Read Set in Darkness for Free Online Page B

shoulder and cheek. He was fixing meetings, always meetings. Lorna watched him over the rim of her glass, while her mother demanded that the lights be turned on.
    ‘So damned awful dark in here. Am I supposed to be reminded of the graveyard?’
    ‘Yes, Roddy,’ Cammo drawled, ‘do something about it, will you? This was your idea after all.’ Looking around the premises with all the disdain he could muster. But then the photographers had arrived – one organised by Roddy, one from a glossy magazine – which brought Cordoverback to the table, and fixed authentic-seeming smiles to all the members of the Grieve clan.
    Roddy Grieve hadn’t meant for them to walk the whole length of the Royal Mile. He’d gone so far as to organise a couple of taxis which were waiting for them outside the Holiday Inn. But his mother wouldn’t have it.
    ‘If we’re going to walk, then for Christ’s sake let’s walk!’ And off she set, her walking stick seven parts affectation to three parts painful necessity, leaving Roddy to pay off the drivers. Cammo leaned towards him.
    ‘You always overdo things.’ A pretty good imitation of their mother.
    ‘Bugger off, Cammo.’
    ‘I wish I could, dear brother. But the next train to civilisation’s not for some time yet.’ Making show of studying his watch. ‘Besides, it’s Mother’s birthday: she’d be devastated if I suddenly departed.’
    Which, Roddy couldn’t help feeling, was probably true.
    ‘She’ll go over on that ankle,’ Seona said, watching her mother-in-law moving downhill with that peculiar shuffling gait which attracted all manner of attention. Sometimes, Seona felt that it was affectation, too. Alicia had always had ways and means of drawing the looks of those around her, and of including her offspring in the spectacle. It hadn’t been so bad when Allan Grieve had been alive – he’d kept his wife’s eccentricities in check. But now that Roddy’s father was dead, Alicia had started compensating for years of enforced normality.
    Not that the Grieves were a normal family: Roddy had warned Seona about them the first time they’d gone out together. She’d already known, of course – everyone in Scotland knew at least
something
about the Grieves – but had elected to keep her counsel. Roddy wasn’t like them, she’d told herself back then. She still said it to herself sometimes, but without the old conviction.
    ‘We could go look at the parliament site,’ she suggested as they reached the St Mary’s Street junction.
    ‘Good God, whatever for?’ Cammo droned predictably.
    Alicia pursed her lips, then, saying nothing, turned towards Holyrood Road. Seona tried not to smile: it had been a small but palpable victory. But then who was she fighting?
    Cammo held back. The three women were matching each other for pace. Hugh had stopped by a shop window to take yet another call. Cammo fell into step beside Roddy, pleased to note that he was still immeasurably better groomed and dressed than his younger brother.
    ‘I’ve had another of those notes,’ he said, keeping the tone conversational.
    ‘What notes?’
    ‘Christ, didn’t I tell you? They come to my parliamentary office. My secretary opens them, poor girl.’
    ‘Hate mail?’
    ‘How many MPs do you know who get fan letters?’ Cammo tapped Roddy’s shoulder. ‘Something you’re going to have to live with if you get elected.’
    ‘If,’ Roddy repeated with a smile.
    ‘Look, do you want to hear about these bloody death threats or not?’
    Roddy stopped in his tracks, but Cammo kept walking. It took Roddy a moment to catch up.
    ‘Death threats?’
    Cammo shrugged. ‘Not unknown in our line of work.’
    ‘What do they say?’
    ‘Nothing much. Just that I’m “in for it”. One of them had a couple of razor blades inside.’
    ‘What do the police say?’
    Cammo looked at him. ‘So middle-aged, and yet so naïve. The forces of law and order, Roddy – I offer this lesson gratis and for nothing –