The Ring of Death by Sally Spencer

Author:Sally Spencer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
Published: 2010-02-01T07:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Edward Dunston was sitting at his desk – in an office remarkable for its absolute absence of any personal touches – and was fighting the urge to look up at the clock on the wall yet again.

Dunston was in his late forties, a tall, spare man who wore conservative suits and thin wire spectacles. His head was large and dome-shaped, and now he had lost most of the hair from his pate, a number of people had commented – usually behind his back – that he looked a little like one of the super-intelligent aliens so beloved by illustrators of science-fiction comics. He was generally regarded as being cold and humourless – qualities he himself found admirable in a chartered accountant – and his staff were well aware that while they were expected to apply themselves with extreme diligence, they should give no sign that they were actually enjoying their work.

Despite his best intentions, Dunston felt his head move – and his eyes fix on the clock face.

A quarter to three!

In five more minutes, the pubs would be calling last orders.

He knew that some accountants of his acquaintance kept a bottle of booze secreted in their desk drawers, but he had always looked down on the habit. As far as he was concerned, working time was working time and drinking time was drinking time – and never the twain should meet.

‘But Jesus, I could use a drink right now!’ he thought.

He looked up at the clock again. Another few minutes and he would have no choice in the matter – another few minutes and it would be out of his hands.

‘You can do this,’ he urged himself. ‘You can sit it out.’

But even as the thought flashed across his mind, he was already rising to his feet and beginning to make excuses for himself.

This was an emergency, he argued, as he reached for his hat. His nerves had been on a knife-edge for the last twenty-four hours, and if a whisky would help to settle them, then he was quite prepared to break his own rules for once.

He opened the door and stepped into his outer office, where his secretary was busy pretending to be so absorbed in her tasks that she hadn’t even heard him.

‘I’m going out for a few minutes, Janice,’ he said.

His secretary looked up.

‘Going out, Mr Dunston?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘But you’ve got an appointment at three o’clock.’

Damn it, so he had, Dunston thought – and not just any old appointment, a very important one!

‘Make my apologies, will you?’ he said over his shoulder, as he crossed the office. ‘Ask the client if he wouldn’t mind waiting.’

‘But . . . but it’s Mr Hoskins,’ the secretary stuttered. ‘He’s never been known to wait for . . .’

‘I shouldn’t be more than half an hour,’ Dunston said, opening the outer door and fleeing into the corridor.

He made it to the empty lounge bar of the Black Horse just as the barman was flashing the lights for last orders.

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