The House of Women Read Online Free Page B

does. Why did you go to her flat? Is there something going on I don’t know about?’
    ‘ I just called in because she didn’t seem very well earlier. In fact, she’s been pretty miserable since she came back from Italy.’
    ‘ So perhaps she’s pining for the handsome Latin she dallied with for a while on the shores of the Mediterranean.’
    ‘ D’you think so?’ Dewi pulled a face. ‘I wouldn’t’ve thought a holiday fling with some dago was quite her scene.’

 
    MONDAY, 20 AUGUST
     
    1
     
    MCKENNA’S FRONT DOORBELL rang shortly after eight o’clock on Monday morning and, thinking it must be the postman, he padded upstairs in slippers and pyjamas.
    ‘ Morning, Michael,’ the deputy chief constable said. ‘Can I come in?’ Reaching the foot of the staircase, he added: ‘Well, thank God the inside doesn’t match the outside. All the same, shouldn’t you be living somewhere a bit more salubrious?’
    ‘ I like this house,’ McKenna said, his stomach churning with anxiety, ‘and I like the view.’
    Walking to the open back door, his visitor glanced over the garden fence, then to the wall on the right, where McKenna ’s two cats basked in the morning sunshine. ‘These the strays I keep hearing about?’ Then, he sat carefully on the chesterfield, rearranging his uniform.
    ‘ Can I offer you a drink?’
    ‘ Coffee, please. Black and no sugar.’
    McKenna hurried to the kitchen, poured coffee into his best china mug, and returned to the parlour. ‘I’ll get dressed.’
    ‘ No rush, Michael. Let’s talk first, shall we?’
    ‘ What about?’ Sitting in the armchair, McKenna lit his first cigarette of the day. ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘ Nothing drastic. Nothing to worry about, really.’
    ‘ Oh, no?’ McKenna felt his temper rise. ‘And how often do I get an early-morning visit from someone of your rank all dressed up in his handing-out-the-bad-news gear?’
    ‘ Don’t be like that.’ The other man frowned. ‘I thought coming here was the least I could do in the circumstances.’
    ‘ What circumstances?’
    The other man coughed. ‘We’ve been instructed to hold back your promotion for a while.’
    Drawing hard on the cigarette, McKenna stared at the floor.
    ‘ It’s a political decision, and it was taken without any reference to us.’
    ‘ Why?’
    ‘ Why d’you think? Good God, man, you’ve just come back from the Irish Republic!’
    ‘ And what does that have to do with me, or my promotion?’
    ‘ Because as superintendent, you’d be involved with Special Branch supervision at times, for royal visits and other sensitive security matters, and the civil servants who tell us what to do don’t think, apparently, that someone with your background and connections is quite the best person to have in that office at this present moment in time, because they reckon the Irish Republic’s a bloody tinder-box, and always will be, and all the peace initiatives and cease-fires in the world won’t make the slightest bit of difference.’ Pausing to draw breath, he added: ‘I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. I think it’s a very bad show, and so does the chief.’
    McKenna ground his cigarette to pulp in the ashtray, hands shaking. ‘You knew I was going to Ireland before I went, so why didn’t you say crossing the water for my great aunt’s funeral would turn me into a security risk?’
    ‘ Because we’ve only just found out she was cousin once removed to the one who got topped in 1916.’
    ‘ And she wasn’t born until 1920, because her father was in the trenches with his English comrades up to the end of the Great War, so don’t you think it’s rather academic, as well as ancient history?’
    ‘ Nobody’s got longer memories than the Irish.’
    McKenna lit another cigarette, and stared at his visitor. ‘Who checked up on me? Who took the trouble to uproot my family tree?’
    ‘ It wasn’t us.’ The deputy chief smiled tentatively. ‘But you know we’re