Money Never Sleeps Read Online Free Page B

everyone had to be in the conference hall ten minutes early for announcements by the vice chairman. It was all rules and regulations. Fancy felt she was back at school.
    The school had had a stream of famous speakers in the past: P D James, Ruth Rendell, Peter Lovesey, Simon Brett, Susan Moody, Gervase Phinn, Leslie Thomas, Gyles Brandreth. Her turn later this week. Fancy had a lot to live up to.
    The conference hall was a cavernous building, with a double-height ceiling like an aircraft hangar with rows of fluorescent lights in the gabled roof. The stage and lectern were along one side in the middle of a wall, so the audience sat in a semi-circle facing the speaker. It was far nicer than everyone sitting in strict rows facing the far end, view restricted and not being able to hear properly at the back.
    She was steered to a seat in the left-hand corner. ‘committee and guest speakers always sit here,’ she was told. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes did as she was told, but she damned well wasn’t going to obey the rules tomorrow.
    The speaker, no names, even though he was a household name, was full of himself and how famous and clever he was, and quickly became boring. The audience laughed at his jokes and asked lots of questions at the end, but Fancy had heard them all before. She could feel herself nodding off.
    Then she found herself daydreaming about her current book, a new scene coming alive into her head, and she desperately wanted to write it down.
    Pink pen out and a slim notebook and she was busy writing. The rest of the talk passed happily over her head, and she only came to when the clapping began and the speaker was escorted out to rapturous applause.
    ‘Wasn’t he good?’ said Jessie. ‘Did you enjoy that?’
    ‘Yes. Terrific,’ she said, closing her notebook.
    It was very dark outside now, with a cool breeze stirring the trees. The paths were lit with knee-high lamps but there were still big patches of dark and shadows. She suddenly felt very isolated. She was with three hundred people and yet she was totally alone. It was time to run for that lift and its reassuring recorded voice and lock herself into room 425. She would be safe there.
    ‘Come and join us in the bar. What would you like to drink? Unless you’d rather go and listen to ‘What Are You Doing Now?’ It starts in twenty minutes.’ It was Fergus, the chairman. He looked like a publisher; bushy eyebrows, bright eyes. He talked like a publisher.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, for the hundredth time that day. ‘A red wine, please.’
    He brought her a Fairtrade Merlot in a standard bar wine glass. That was a relief – no more thimbles. It was pleasant talking but she was getting a really uneasy feeling for no good reason. The bar area was tucked in behind the glassed-in veranda but she still felt visible and vulnerable. It was a long walk to Lakeside. She wondered how she was going to get there on her own without making a fuss.
    The smokers were segregated and had to smoke outside in a gazebo. She caught a whiff of an unusual cigarette, not one she recognized. The faces and bodies in the gazebo were vague and shapeless, coughing and laughing, new cigarettes being lit with sparks of glowing red. They drew on them like tiny red worms.
    Fancy leaned back so that she could not be seen clearly. She wanted to be swallowed by the shadows. The wine was shaking in her hand. She needed a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s lecture and she had to look over her notes. A group was walking back to the conference hall in the dark. As the hall was halfway to Lakeside, it seemed the right time to move.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said, standing up. ‘That long drive is catching up on me. So, if you’ll excuse me. Goodnight, everyone.’
    There was a chorus of goodnights and good wishes.
    She caught up with the group walking to the next event, absorbed into their numbers as a protection. She slid into the back of the hall, hoping no one would join her. It was easy to