Read Something Wicked for Free Online

as Edward had some business to clear up in London, he arranged with Harry that he would drive down at the weekend, settle Verity in at Dr Bladon’s and then come on to Turton House. He told himself he would stay with Harry for a day or two and see how it went. He could always make some excuse to return to London if it didn’t work out.
    Whether it was knowing what ailed her, Edward’s support and encouragement or her instinctive determination not to be defeated by the ‘bloody thing’, as she called it, but Verity very quickly recovered her spirits. In a couple of days, she was out of bed and pacing around her room like a caged animal saying she was better and wanted to go back to work. Tomlinson lectured her but he was already beginning to think that Dr Bladon might find it hard to keep her on the ‘straight and narrow’ as he called the regime he had prescribed.
    Superficially, Verity had indeed recovered quickly. She started smoking again and boredom made her irritable and ungrateful. When Edward arrived to take her to Henley, she refused and insisted on going to the New Gazette to see Lord Weaver. Striding out of the hospital, she promptly collapsed before reaching Charlotte Street. Passers-by ran to her aid and helped Edward half-carry her back to the Middlesex where Matron – the only person in the hospital of whom Verity was genuinely afraid – greeted her with a frown of concern and annoyance. The experience shook her and she was compelled to accept how low were her reserves of strength. She was put to bed and the move to Dr Bladon’s sanatorium was delayed for twenty-four hours.
    On the drive down to Henley in Edward’s Lagonda – Verity had indignantly refused to travel in an ambulance – Edward tried to interest her in the investigation into the savage killing of his dentist. He had asked Tomlinson if he could discuss it with her and the doctor had conceded that anything which took her mind off her condition and gave her something to think about was probably to the good.
    ‘And Pride is happy for you to look into the deaths of Mr Silver’s patients – the three he believed had been murdered?’ she inquired after hearing him out.
    ‘Yes. He thinks it might be easier for me – on an informal basis – to talk through the circumstances surrounding the deaths with Inspector Treacher, the local man, than for him to get involved. Pride doesn’t want to look as though he is casting doubt on Treacher’s investigative skills.’
    ‘It’s not like Pride to be worried about upsetting people,’ Verity commented acidly. When they had come up against Pride before, he had shown near contempt for Edward as a bumbling amateur and undisguised suspicion of Verity as a Communist and a woman in a man’s world.
    ‘He seems to have mellowed. He knows us better and, in any case, I suspect my old friend Major Ferguson may have had a word with him.’
    ‘The man from Special Branch?’
    ‘Yes, I know you don’t like him . . .’
    ‘I don’t know him and I don’t want to,’ Verity broke in. ‘But I do know Special Branch has waged a war against the Party for as long as I can remember when it would have been much better employed investigating Mosley’s thugs.’
    ‘That’s unfair, V! He has taken strong measures against British Fascists and infiltrated the BUF so successfully that he knows what Mosley is planning almost before he does himself.’
    ‘Well,’ Verity grunted, ‘I’ll take your word for it but my old friend, Claud Cockburn, who was with me in Spain and writes for the Daily Worker , begs to differ. He was saying to me not so long ago that Special Branch reads all his letters and, he believes, listens in to his telephone calls.’
    Edward wanted to say that, in his view, such precautions were entirely justified but thought he had better keep the comment to himself. Cockburn was an amusing but unscrupulous journalist and a strong supporter of the Communist Party. Verity had once managed to