The Knapthorne Conspiracy by Malcolm Ballard (best english novels for beginners txt) 📕

had married her mother, the man with an eye for the girls. The man she had never really known and whose life had been ended by the person she was confronting. She held her breath, the door just inches away from being shut but it had stopped moving. Frank Allsop’s face appeared in the gap. He seemed to be studying her while making up his mind what to do. Mentally, Bella was desperately urging him to let her in, pleading with him to open the door. He must have heard her, as the door began to open and Bella breathed again.

“So you’re the daughter of that bastard, Foxton, are you? I pity you.” For the first time, she noticed the trace of a Scottish accent. He looked her up and down, slowly, as if searching for any feature that would bear out her claim.

“And what made you think I’d want to talk to you?” He saw her frustration. It was in the look and the way she was standing. Frank Allsop also saw a woman the like of which he hadn’t been within a country mile of for years. The truth of it was, he’d never been close to anyone like Bella Foxton. Ever. Even the smell of her was good. Too good to shut out of his depressing, colourless life.

“How can I put this, so you’ll…….” Her mouth stayed open but no further words came out, as he opened the door wide.

“You’d better come in if we’re gonna talk.”

He took Bella into a small lounge roughly the size of Cora Flint's. But there the similarity ended. Frank Allsop was obviously a smoker as evidenced by the ashtray on the table with its small accumulation of cigarette butts. More noticeable, however, was the effect his habit had had on the walls and ceilings. The ceiling had been distempered originally and was once a pristine white, unlike the walls which had been covered with a patterned wallpaper the colour of oatmeal. Years of cigarette smoke had given the room a colouring which reminded Bella of lightly nicotine-stained fingers. All the furniture in the room was big, too big for such a small space. An ancient lounge suite, the colour of strong tea, took up most of the space and a large oak sideboard, its top stained and dusty, sat in the alcove to the left of the chimney breast. It was a brown room. Like looking at a sepia-tinted photograph from long ago. Not even the nets at the windows had escaped the attention of the cigarette smoke. Limp and torn they had hung untouched for years daring the sun to penetrate the gloom of the cluttered, untidy room. Her immediate reaction was that it was the room of somebody who didn’t care any more, perhaps hadn’t cared for years. Pages of a newspaper lay over the arm of one of the chairs and scattered on the floor around it. The remains of a meal were on a plate balanced on the other arm. Frank had preceded her into the room and sat down in the chair with some difficulty.

“Sorry if I disturbed your lunch,” Bella said, apologetically, looking at the plate.

“You didn’t,” he replied, testily. “Yon plate’s been there a day or two.” For a moment she was transfixed by it, unable to believe someone could just leave it there. “You happy to stand up, girlie?” The sound of his voice broke the spell.

“No, of course not.” Tentatively, she lowered herself on the sofa, feeling its big springs through the fabric of her skirt as she sat down. Although the cushions were heavy she seemed to sink into them, the springs worn out. It was as if the sofa was trying to engulf her and she had to lift herself forward to the edge of it for some firmer support. Frank took it all in, feeling her unease coming across as clearly as if she were sending out a distress signal. He’d got to know his beasts on the farm in the same way, sensing when they were ill often long before there were any physical signs or symptoms. In his eyes people weren’t much different. Just more trouble, generally.

They faced each other across the room as it occurred to Bella that the smell of the house didn’t seem quite as bad, once inside. Thinking it odd, the thought was abruptly swept from her mind by the startling realisation that she was sitting opposite a murderer, the man who had fired the gun which had killed Patrick Foxton. In the nervous build-up to the confrontation the knowledge of who this man was and what he’d done had somehow got pushed to the back of her mind.

“Well, have you got anything to say or have you just come to stare?” There was an abrasive edge to the words, his rudeness blatant and undisguised but she saw it for what it was, the fear and insecurity of a lonely old man. If he didn’t want her there, why had he invited her in? This was his way, the hard shell protecting the vulnerability beneath. Frank Allsop had lost the art of communication a long time ago, now his only defence was attack. Bella was by no means lost for words but was uncertain of where, or even how, to begin. Talking to the man was going to be like choosing a path through a minefield, one wrong step and it all goes up in smoke. In the silence of the small, gloomy room as she racked her brains for the right thing to say she could hear the sound of his wheezy, irregular breathing as failing lungs struggled to do their job. Ignoring her, he began to extract a cigarette from an old silver cigarette case he’d taken from a pocket and she wondered where he got his cigarettes from or any of the other requisites of daily life for that matter.

“How do you manage here? It must be quite