Death of a Gossip Read Online Free Page B

someone more important.
    ‘I’m chief accountant at Baxter and Berry in the City.’ She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘An odd job for a woman.’
    ‘Certainly for someone as young as yourself,’ said Jeremy. ‘I didn’t think such a fuddy-duddy firm would be so go-ahead.’
    ‘You know Baxter and Berry?’ queried Alice nervously.
    ‘I know old man Baxter,’ said Jeremy easily. ‘He’s a friend of my father. I must tease him about his pretty chief accountant.’
    Alice turned her face away. That’s where telling lies got you. Futureless. Now she wouldn’t dare even see Jeremy again after this holiday.
    ‘When I was your age, which was probably all of ten years ago,’ said Jeremy gently, ‘I told a perfectly smashing-looking girl that I was a jet pilot . . .’
    ‘Oh, Jeremy,’ said Alice miserably, ‘I’m only the chief accountant’s secretary.’
    ‘Thank you for the compliment.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a long time since anyone’s tried to impress me.’
    ‘You’re not angry I lied to you?’
    ‘No. Hey, I think you’ve caught something.’
    ‘Probably weed.’ Alice felt young and free and lighthearted. Mr Patterson-James’s saturnine face swam around in her mind, faded and disappeared like Scotch mist.
    She reeled in her line, amused at the tugs, thinking how like a fish floating weed felt.
    There was a flash and sparkle in the peaty brown and gold water.
    ‘A trout!’ said Jeremy. He held out his net and brought the fish in.
    ‘Too small,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’ve got to throw it back.’
    ‘Don’t hurt it!’ cried Alice as he worked the fly free from the fish’s mouth.
    ‘No, it’s gone back to Mum,’ he said, throwing it in the water. ‘What fly were you using?’
    ‘A Kenny’s Killer.’
    He took out his box of fishing flies. ‘Maybe I’ll try one of those.’
    A companionable silence settled between them. The light began to fade behind the jumbled, twisted crags of the Two Sisters. A little breeze sent ripples lazily fanning out over the loch.
    And then out of the heather came the midges, those small Scottish mosquitoes. Alice’s face was black with them. She screamed and clawed for her mosquito net while Jeremy rowed quickly for
the shore.
    ‘Quick – let’s just bundle everything in the car and drive away from the beasts,’ he said.
    Alice scrambled into the bucket seat of something long and low. They shot off down the road, not stopping until they were well clear of the loch. Jeremy handed Alice a towel to wipe her
face.
    Alice smiled at him gratefully. ‘What about Daphne? I’d forgotten all about her.’
    ‘So had I.’ Jeremy was shadowed by a stand of trees beside the car. He seemed to be watching her mouth. Alice’s heart began to hammer.
    ‘Did . . . did you buy this car in Scotland?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I thought you and Daphne came up by train.’
    ‘We did. My father had been using the car. He knew I was coming up this way and so he left it in Inverness for me to collect.’
    ‘You’ve known Daphne a long time?’
    ‘No. Heather wrote to me to ask me if I would join up with Daphne. She had written to Heather saying she did not like to travel alone.’
    He suddenly switched on the engine. Alice sat very quietly. Perhaps he might have kissed her if she hadn’t kept on and on about stupid Daphne. Daphne was probably back at the hotel
changing into some couture number for dinner. Damn Daphne.
    ‘I never thought indecision was one of my failings,’ said Jeremy, breaking the silence at last. ‘I don’t want to spoil things by going too fast too soon.’
    Alice was not quite sure if he meant he had wanted to kiss her and had changed his mind. She dared not ask him in case he should be embarrassed and say he was talking about fishing.
    But he suddenly took one hand off the wheel and gave her own a quick squeeze.
    Alice’s heart soared. A huge owl sailed across the winding road. Down below them nestled the village of