Dead Men and Broken Hearts: A Lennox Thriller (Lennox 4) Read Online Free Page A

frumpy spinster to dazzling starlet; but she had donned an expensive and fashionable suit and high heels, had applied make-up to the otherwise perpetually naked face. The Glasgow shop attendant had become the image of a wealthy if unexceptional middle-class Edinburgh housewife. The suit she was wearing was clearly a label that a store clerkess could never aspire to, and I had realized instantly that I was looking at where the pilfered two-bobs and half-crowns had gone. It must have taken her years: years of watching women buy from her clothes she could never aspire to wear herself; years of constant reminding that everyone had a place and her place was behind the counter, not in front of it.
    I realized that I could have confronted her there and then; that I could have demanded to know how she had managed to pay for the clothes, the shoes, the handbag, but there was something about what I had witnessed – its bizarre surreality – that made me want to watch her a little longer. My guess had been that this was all about a man and I decided to bide my time to see whom she met.
    I had followed her on foot across Princes Street to a typically Edinburgh, typically snooty tearoom-cum-restaurant four floors up with a view of Edinburgh Castle. She ordered from a waitress who clearly knew her from previous visits and she sat contentedly eating scones, drinking tea and looking out across Princes Street Gardens to the castle. I knew then that there was no male companion, no secret tryst with a partner in crime or adultery. There was a peace and contentment about her that was fascinating and I knew I was watching her enjoy the single, complete, indivisible object of her larceny. This was what shehad stolen for. It made absolutely no sense and it made absolutely perfect sense.
    I followed her from the tearoom. She window-shopped, she browsed, she strolled, but didn’t buy anything. Then, after two hours, she returned to the railway station, picked up the suitcase and performed her transformation in reverse. We both caught the same train back to Glasgow but I made no effort to keep tabs on her; I had seen all I needed to see.
    Like I said, it was the oddest thing about my job: to be able to look into the corners of people’s lives and see what they thought no one else could ever be party to.
    The funny thing was that when it came to making my report to the store, I didn’t include the details of her trip to Edinburgh. I didn’t tell anyone about it. It wasn’t that I lied to my client: I gave a full account of the observation Archie and I had carried out and the fact that we had found no direct evidence of theft or even discrepancies in the till receipts. I don’t really know why I kept a secret for someone who didn’t know I was keeping it. Maybe it was because I could understand why someone would go to such great lengths to be, for a few hours once every month or so, someone completely different.
    And now I found myself observing another life.
    I followed the Daimler at as great a distance as I could risk without losing it in the dark and the rain. Andrew Ellis drove out of Bearsden, and towards the city centre through Maryhill. Maryhill was the kind of place you drove through. Without stopping if you had any sense. It was a tough neighbourhood where a squabble over a spilt pint of beer could cost you an eye, a lung or your life, yet run-down Maryhill sat shoulder-to-shoulder with prosperous Bearsden; opposite ends of the Glasgow social spectrumsqueezed together. I dare say the city fathers had had it in mind to make the commute to work easier for burglars.
    Ellis took a left off Maryhill Road and an alarm bell began to ring in my head. Not that there was anything wrong with his road skills, it was just that driving a Daimler into Maryhill was kind of like a Christian standing in the middle of the Colosseum and banging a dinner gong in the direction of the lions. I followed him in, not without trepidation. He took another left,