Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George

Author:Elizabeth George [George, Elizabeth]
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780340688823
Publisher: New English Library
Published: 1997-05-25T18:30:00+00:00

INCE SHE HAD BEEN THE LAST DINER THAT NIGHT, it was easy for Basil Treves to waylay Barbara. He did so as she passed the residents’ lounge, having decided to forego postprandial coffee in favour of a prowl along the clifftop, where she hoped to encounter an errant sea breeze.

“Sergeant?” Snake-like, Treves sibilated when he whispered her title. The hotelier was in 007 mode. “I didn't want to intrude on your meal.” A screw driver in Treves’ hand indicated that he'd been in the process of making some sort of adjustment to the large-screen television on which Daniel Day-Lewis was in the process of swearing eternal fidelity to a bosom-heaving woman prior to jumping through a waterfall. “But now that you're finished … If you've a moment …?”

Rather than wait for a response, he took Barbara's elbow between his thumb and index finger and firmly guided her down the passage to reception. He slid behind the desk and removed a computer print out from its bottom drawer. “More information,” he said conspiratorially. “And I thought it best not to share it with you while you were engaged with … well, with others, if you know what I mean. But as you're free at the moment … You are free, aren't you?” He peered past her shoulder as if expecting Daniel Day-Lewis to dash out of the lounge and come to her rescue, flintlock rifle at the ready.

‘Tree's my middle name.” Barbara wondered why the odious man didn't do something about the condition of his skin. It was flaking off into his beard in significant clumps this evening. He looked as if he'd dipped his face into a plate of pastry crumbs.

“Excellent,” he said. He gave a glance round for eavesdroppers, and apparently finding none but still deciding to proceed with caution, he leaned over the counter to speak confidentially and to share the gin on his breath. “Phone records,” he exhaled gustily. “I had a new system put in last year, thank God, so I've a record of everyone's trunk calls. Before, all calls went through the switchboard and we had to keep records by hand and time them, the calls not the records, that is. An utterly byzantine method and hardly accurate. Let me tell you, Sergeant, it led to the most unpleasant rows at check-out time.”

“You've tracked down Mr. Querashi's outgoing calls?” Barbara said encouragingly. She found herself marginally impressed. Eczema or not, the man was actually proving himself to be a bit of a gold mine. “Brilliant, Mr. Treves. What have we got?”

As usual, he preened himself at her use of the plural pronoun. He turned the computer print out round on top of the desk so that it faced her. She could see that he'd circled perhaps two dozen phone calls. They all began with the same double noughts. It was a list of foreign calls, Barbara realised.

“I did take the liberty of carrying our investigation a leetle further, Sergeant. I do hope I wasn't overstepping the mark.

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