The Real Thing Read Online Free Page B

star had then sued the cad for millions of dollars, and she had won as well. The world turned in funny ways sometimes.
    But Margie, with the supermodel looks and figure, was not a trophy wife and it was quite unfair for people to say that about her. Margie loved Bing deeply, Bing knew, and he loved her back just as much.
    But she wasn’t there. Instead, there was this annoying deep-seated throbbing that sounded almost like the engines of a medium-sized private yacht.
    With that thought all the events of the previous day came flooding back. Bing sat bolt upright in bed, cracked his head on the underside of the fashionable Italian upper bunk, and dropped back down again, rubbing his forehead and cursing in words he hadn’t used since his younger hunting days.
    He got up again slowly and fumbled around on the wall by the bunk until he found a light switch.
    Subtle down-lights illuminated the cabin and his first thought on seeing where he was, was that whoever owned it needed a new interior decorator.
    Clara Fogsworth and Ralph Winkler were seated in the comfortable, but garishly coloured lounge of the boat when he finally stumbled his way along the corridor and emerged into the room.
    They looked like they were almost expecting to see him, at least they weren’t at all surprised, but Bing was shocked witless to see them. So shocked in fact that the first words out of his mouth were quite inane really.
    ‘Clara! Ralph!’ he said. ‘You can’t be here. We’re not allowed to travel on the same boat!’
    Ralph rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the brightest thing to say after all, but Bing
had
just bumped his head on the upper bunk.
    Clara Fogsworth said politely, ‘Hello Bingham.’ She never called anyone by their nickname, no matter how well she knew them. She continued. ‘I rather think that is the least of our worries.’
    Bingham Elderoy Statham was no fool. He hadn’t become a millionaire by being a fool, and he certainly hadn’t got his seat on the board of directors of The Coca-Cola Company by being a fool. But, even so, it took him a few moments to put it all together in his mind.
    ‘We’ve all been kidnapped,’ he said, and then he realised. ‘They want the secret formula to Coca-Cola!’
    ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Clara gently, but Ralph just rolled his eyes again, thinking Bing was being extraordinarily obtuse. Ralph tolerated fools marginally less than he tolerated first class service on a commercial jet.
    Bing said, still in a state of partial befuddlement, ‘But why have they kidnapped all of us? They only needed one of us to get the secret recipe.’
    Clara said, with a mildly disapproving glance at the man seated next to her on the overstuffed pink sofa, ‘Ralph thinks it’s in case they can’t torture the recipe out of any one of us, but I think he’s being melodramatic.’
    Strangely, the word torture made Bing think about his ferret Olivia. But probably only because she had the same name as his first wife. There was a frightening thought. They could use the medieval rack, the fingernail bamboos, even the Chinese Water Torture, and he would remain as silent as the Sphinx. But put him alone in a room with his first wife for a couple of hours and he would have given up the secret formula, the pin numbers of his cash cards and even the location of the Holy Grail if he’d known it.
    ‘I think the truth is much less frightening, from a personal point of view,’ Clara continued, ‘but rather more terrifying for the company.’
    Bing’s beleaguered brain cells started functioning properly then, and he realised the answer even before she said it.
    ‘They want the secret recipe all right,’ she said. ‘And they want to be the only ones who have it.’
    Ralph harrumphed as if he still thought they were about to be tortured at any moment, but he conceded, ‘Without the three of us, without the secret recipe, we’ll be forced to use up all our reserve stock of the formula. That’ll only last about