Least of Evils Read Online Free Page B

Barton’s attempted burglary were still being felt.
    The man who had commissioned the new building on the site of the nineteenth-century cotton baron’s site was a representative of the worst side of twenty-first century capitalism. A century and more ago, men who made fortunes from local industry had built their modern castles to display their wealth. Nowadays, fortunes came by other means. There were all sorts of rumours, but no one knew for certain exactly where the new occupant’s money came from, or which was the most lucrative of his many enterprises.
    Oliver Ketley was physically an impressive man. He was six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and hips and no noticeable embonpoint, even at the age of fifty-six. In his youth, he had been a fearsome centre half in amateur football; he had put on no more than half a stone in the last thirty years. No one knew whether he watched his diet or whether he was one of those fortunate people who could eat whatever they liked without adding inches to their waistlines. Certainly no one around him felt bold enough to enquire about it. He took little exercise save for the occasional game of golf at the North Lancs Golf Club, the best course in the area.
    Ketley should have been a handsome man, but he was not. He had regular features in a large, square face, but they were for the most part expressionless, even when he seemed perfectly relaxed in convivial company. His inscrutability seemed always to carry a certain menace. He registered everything around him, but reacted to it as he pleased and when it suited him. His facial control gave him a sinister aura, which was enhanced by the fact that his eyes were a very pale blue, a shade which was inappropriate in such a face. No one enjoyed Oliver’s stare. He had a good head of black hair, sharply parted and slicked straight back, in the style of an earlier era.
    He was a physically powerful man, but none of those around him now had ever seen him use that strength in physical combat. When you made the amount of money that Oliver Ketley did, in the way he did, you made enemies also. He had killed, in the past – had murdered his way to the top, in the envious phrase of one of his contemporary villains. But he had long since acquired the hard men who were his carapace against opposition. He had muscle to defend him against any attack, muscle to enforce his will when that was necessary. In the twenty-first century, it was easy enough to hire hard and ruthless men as your enforcers, once you had the money to do that.
    But loyal muscle was often unintelligent muscle, which could bring its own problems. Ketley was investigating one such problem now. James Hardwick was the head of his enforcers. This was a man who had also killed in his time, a man who carried the knife scars on chest and side which were the badges of loyalty and survival in the brutal world where he operated.
    It was Hardwick who spoke now. If he was nervous about this investigation of his department, he gave no sign of it. ‘It was Wayne Taylor who shot him. He saw him leaving the house.’
    â€˜Did he shoot to kill?’
    â€˜No. He was bringing him down.’ Even in an increasingly lawless world, killing still excited irritating attention. Unless you could dispose of the remains swiftly and without any trace, it was better to avoid murder.
    â€˜Then why shoot at all?’
    â€˜Because the man would have got away with your wife’s major jewellery. Taylor felt he had no alternative.’
    Ketley nodded. You couldn’t allow anyone to get away with a burglary here. Almost a hundred thousand pounds worth, retail. And it wasn’t just the money. If the word got round that Oliver Ketley had been outwitted by a petty thief, it would provoke hilarity and loss of status for him, in an underworld where status was strangely important. ‘So this sod nearly got away with it?’
    â€˜Yes. Almost got away scot-free. He was