All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards

Author:Martin Edwards
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: detective, noire, petrocelli, Fiction, murder, marple, death, police, morse, taggart, christie, legal, crime, shoestring, poirot, law, Mystery, whodunnit, killer, holmes, clue, columbo, ironside, hoskins, solicitor, hitchcock, cluedo, cracker, Suspense, Thriller, diagnosis
ISBN: 9781594140693
Publisher: Five Star
Published: 1992-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Fuzzy after two hours’ drinking, Harry sat at the bar of the Dock Brief, trying to remember what is was like to be capable of logical analysis and rational thought. A Victorian pub mirror hung on the wall and he gazed at his reflection: at the dark-ringed eyes and the features blurred by doubt as well as alcohol. Unbidden, a line from Shakespeare studied long ago rose in his mind. Where are your quiddits now, he asked the haggard image, your quillets, your cases, your tricks?

Pushing his glass across the counter, he nodded a goodnight to the barmaid. She was coping with a flirtatious drunk who was trying to tempt her into a shared week-end in Paris. Catching Harry’s eye, she bustled over.

“Friend of yours was in here earlier on. Sorry, I forgot to mention it.”

“Yeah?” The people he drank with in the Dock were better described as acquaintances.

“Dark-haired lady.” The barmaid threw out a quizzical look. “Attractive.”

For a fleeting, insane moment, he thought: It’s Liz. Her ghost. Conquering that immediate reaction with an effort, he said carefully, “Did she leave a name?”

The woman searched in her memory, ruffling a hand through her tight brunette perm. At last she said, “Maggie, that was it.”

Harry was startled. His sister-in-law and her husband frequented wine bars from time to time, but neither of them would normally contemplate calling in a place like this. What did she want? Christ, another question. He shambled out, buttoning his thin jacket in an inadequate effort to resist the razor edge of the wind from the sea. Someone in the pub had said that this was going to be the coldest night of the winter so far. At least it might help to clear his head.

He reached the Strand, lost in contemplation as he crossed the six-lane highway, almost walking beneath the wheels of a tanker that he hadn’t even seen or heard. Why care about whether the murderer was found? Liz was dead and nothing that he could do would bring back her carefree laughter or tantalising mockery. Yet the spell that she had first cast over him at the Albert Dock firework celebrations, no more than a couple of hundred yards from this very spot, remained unbroken. Her leaving had not lessened her power over him and in death the spell had become a curse.

He took a short cut via the main car park that served the residents of Empire Dock. The solid bulk of the converted warehouse loomed ahead of him. Lights shone behind curtained windows, forming a chequer board of hidden lives, but the place was still, with just the rumble of the traffic in the background and the footsteps of Harry and another man fracturing the silence. Harry paused when he reached his M.G. Might as well check that the alarm was on, he’d been absent-minded about it lately. One day someone would make him pay for that.

The alarm was set, after all. He had been worrying about nothing. You’re becoming neurotic, he told himself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.