Read Wexford 6 - No More Dying Then for Free Online Page B

hadn’t meant to make a pun and she didn’t laugh. Her face hardened when Mike came down, grunted to the children and took his place at the table without a word. He wasn’t going to mention last night. Well, she would.
       “That algebra was perfectly O.K., John.”
       The boy’s face lit as it always did when Burden spoke to him.
       “I reckoned it was. I don’t really care about it, only old Mint Face will keep me in if it’s not. I don’t suppose you’d give me a lift to school.”
       “Too busy,” said Burden. “The walk does you good.” He smiled, but not too kindly, at his daughter. ‘And you too, miss,” be said. “Right, get going. It’s nearly half past.”
       Grace didn’t usually see them to the door but she did today to make up for their father’s hardness. When she came back Burden was on his second cup of tea and before she could stop herself she had burst into a long tirade all about John’s nerves and Pat’s bewilderment and the way be left them all alone.
       He heard her out and then he said, “Why is it that women” - he corrected himself, making the inevitable exception - “most women - can’t realise men have to work? If I didn’t work God knows what would happen to the lot of you.”
       “Were you working when Mrs. Finch saw you sitting in the car in Cheriton Forest?”
       “Mrs. Finch,” he flared, “can mind her own bloody business!”
       Grace turned her back. She found she was slowly counting to ten. Then she said, “Mike, I do understand. I can imagine how you feel”
       “I doubt, that.”
       “Well, I think I can. But John and Pat can’t. John needs you and he needs you cheerful and matter-of- fact and - and like you used to be. Mike, couldn’t you get home early tonight? There’s a film they’d both like to see. It doesn’t start till seven-thirty, so you wouldn’t have to be home till seven. We could all go. It would mean so much to them.”
       “All right,” he said. “I’ll do my best. Don’t look like that, Grace. I’ll be home by seven.”
       Her face lit up. She did something she hadn’t done since his wedding. She bent over and kissed his cheek. Then she began quickly to clear the table. Her back was to him so that she didn’t see the shiver he gave and the way he put his hand up to his face like a man who has been stung.

    Gemma Lawrence had put on clean jeans and a clean thick sweater. Her hair was tied back in a bunch with a piece of ribbon and she smelt of soap like a good clean child.
       “I slept all night.”
       He smiled at her. “Cheers for Dr. Lomax,” he said.
       “Are they still searching?”
       “Of course. Didn’t I promise you? We’ve borrowed a whole army of coppers from all the surrounding districts.”
       “Dr. Lomax was very kind. D’you know, he said that when he was living in Scotland before he came here his own little boy was missing and they found him in a shepherd’s hut lying asleep, cuddling the sheep-dog. He’d wandered for miles and this dog had found him and looked after him like a lost lamb. It reminded me of Romulus and Remus and the wolf.”
       Burden didn’t know who Romulus and Remus were, but he laughed and said, “Well, what did I tell you?” He wasn’t going to spoil her hopes now by pointing out that this wasn’t Scotland, a place of lonely mountains and friendly dogs. “What are you going to do today? I don’t want you to be alone.”
       “Mrs. Crantock’s asked me to lunch and the neighbours keep coming in. People are very kind. I wish I had some closer friends here. All my friends are in London.”
       “The best thing for worry,” he said, “is work. Take your mind off things.”
       “I don’t have any work to do, unfortunately.”
       He had meant housework, cleaning, tidying, sewing, tasks which he thought of as naturally a woman’s work, and there was plenty of that to be done. But he could hardly tell her