. I would also like to acknowledge at this point the invaluable contribution made by Hertfordshire Arts Network, without which the scope of the Great Wensham Festival would be considerably less broad.
    â€˜As you see, some members of the
Twelfth Night
cast have been good enough to join us today. Yes, they are in costume – those aren’t their normal street clothes.’ A little pause for the even littler joke. No reaction. ‘But before we become more informal and you get a chance to chat to them, I’m going to call on
Twelfth Night
’s director to say a few words about the production. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, will you please welcome Mr Gavin Scholes.’
    â€˜Lady and gentleman of the press’ might have been more accurate, Charles reflected. Though there were lavish amounts of sandwiches and other snacks – and a gratifying number of wine bottles – laid out in the dining hall of Chailey Ferrars for the press’ conference, there did seem to be a marked lack of press.
    A bored-looking man in his fifties held a notebook and pencil, but had not yet heard anything he deemed worthy of recording; and an earnest-looking girl, barely out of her teens, pointed a cassette player with great concentration at whoever happened to be speaking. Otherwise, a single photographer, burdened down by a shoulder bag of camera impedimenta, shifted from one foot to the other at the back of the hall, with the expression of someone who should already have moved on to cover the local primary school’s Wildfowl Week.
    Julian Roxborough-Smith’s address was unlikely to have stirred much excitement among the press, even if more of them had been present. It was not what he said that was uncharismatic; it was the manner of his saying it. The Festival Director had one of those languid, slightly theatrical voices which suggests he is doing everyone a favour by speaking at all, and imparts an unintentional tinge of contempt to everything. He was a tall man pushing sixty and turning to fat. His sandy hair was thinning. He wore a suit in broad pin-stripe. The thick-framed glasses and spotted bow-tie seemed to accentuate rather than obscure the nondescript nature of his face.
    â€˜
Twelfth Night
,’ Gavin Scholes began, ‘is one of the most