Blood Will Out Read Online Free Page B

replacement for your horn player?”
    â€œNope. And no hopes of one on the horizon. So it’ll be Dwight on drums, Lonnie on bass and me playing piano. Won’t be quite the same.”
    â€œStill, let me know next time you are playing.”
    Moretti felt a damp little cloud of depression settle over him, and fingered the lighter he always carried in his pocket. Why a lighter should be the talisman that helped him keep off the noxious weed, he couldn’t imagine. But it was at moments like this he still longed for a smoke.
    Don dipped a dolma in tzatziki and swallowed it whole. “God, I love garlic. Just as well I don’t have a woman in my life at the moment. I’ll stink for twenty-four hours after this lot. How about you, Ed? Any new lady in your life?”
    Women again. Moretti looked across the table at the man who knew about as much about his private life as anyone, which was virtually nothing. Idle chatter about women interested him about as much as discussing island politics, or what were now called “relationships.” All three topics were minefields, as dangerous as these cliffs had been after the Germans left the island.
    â€œNo new lady, but a new man. Should take up about as much of my time as a new lady, and be far less rewarding. You’ve heard of fast-tracking?”
    â€œTaking in graduates and speeding them to the top? Weren’t you one?”
    â€œYes. APSG — the Police Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates. I’ve got one arriving tomorrow, and my instructions are to take him under my wing.”
    â€œDon’t see you as the mother-hen type.” Don grinned. “Do you know anything about him?”
    â€œSome. He is a Londoner, mid-twenties, has a science degree of some sort. I’ve spoken to him on the phone. Tells me he didn’t want to be a teacher, so decided to be a policeman.”
    â€œCharming. Anything else he shared with you that’s more endearing? What’s his name?”
    Moretti bent down to stroke the cat, who had come over to join them rubbing hopefully around his feet. “An interesting one,” he replied, “Aloisio Brown. Mother’s Portuguese. And no, I cannot think of a single aspect of this that’s the least bit endearing.”
    He held out a piece of taramasalata to the cat, who took it from him with great delicacy, and ate it.

Chapter Two
    I t was coming along well. Hugo Shawcross leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands. Beyond the study window, he could see the chestnut trees on his neighbour’s property growing darker by the minute as the sun set. He must go out soon and call Stoker in, or he’d get into a fight to the death with Mudge, the small and surprisingly aggressive tortoiseshell female that lived two houses away. Fortunately, Stoker’s life was ruled by greed rather than the need to assert his neutered-male superiority, and he could be relied on to leave the fray and return to his tidbit-carrying master.
    Hugo saved the last speech he had composed, and contemplated it before turning off his laptop.
    You have the dark gift. But this must be our secret. You must tell no one, do you hear me? No one. (Fade to black.)
    Good. A strong ending to Act One. He already knew who he wanted to have as his Lilith, and that the difficulty would not be persuading her, but her family. Her mother reminded Hugo of Stoker’s multicoloured bête noire , a small and surprisingly aggressive female whose genteel roots gave her an unshakeable belief in her own importance.
    Carey, De Saumarez, Brock, Gastineau. The ancient aristocracy of Guernsey. Les Messux , as they had once been known. Of course, as Noel Coward had so inimitably put it, their stately homes were frequently mortgaged to the hilt, which had rather taken the gilt off the gingerbread. Or they didn’t belong to them anymore, and had become hotels, or were broken up into elegant and desirable flats, which was