Read KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) for Free Online Page B

this time, love.’
    ‘That’s what you say and I know you mean it. Just make sure you don’t get involved. Anyway the thought occurs to me that Paddy and Eileen have their reasons for not backing you over Lew. They may not be telling you everything.’
    I drew in a sharp breath. Jan has a journalist’s keen intuition.
    She mistook my response.
    ‘I’m sorry love. My brain’s probably addled. Do you think I’m turning into a vegetable?’
    ‘An earth mother, you mean,’ I said, giving her bump a friendly pat.
    A few minutes later the children clattered into the family room, our peaceful idyll ended and family life resumed. That is, the children switched on the television, quarrelled over choice of channel, raided the kitchen for biscuits, demanded to be fed and then sprawled in awkward postures over the main pieces of furniture and the floor, moving frequently to achieve maximum coverage.
    Using the culinary skills honed over my long years of bachelorhood and the immense range of utensils available in our ‘dream’ kitchen I dished up omelette, chips and beans followed by ice cream.
    Afterwards Jan managed to coax Jenny into the study to get on with homework and settled to listen to Lloyd doing his reading. I loaded up the dishwasher.

5
    Monday evening
    On the surface normal life had resumed but I still felt unsettled. There was a feeling of vertigo as if I was standing on the edge of a precipice that I couldn’t shake.
    Jan’s remark about my parents knowing more than they’d let on had a feel of the truth about it.
    There had to be something. Normally they were so protective.
    I went into the barn the barn and phoned on my mobile.
    Paddy answered.
    ‘Oh, talking, are you? After you stormed out like a bear with a sore behind …’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t start! You’re the one who’s always telling me to keep my nose clean and now you want me to help Lew. I want to know the reason why. You must know more than you told me.’
    ‘Eeeeh, you’re not so green as you’re cabbage looking are you, our David?’
    ‘Oh, come on Dad. Cut out the Les Dawson impersonation. I’m not in the mood.’
    ‘There was something we didn’t tell you,’ he said in his normal voice.
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Lew’s dying. He’s been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. He’s been through all the treatments, radiation, chemotherapy etc, etc. They haven’t worked and he’s not got long.’
    ‘Oh,’ I muttered weakly, ‘but even so … to ask me to …’
    ‘Shut up David, don’t you know that when you speak on a mobile phone you’re broadcasting to the world? Lew’s health wasn’t what I was referring to. As you’ve figured out there was something else I might as well spill the beans. You know he’s very wealthy?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Some time ago, before the bit of bother he came to you about was even on the horizon, he told us he was thinking of changing his will. He was going to leave everything to various charities, church bodies and the like but all these scandals in the church upset him. The estates and properties, especially his late wife’s Weldsley lands will be kept in one piece. Death duties will be paid out of his investments so the lands can be handed on in one piece.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So, Thicko, you’re his sole heir. You’re going to get the lot. You’ll be proper landed gentry, a country squire.’
    I like to think it’s to my credit that I didn’t drop the phone or faint or something. I just said ‘No’ and grunted.
    Paddy resumed after a pause. He detailed the extent of Lew’s wealth. It was much greater than I’d ever imagined. Of course, I knew about the big house in Wilmslow and the massive legal fees earned as a barrister but the rest was staggering.
    ‘Yeah, you get the lot, lucky boy. He’s left me and your mum a nice sum too and Dee Elsworth gets his porcelain collection but that’s it.’
    ‘Dee Elsworth?’
    ‘Yeah, the sly old devil’s been carrying on with her for