Life Sentence Read Online Free

to frame a sentence, to structure a paragraph… As for sustaining an argument throughout a three thousand word dissertation, they can no more do that than – than you can take up your bed and walk.
    ‘I must go. I’m sorry, my dear. But I really must run.’

Chapter Four
    ‘I hoped you’d speak to me before you went to Personnel,’ Mark said quietly, but tapping his desk with palpable irritation. ‘I thought we’d agreed – Oh, do sit down.’
    Fran felt her jaw set. She tried to relax it. Friend he might be, dinner date for this week, indeed, but while still on duty as they were now, the hierarchy still operated. She ought to have warned him that she meant to put in her resignation. The fact she hadn’t was interesting in itself. Even she realised that.
    ‘Fran, you are at perfect liberty to take your pension the moment you reach the appropriate date and run off to retire in any place in the world. We both know that.’ He sat opposite her, forearms on his desk, leaning forward as if he were dressing down a raw recruit. ‘But I’m not convinced that you should, especially if your destination is Teignmouth. No. Put it another way. I’m absolutely convinced you shouldn’t “retire” down to Devon.’ The quotation marks floated between them and disappeared. ‘Down in Devon you’ll become what you’re absolutely not qualified to be – a geriatricnurse. And for a pretty short time.’
    ‘We don’t know that. They may go on for years.’ Her head went back like a defiant teenager’s. After another shattering weekend she couldn’t lay her hand on her heart and swear she hoped they would.
    ‘I don’t know which would be the worse scenario,’ he said reflectively. ‘Do you? To retire down there, selling that lovely cottage of yours, I presume, to be their unsung drudge for ten years, by which time you’d be too old and too worn out to think of doing anything except dwindling into old age yourself. Or to retire down there and find them both dead within a year and you with twenty or thirty years on your hands wondering what the hell to do with yourself. Those are the options, Fran.’
    ‘I’m sure I could find all sorts of things to do down there,’ she countered.
    ‘I’m sure you could.’ His smile was dangerously affable. ‘You could join the Ladies’ Luncheon Club, be a red-hot committee member for every organisation going, arrange church flowers and have your garden win prizes.’
    Even to her own ears her laugh was rueful.
    ‘Exactly. Now, it’s clear to me you can’t carry on as you are. Your job demands a hundred and ten per cent of your time and energy, and the most you can offer is about fifty. No,’ he overrode her, ‘please don’t try to tell me otherwise. I’m saying that as your senior officer. As a friend I’m telling you you’re burning out before myeyes. I want to transfer you from your present positions in both Policy and Crime – God knows why Personnel thought you should continue to fulfil both roles, when it was supposed to be a very short term measure, and why, despite my official request, they’ve changed nothing in a whole week. I suppose,’ he conceded with a grin that made him look absurdly boyish, ‘it was because until recently you were one of a handful of officers who could take on both and succeed brilliantly.’
    ‘I’m loath to lose either,’ she snapped.
    ‘You don’t have an option. Let me make that clear.’ As if to sooth her ego, he added, ‘And, I repeat, you should never have been asked to try in the first place, in my opinion. No one should. No, you’ll leave both with almost immediate effect and take on a project answering directly to me.’
    She nodded. She had to listen, after all, when he spoke in his official voice, however angry and resentful she might be. Angry, resentful and tired.
    ‘It’s a case we’ve had on file for some time,’ he continued, with a smile aimed to placate, even charm her. ‘Almost a dead file. But not