Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

"Or a raise. Look. " Mike produced a second piece of paper. "See this? Get something along these lines on TV at peak time and it'll be worth a few bob on your account. "

Jim shook his head slowly. "Nick will kill us if we suggest it. "

"You want our account, Jim? Look, for Pete's sake! I've done all the work for you! There can't be a paper in the country that hasn't picked up that story about Nick. Everyone in the country knows what he does. They'll all recognize him. It will sell, Jim, you know that. But for God's sake get your skates on. I want to be topical! Hammer out a storyboard fast. It will be worth it. "

Jim grimaced. "You're the boss, I suppose. "

"Right. I'm the boss. I pay your fat salaries and supply the fuel for that car of Nick's. Besides, you'll be boosting all your other clients by implication, so if it means Nick Franklyn has to lay his head on the block for a few nights, I'd say it was worth it, ten times over. " He stood up. "Tell him that from me, Jim. I'll expect to hear from him this afternoon. "

Jim walked over to the window and threw it up, letting in a blast of hot traffic fumes and noise. He ran his fingers rather desperately through his hair, then he walked over to his desk and pressed the buzzer.

"Jane? Where is Nick?"

"He's not back from lunch yet. "

Jim glanced at his watch. "It's after three, for Christ's sake! Where was he going, do you know?"

"He was meeting his brother at Claridge's. "

Jim sighed. "Okay, Janey, love. The second he appears wheel him in here. It's double desperate. " He sat down and drummed his fingers on the desk top. Then he pulled the two sketches toward him and studied them critically. He grinned. They were really rather good.

The house lay bathed in moonlight. It was completely silent, the undrawn curtains turning the windows into dark pools, reflecting deeply into the interior of the building. Slowly the figure tiptoed up the grass on the edge of the drive and made its way around to the back. It crept up to the back door and tried it gently, before skirting the dustbins and pushing at the small rear window. That too was locked.

Systematically the dark-clad shadow tried every downstairs window before shining a powerful flashlight up at the second floor. The light beam slid over the wisteria around the front door, playing among the fronds, almost lovingly caressing the weeping greenery until it found what it was seeking, the blue, square box on the wall that marked the burglar alarm.

There was a quiet chuckle in the silence as, slowly, he bent and picked up one of the large granite lumps that marked the flowerbed edge. After raising it above his head, he hurled it through the front window on the left side of the door with a deafening splintering of glass.

For a moment the wailing alarm seemed deceptively quiet in the black, back-lit moonlight of the garden as, without a backward glance, the figure slipped into the bushes and out of sight, but already, next door, the lights were beginning to come on.

Jo and Ceecliff were planning a visit to the watercolor viewing day at Sotheby's when the phone rang. Jo answered it, then, with a frown, passed it over to her grandmother. It was several minutes before Ceecliff hung up. Her face had gone pale.

"That was Julian Frederickson who lives next door, " she said slowly. "My house has been burgled. "

Jo stared at her, shocked. "Oh, no. Was much taken?"

Cecliff shrugged. "They don't know. The alarm went off in the middle of the night and they've found a broken window. Julian is a key holder and he's been in and looked around. He says there's no damage as far as he can see, but—" She caught Jo's hand. "I'm going to have to go back. "

"Of course. " Jo gave her a hug. "I'll drive you down. "

"No, dear. I know you have another meeting with your editor to choose your pictures this afternoon. You can't possibly come. " Ceecliff smiled. "Julian would have known if anything had been touched. He knows the house well enough. It sounds as though that beastly alarm scared them off. I'll get dressed quickly and catch the first train I can get hold of. "

Jo rummaged in her bag and produced her car keys. "Here. At least take my car. Please. By the time you've crossed London to Liverpool Street and found a train and made the connections to Sudbury it will be midnight. Take my car and I'll come up at the weekend and collect it. "

"You're sure, dear?" Ceecliff stared at her doubtfully.

Jo nodded. "I'm sure. "

"And can you get someone to come and stay with you? You mustn't be alone. "

"I'll be okay. " Jo kissed her on the forehead. "There are loads of people I can ask. "

She stood on the pavement waving as Celia Clifford expertly slotted the blue MG into the traffic and disappeared, then she walked back slowly inside, feeling curiously bereft.

After shutting the door, she slipped the bolt automatically and fixed the chain. She glanced at her watch. It was just after ten. Plenty of time to call someone a bit later, but first there was something she wanted to do.

Ceecliff had been with her since Monday. Now it was Thursday. She'd finished the Clements article but started nothing new. She stood and ran her fingers over the pile of books and tapes and documents on her desk. Three weeks to write the three articles, she had said to Bet. But what about the book? The biography, the quest for her past existence. What of Matilda?

She sat down and pulled the first notebook toward her. Then she inserted a sheet of paper into her typewriter.

Once upon