Midnight is a Lonely Place Read Online Free Page A

stuck to her skin. She had dug away the side of the dune and pulled something free. ‘See. It’s some kind of pottery.’
    He took it from her, curious. It was slipware, red, the glaze shiny with a raised pattern, hardly scratched by the sand.
    ‘Pretty. It must be something someone chucked out of the cottage. Come on Allie. Ma’s in a ferment. She wants to feed us all before she goes off to Ipswich or wherever it is she is going this afternoon, and I want to get out of here before Lady Muck turns up.’
    Alison took the piece of pottery from her brother and wedged it into her anorak pocket. She glanced up at him. ‘Why do you call her that? She’s famous, you know. She’s written a book.’
    ‘Exactly.’ He smiled grimly. ‘And no doubt will feel herself superior in every way to us country bumpkins.’ He gave a short laugh as he scrambled up the bank and turned to give his sister a hand, hauling her bodily out of the sandy hollow. ‘Well, she’ll soon find out that living in the country at this time of year is not the same as swanning out for the odd picnic in the summer. Then perhaps she’ll go away.’
    ‘And let you have the cottage back?’ Alison surveyed him shrewdly, her green eyes serious.
    ‘And let me have my cottage back.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Don’t say anything to Ma, Allie, but I think between us you and I can find a way to chase Lady Muck away from Redall Cottage, don’t you?’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps we can give the weather a helping hand. Scare her off somehow.’
    ‘You bet.’ She laughed. Then she frowned. ‘But don’t we need the money?’
    ‘Money!’ Greg snorted. ‘Doesn’t anyone think of anything else around here? For the love of Mike, there are other things in the world. We’re not going to starve. Dad’s pay-off and his pension are more than enough to last us for years. We can afford petrol and electricity and food. They can afford to buy booze. My dole money buys my paint and canvas. What does every one want all this money for?’
    Alison shrugged dutifully. She knew better than to argue with her elder brother. Besides he was probably right. She sternly pushed down a sneaking suspicion that his views were simplistic and wildly immature – he was, after all, twelve years older than she – and, pushing her wispy hair out of her eyes for the thousandth time as they reached the Land Rover, she pulled open the door and hauled herself into the front seat beside her mother.
    In the farmhouse the third Lindsey offspring, Patrick, had been laying the table for lunch, walking silently around the kitchen in his socks as his father dozed in the cane chair before the Aga, two cats asleep in his lap. The silence of the room was broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and by the gentle bubbling from the heavy pan on the stove. The air was rich and heavy with the fragrance of the cooking chicken in its thick herb-flavoured gravy. Two years older than Alison, Patrick was the studious member of the family. Upstairs in his bedroom – the north-facing end room above the kitchen, according to Alison the best room in the house because of its size – computer, printer, calculating machines and hundreds of books vied with one another for space, overflowing from tables and chairs on to the floor and even from time to time out into the corridor outside his sister’s room. At the moment Patrick was lost in thought, his mind still fully occupied with his school project. He noticed neither the noise of the engine as his brother drove up outside and parked the Land Rover around the side of the house, nor the speed with which Number Two cat, Marmalade Jones, jumped off his master’s lap and onto the worktop where he proceeded to lick the pat of butter which Patrick had incautiously withdrawn from the fridge.
    The opening door woke Roger, startled Patrick and gave the cat an unwonted and sudden attack of conscience.
    ‘My goodness it’s cold out there.’