The Leopard Hunts in Darkness Read Online Free

back of the room and beckoned to him.
    ‘Craig, baby!’ He put one arm around Craig’s shoulders and patted his cheek paternally. ‘You’re looking good, you old hound dog, you!’
    Ashe cultivated his own eclectic style. His hair was brush-cut and he wore gold-rimmed spectacles. His shirt was striped with a contrasting white collar, platinum cufflinks and tie pin, and
brown brogues with a pattern of little holes punched in the toe caps. His jacket was cashmere with narrow lapels. His eyes were very pale, and always focused just a little to one side of
Craig’s own. Craig knew that he smoked only the very best Tihuana gold.
    ‘Nice place, Ashe. How did you find it?’
    ‘A change from boring old “Seasons”,’ Ashe grinned slyly, pleased that the gesture of disapproval had been noted. ‘Craig, I want you to meet a very talented
lady.’
    She had been sitting well back in the gloom at the back of the booth, but now she leaned forward and held out her hand. The spotlamp caught the hand, and so it was the first impression that
Craig had of her.
    The hand was narrow with artistic fingers, but though the nails were scrubbed clean, they were clipped short and unpainted, the skin was tanned to gold with prominent aristocratic veins showing
bluish beneath it. The bones were fine, but there were callouses at the base of those long straight fingers – a hand that was accustomed to hard work.
    Craig took the hand and felt the strength of it, the softness of the dry cool skin on the back and the rough places on the palm, and he looked into her face.
    She had dark thick eyebrows that stretched in an unbroken curve from the outer corner of one eye to the other. Her eyes, even in the poor light, were green with honey-coloured specks surrounding
the pupil. Their gaze was direct and candid.
    ‘Sally-Anne Jay,’ Ashe said. ‘This is Craig Mellow.’
    Her nose was straight but slightly too large, and her mouth too wide to be beautiful. Her thick dark hair was scraped back severely from the broad forehead, her face was as honey-tanned as her
hands and there was a fine peppering of freckles across her cheeks.
    ‘I read your book,’ she said. Her voice was level and clear, her accent mid-Atlantic, but only when he heard its timbre did he realize how young she was. ‘I thought it deserved
everything that happened to it.’
    ‘Compliment or slap?’ He tried to make it sound light and unconcerned, but he found himself hoping fervently that she was not one of those who attempted to demonstrate their own
exalted literary standards by denigrating a popular writer’s work to his face.
    ‘Very good things happened to it,’ she pointed out, and Craig felt absurdly pleased, even though that seemed to be the end of that topic as far as she was concerned. To show his
pleasure he squeezed her hand and held it a little longer than was necessary, and she took it back from him and replaced it firmly in her lap.
    So she wasn’t a scalp-hunter, and she wasn’t going to gush. Anyway, he told himself, he was bored with literary groupies trying to storm his bed, and gushers were as bad as knockers
– almost.
    ‘Let’s see if we can get Ashe to buy us a drink,’ he suggested, and slipped into the booth facing her across the table.
    Ashe made his usual fuss over the wine list, but they ended up with a ten-dollar Frascati after all.
    ‘Nice smooth fruit.’ Ashe rolled it on his tongue.
    ‘It’s cold and wet,’ Craig agreed, and Ashe smiled again as they both remembered the ’70 Corton Charlemagne they had drunk the last time.
    ‘We are expecting another guest later,’ Ashe told the waiter. ‘We’ll order then.’ And turning to Craig, ‘I wanted an opportunity for Sally-Anne to show you
her stuff.’
    ‘Show me,’ Craig invited, immediately defensive once again. The woods were full of them as wanted to ride on his strike – ones with unpublished manuscripts for him to endorse,
investment advisers who would look