Bone and Cane Read Online Free Page B

made any woman into an object of lust. Men had to have someone to fantasize about during long debates. She lowered her voice.
    ‘Do you think the dirt on her is true?’
    Gill was reputed to have an open marriage. Her husband was a Euro MP who spent weekdays in Brussels. Gill certainly had a different, always handsome, male ‘researcher’ every year, but that proved little.
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘But the papers leave her alone.’
    ‘Tories are better at managing these things than we are. Gill’s discreet. Both her and her hubby are friendly with the papers’ owners. And they’re rich enough to sue. A paper that wanted to get her would need its story spot on, fully backed up.’
    ‘Whereas I can’t afford to sue anyone,’ Sarah pointed out.
    ‘There was nothing in any of the papers for you to sue over. Litigation only benefits lawyers. Anyway, I’m telling you, babe, if the punters think you’re fucking a handsome bastard it isn’t going to hurt you one little bit.’

4
    S arah’s fortnightly surgeries rotated around every ward in the constituency. The second surgery of the second month was in Stoneywood Library. Most of the cases she took on could be handled by a Citizens’ Advice Bureau but an MP carried more weight with the agencies concerned, usually branches of the Home Office or Social Security. This Saturday, her last visitor was a member of the Shanks family, the dead police officer’s younger sister, Polly Bolton. The poor cow had adopted the murdered couple’s children.
    Sarah had seen to it that Polly was the last appointment. They could go on as long as necessary. However, she was already running half an hour late.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ she told Polly. ‘But I can stay as long as it takes.’
    ‘I can’t.’ Sarah’s age, with hard, grey eyes, Polly looked nearer forty. For all that, her platinum blonde hair was professionally done and her steely, over made-up face formed a striking carapace, beneath which beauty might lurk. ‘I go on shift in half an hour,’ she continued. ‘I’ve a taxi coming in ten minutes.’
    ‘I do apologize.’
    ‘Doesn’t matter. What I have to say won’t take long. That Ed Clark was all over the paper yesterday, going on about justice and the compensation he has coming. What I want to know is, where’s justice for my brother, rotting in his grave? Where’s justice for our Liv?’
    ‘I share your concern,’ Sarah said, wishing she could explain how true this was. She talked about police systems, about due legal process. Polly interrupted.
    ‘Police talk to me. Terry was one of theirs. They say they’ll reopen the case but there’s no point, because they know who did it: Ed Clark. They say if Ed Clark puts a single foot wrong, they’ll have him back inside, but they have to be careful or it’ll look like victimization. Far as I can see, you and his lawyers are the only people who think Ed Clark’s innocent. So tell me, who do you think did it?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘Whatever officers who aren’t connected to the case are telling you, the investigation is ongoing. Believe me, nobody will rest until they find out who killed your brother and sister-in-law. We all want to see that monster brought to justice.’
    Polly stood abruptly and went to the library window.
    ‘My taxi’s here.’
    ‘Let me walk you out.’
    ‘If you have to.’
    Sarah tried to make conversation as they walked, asking about the Shanks children, but the sister wasn’t having it.
    ‘That slimy Tory MP,’ she said, apropos of nothing. ‘How could you?’
    Sarah gave the answer she’d given a hundred times in the last three weeks. ‘It was a dinner about work. The paper made up the rest.’
    ‘Pull the other one. What kind of woman are you, standing up for murderers and adulterers?’
    Sarah didn’t reply, transfixed by the sight of the guy getting out of Polly’s taxi. It couldn’t be who she thought it was.
    Polly, not expecting a reply from Sarah, left