The Devil in Disguise Read Online Free

trustees.’
    â€˜Ah.’
    â€˜It is a very delicate matter.’ Luke hunched his shoulders. ‘Most distressing. Perhaps either you or your partner would care to refresh your minds about the precise terms of the trust deed. Unless I am very much mistaken, we will have to speak about this again.’
    â€˜Call me any time.’
    But Luke had not been in touch again after that strange, unsatisfactory conversation - and now, if Frances was to be believed, his concern had turned into fear.
    As soon as he was back in his own room, Harry hunted around for the lever arch files which contained the bulk of the Kavanaugh Trust papers. One came to light under his desk; another was propping up the unsteady table on which stood his new (or more precisely, reconditioned) computer. The revolution in information technology had touched even Crusoe and Devlin, but where Harry was concerned, there would always be scope for the lowest of low tech. The screen was blank: he reminded himself to switch the machine on before Jim Crusoe looked round the door and upbraided him for Luddism.
    He opened the current file and a couple of dozen sheets spilled through his hands and on to the floor. As he scrambled around picking them up, he reflected that for all the computer salesman’s honeyed words, the paperless office was as much a pipe-dream as the paperless toilet. When the documentation was back in its proper order, he began to sift through it in preparation for the evening. At least if the chairman did not turn up, the other trustees were less likely to put penetrating questions or to realise that he was practically innumerate. He gazed at the mass of dividend payment request forms and wondered why charity had to go hand in hand with bureaucracy. Surely that was not what Gervase Kavanaugh had intended?
    A large figure loomed in the doorway. Jim Crusoe lifted his thick eyebrows in mock astonishment. ‘Harry Devlin studying a file? What next?’
    â€˜The Kavanaugh Trust papers. I thought I’d better brush up for this evening. Why did I let you talk me into becoming involved?’
    â€˜We agreed, remember?’ Jim eased himself down in the client’s chair and Harry fancied that he heard it creak under the strain. His partner had put on weight recently: the result of too much home cooking as he tried to make up to his wife for a relationship with another woman of which Heather Crusoe was so far unaware. ‘I would handle the money side. You’d deal with the litigation.’
    It was true. When Crusoe and Devlin had acquired the business of Tweats and Company, they had taken over the files of a handful of estimable clients, including the Kavanaugh Trust. A surprising number of otherwise sensible people had never rumbled the fact that Cyril Tweats, for all that he modelled his bedside manner on Dr Finlay, knew rather less about the law than the average reader of John Grisham. Harry had been content to let Jim handle the work and his partner’s offer had seemed like a good deal at the time. When did a local charity ever become embroiled in courtroom battles?
    Certainly, there was no reason to expect the Trust to engage in disputes. It had been founded by an elderly composer whose music had enjoyed a brief vogue in the thirties. Shortly before his death, Gervase Kavanaugh had set up a charitable trust with a view to distributing largesse to worthy causes in the arts in Liverpool. His son Charles, a lifelong bachelor, had regarded himself as a discerning connoisseur of art, although in truth he had as much aesthetic sensibility as a bullfrog (a creature to which he had borne a disconcerting physical resemblance). He had made a will years back leaving his estate to the Trust. A fortnight ago he had died in a nursing home following a short illness. After expressing their sorrow and paying tribute to his support, the trustees had turned their minds to the pleasant dilemma of how to spend all the money. The