Jack Irish 1 - Bad Debts by Peter Temple

Author:Peter Temple
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2011-01-28T18:30:00+00:00

20

When I got home, I rang Linda Hillier. She wasn’t at her desk, said a man. He took a message. I was looking sadly into the near-empty fridge when the phone rang.

‘We need to talk,’ Linda Hillier said.

‘Endlessly,’ I answered. Then I went for it. ‘Can you come around here? No. Will you come around here?’

‘What’s the address?’

I walked around the corner to Papa’s Original Greek Taverna and bought some bread, olives, dolmades and an unidentified fish stuffed with thyme and basil from Mrs Papa.

Menu price less fifteen per cent, that was our deal.

I was just out of the shower when the bell rang. I pulled on underpants, denims and a shirt.

‘Well, hello,’ she said. There was rain on her hair.

‘You’re wet,’ I said.

‘So are you. At least I’ve got shoes on.’

She had changed since this morning. She was wearing a trenchcoat over grey flannels, a cream shirt and a tweed jacket. I caught her scent as I took the coat and jacket. It was, in a word, throaty.

‘This is nice,’ she said, looking around.

We stood awkwardly for a moment, something trembling in the air between us. I looked around at the books in piles on every surface, the CDs and tapes everywhere, the unhung pictures, seeing the place for the first time in years.

‘It’s sort of gentlemen’s club mates with undergraduate student digs,’ she said.

I cleared my throat. ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll give you a drink. What would you like?’ The kitchen was respectable. I’d cleaned it recently.

‘Whisky and water if you’ve got it.’

She had a good inspection of the contents of the open shelves while I got the drinks, watching her out of the corner of my eye and telling her about my visit to Father 102

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