A Taste for Malice Read Online Free Page B
Author: Michael J. Malone
nails. ☺ Wee joke. Already called him. He has nothing else to add to the information in the file. Says that suspect’s trail went cold after the second family. The addresses are all there in the folder. He seemed an alright guy, but not too helpful.>>>
<<>> I asked.
Before I could receive a reply a bell sounded from my computer. Shit. Have you ever tried to deliberately forget something? Can’t be done. I wanted to forget I had an appointment with a counsellor that morning. Tried to banish all thoughts of it from my mind. But what happens with the human mind is that whatever you resist, persists. Every five minutes your mind tells you to remember to forget that appointment. And then you go and make it harder by putting a reminder in your desktop diary. Given the amount of pish that comes out of my head, the wisest thing is probably to go ahead with the meeting after all.
It is part of my agreed recuperation that I download all of my worries to a total stranger paid for by the police. The name on her card reads Elaine Gibson. It is followed by a bewildering array of letters, like an abstract and truncated alphabet. She must be good then.
Her office is in the other side of town, so at least I get to remove myself from HQ. A taxi ride later and I am looking at a brass plaque pinned to a sandstone wall. “Chalmers, Crowe and Gibson” it reads.
I wait for less than a minute in the reception area before I am guided into an office. If I were to pin a number on the young lady with shoulder length brown hair who walks towards me it would be a ten. As in, out of ten. The new Bo Derek walks towards me with her hand outstretched and a welcoming smile on her face. I estimate her age in the early thirties. Ms Gibson is dressed in a brown, chalk-stripe trouser suit, with a cream blouse underneath. Only one button is open, but this doesn’t diminish the view in any way. The material of her suit is being pressed by her flesh in all the right places.
‘DI McBain. Nice to meet you.’ Her handshake is firm and confident and involves a full grip, not the girly press of thumb and finger on the second knuckle that some women seem to think of as a handshake. Her eye level matches mine. You don’t meet too many women as tall as I am.
‘Please, DI McBain, have a seat.’ She points to a pair of brown, padded chairs that flank a small coffee table.
‘Thank you, and you can call me Ray,’ I say and my voice seems too loud and masculine in this environment. There’s a plant on every available surface and a couple of limited edition prints of flowers hang on the wall. I reconsider my initial impression; the objects in the room are expensive, but as far as gender goes they are nondescript. Any femininity found in this room is coming from its occupant.
We sit; she crosses her legs in a fluid motion and slides a leather folder across the coffee table and on to her lap. I can’t take my eyes from her face. She has large eyes framed with dark lashes, an apple-pink blush to her cheeks and her lips are full and curved in a smile. I feel my stomach do a flip when she looks into my eyes. What is it about very beautiful women that make a man feel that he’s eleven and obliged to flirt at the same time? Not a winning combination. As your desperation to impress increases, your ability to do so fades in a pre-pubescent fuddle.
‘You have a nice office.’ Way to go, McBain. That’ll have her eating out of your hand in no time. I distract myself from my ineptitude by looking around myself in an exaggerated manner. A six-foot bookcase rests against the far wall. It appears that the top three rows are filled with dull, academic texts if the boring covers and large letters are to be believed. The bottom two rows are filled with brighter covers that suggest more popular and widely available books are stationed here.
‘Do you read, Ray?’ she asks me.
‘If you count Our Willie or the underwear pages of the Next catalogue as
<<
Before I could receive a reply a bell sounded from my computer. Shit. Have you ever tried to deliberately forget something? Can’t be done. I wanted to forget I had an appointment with a counsellor that morning. Tried to banish all thoughts of it from my mind. But what happens with the human mind is that whatever you resist, persists. Every five minutes your mind tells you to remember to forget that appointment. And then you go and make it harder by putting a reminder in your desktop diary. Given the amount of pish that comes out of my head, the wisest thing is probably to go ahead with the meeting after all.
It is part of my agreed recuperation that I download all of my worries to a total stranger paid for by the police. The name on her card reads Elaine Gibson. It is followed by a bewildering array of letters, like an abstract and truncated alphabet. She must be good then.
Her office is in the other side of town, so at least I get to remove myself from HQ. A taxi ride later and I am looking at a brass plaque pinned to a sandstone wall. “Chalmers, Crowe and Gibson” it reads.
I wait for less than a minute in the reception area before I am guided into an office. If I were to pin a number on the young lady with shoulder length brown hair who walks towards me it would be a ten. As in, out of ten. The new Bo Derek walks towards me with her hand outstretched and a welcoming smile on her face. I estimate her age in the early thirties. Ms Gibson is dressed in a brown, chalk-stripe trouser suit, with a cream blouse underneath. Only one button is open, but this doesn’t diminish the view in any way. The material of her suit is being pressed by her flesh in all the right places.
‘DI McBain. Nice to meet you.’ Her handshake is firm and confident and involves a full grip, not the girly press of thumb and finger on the second knuckle that some women seem to think of as a handshake. Her eye level matches mine. You don’t meet too many women as tall as I am.
‘Please, DI McBain, have a seat.’ She points to a pair of brown, padded chairs that flank a small coffee table.
‘Thank you, and you can call me Ray,’ I say and my voice seems too loud and masculine in this environment. There’s a plant on every available surface and a couple of limited edition prints of flowers hang on the wall. I reconsider my initial impression; the objects in the room are expensive, but as far as gender goes they are nondescript. Any femininity found in this room is coming from its occupant.
We sit; she crosses her legs in a fluid motion and slides a leather folder across the coffee table and on to her lap. I can’t take my eyes from her face. She has large eyes framed with dark lashes, an apple-pink blush to her cheeks and her lips are full and curved in a smile. I feel my stomach do a flip when she looks into my eyes. What is it about very beautiful women that make a man feel that he’s eleven and obliged to flirt at the same time? Not a winning combination. As your desperation to impress increases, your ability to do so fades in a pre-pubescent fuddle.
‘You have a nice office.’ Way to go, McBain. That’ll have her eating out of your hand in no time. I distract myself from my ineptitude by looking around myself in an exaggerated manner. A six-foot bookcase rests against the far wall. It appears that the top three rows are filled with dull, academic texts if the boring covers and large letters are to be believed. The bottom two rows are filled with brighter covers that suggest more popular and widely available books are stationed here.
‘Do you read, Ray?’ she asks me.
‘If you count Our Willie or the underwear pages of the Next catalogue as
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