The Killing of Katie Steelstock Read Online Free

Limbery.”
    This produced a short silence while the four ladies digested the inferences.
    “It depends what you mean by serious,” said Mrs. Havelock. “If one of my daughters was entangled with that young man I should regard it as extremely serious.”
    “There was something in it at one time, I believe,” said Mrs. Steelstock. “And he used to hang around our house a good deal. But Katie gave him no encouragement, of that I’m sure.”
    “It went a bit further than that,” said Mavis Gonville. “It wasn’t just a question of no encouragement. They had a flaming row. And since they were tactless enough to have it in the Tennis Club bar, quite a lot of people heard them having it. I believe you were there, Helen.”
    Mrs. Mariner rotated again and said, “Was I? I don’t think so. I believe my husband was there.”
    “Ah,” said Mr. Beaumorris, “but bear in mind, ladies, Amantium irae amoris integratio est.”
    “You’ll have to translate for us,” said Mavis. “We’re none of us Latin scholars.”
    “It is a comment, dear ladies, which is attributed to the Roman poet Terence. It means, roughly, that a lovers’ quarrel sometimes signifies the rebirth of love.”
    “There’s a nasty draft from that electric fan,” said Mrs. Mariner. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to turn it away from me, Mr. Beaumorris.”
     
    “That’s a real hanging jury in the corner,” said Tony Windle as he and Katie swirled away. “One old man and four old women.”
    “Five old women.”
    “Who do you think they’re tearing to pieces?”
    “Us, of course. Where’s Jonathan?”
    “He’s not coming.”
    “Oh. Why?”
    Remembering Jonathan’s stated opinion about village dances, Tony thought it more tactful to say, “He had a piece to finish for his paper.”
    “I should have thought it could have waited. That rotten rag of his only comes out once a week. If the piece is for next Thursday he’d have plenty of time, surely.”
    She sounded put out. Tony thought. “So that’s the way the wind’s blowing, is it?”
     
    “The same again,” said George Mariner. “Vernon?”
    “Thank you. It’s a gin and tonic.”
    “Gerry?”
    “The same. It’s the only possible drink on a night like this.”
    “Hottest for years,” said Vernon Vigors. He was the senior partner in Vigors and Dibden, the only firm of solicitors in Hannington. A thin, dry man in his middle sixties, he seemed to feel the heat less than the florid George Mariner or Group Captain Gerry Gonville, tubby, bald and cheerful and recently retired from the Royal Air Force.
    “Put plenty of ice in, Sam,” said Mariner. “How’s the new job going, Gerry?”
    “Better than the last one,” said Gerry.
    The other two laughed. When Gonville had left the Air Force his first job had been secretary to the Hannington and District Golf Club. The story of his brushes with the lady members had become part of local folklore.
    “It involves going up to London four days a week, but this one’s a sensible sort of job. I help look after all the appeals for the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund. We collect the money. Our welfare department spends it.”
    Vigors said, “I’m glad you got the job. Cheers, George.”
    “Cheers,” said Mariner. “And a bloody good cause, too. Though why we have to leave the care and comfort of Air Force men who’ve fallen on hard times to a voluntary organisation is something I’ve never understood. Did the Air Force save this country in 1940 or didn’t they? They did. All right. Then why can’t this futile bloody crowd of old women who call themselves a government use a hundredth—a thousandth—of the money they put into bankrupt bloody shows like car factories that can’t make cars and steelworks that can’t produce steel and pay the Air Force back something of what we owe them.”
    “I can tell you the answer to that,” said Vigors. “Fifty thousand steelworkers and fifty thousand car workers add up to a hundred thousand