A Darker Place

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Book: Read A Darker Place for Free Online
Authors: Jack Higgins
see the look on their faces when they check the reading.” He pulled in outside the Dover Street house. “Here we are, folks. You’re staying, right?” he asked Dillon.
    “What do you think?”
    “You’re staying.”
    When Billy was gone, they paused at the top of the steps for Monica to find her key and went in. She didn’t put the light on, simply waited for him to lock the door, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him quite hard.
    “Oh my goodness, I’ve missed you.”
    “You’ve only been away four days.”
    “Don’t you dare,” she said. “Ten minutes, and if you take more, there’ll be trouble,” and she turned and ran up the stairs.
    He changed in one of the spare bedrooms, put on a terry-cloth robe, and joined her in her suite. He’d found a tenderness with her that he’d never known he had—he’d surprised himself as their relationship blossomed—and they made slow, careful love together.
    Afterward, she drifted into sleep and he lay there, a chink of light coming through the curtains from a lamp in the street. On impulse, he slipped out of the bed, put on the robe, padded downstairs to the drawing room, took a cigarette from a box on the table, lit it, then sat by the bow window, looking out and thinking about Kurbsky. After a while, Monica slipped in, wearing a robe.
    “So there you are. Give me one.”
    “You’re supposed to have stopped,” he said, but gave her one anyway.
    “What are you thinking of?” she said. “Kurbsky?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I thought you might. He reminded me of you.”
    “You liked him, I think?”
    “An easy man to like, just as you are an easy man to love, Sean, but like you, there’s the feeling of the other self always there, like a crouching tiger just waiting to spring.”
    “Thanks very much.”
    “What were you thinking?”
    “What on earth we are going to do with him if we get him.” He stubbed his cigarette out and got up. “Come on, back to bed with you.” He put a hand around her waist and they went out.
     
     
    IT WAS TEN-THIRTY when Roper found himself in his chair back in the computer room at Holland Park. Sergeant Doyle said, “You’ve everything you need to hand, Major, so I think I’ll have a lie-down in the duty room.”
    “You should be entitled to a night off, Tony. What about Sergeant Henderson?”
    “He’s on ten days’ leave.”
    “And the Royal Military Police can’t find a replacement?”
    “But we wouldn’t want that, would we, sir? A stranger in the system? I’ll get a bit of shut-eye. If you need me, give me a bell.”
    Roper lit a cigarette and set his main screen alive, bringing up Svetlana Kelly. In her early years, she’d been a member of the Chekhov Theatre in Moscow, which meant she was well grounded in classical theater. She hadn’t been much of a beauty, even when young, but he saw handsomeness and strength there. There was a selection of photos from the early years, and then London in 1981. A Month in the Country at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Fifty-five and never married, and then she’d met Patrick Kelly, the Irish widower and professor of literature at London University. Roper looked at Kelly’s photos—he was strong too, undoubtedly, and yet there was a touch of humor about his mouth.
    Whatever the attraction, it was strong enough for them to marry at Westminster Registry Office within a month of meeting and for Svetlana to cut herself free of the Soviet Union. She would be seventy-one now. It was eleven o’clock, and yet on sheer impulse, Roper phoned her. He stayed on speakerphone, he always did, and there was an instant answer.
    “Who is this?” It was a whisper in a way, and yet clear enough, the Russian accent undeniable.
    “Mrs. Kelly, my name is Giles Roper—Major Giles Roper.” He spoke fair Russian, product of an army total-immersion course just after Sandhurst, and he’d kept it up since. “Forgive the intrusion at such a time of night. You don’t know

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