Blood Guilt. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ way up a flight of stairs to a cedar-lined study furnished with two huge desks, a wall of books, several armchairs around an empty fireplace and the ghoulish Byron tapping away on a computer keyboard. His breathing was uneasy. Kit guessed he had just dashed up the stairs ahead of them.

      'Is this your first husband, Celia?' Kit asked indicating the large oil portrait hanging over the unbelievably ornate mantelpiece. Even if Kit hadn't already known what Geoffrey Robinson looked like she would never have assumed the debonair, gentle-faced man staring down on her was the current man of the manor. Carl Orlando had been handsome indeed, his eyes showing a strength and integrity that could not have been simply imposed by the artist.

      'It is,' she said gently, placing a hand on Kit's arm. Discounting the exaggerated hairdo, which tended to make her larger than life, Celia was a short person. Kit was five-seven and Celia didn't even reach her shoulder. And she was round. Not fat, just round, though she could have been any shape at all under the tent she was wearing. Kit looked up at the painting again and wondered what the two of them would have looked like together.

      'I painted this in 1969, five years before he died,' she was saying.

      'I'm impressed,' said Kit honestly, returning her attention to this surprising woman who still had hold of her arm.

      'By Carl?' she asked, pleased.

      'And your skill Celia.' There had been love in this house at one time then, Kit thought, wondering why it should matter to her. It did though, and she felt strangely pleased that that love was still here, watching over this room at least, captured in the warm intelligent eyes of a long-dead man.

      'Come, have a seat Katherine. Let's get this tedious business out of the way.'

      Kit seated herself in an ox-blood leather chair opposite Celia who pushed a manilla folder across the coffee table that separated them.

      'Byron has provided you with a copy of my husband's social calendar for the next fortnight,' she said tapping the top sheet of paper. 'Geoffrey works till at least 7 p.m. every day except Friday. The dates marked with asterisks indicate the evenings when I know he will be home or at a social function with me. So you will have some nights free,' she smiled at Kit. 'The other evenings, of which there are four, he could be anywhere. Sometimes he comes home for dinner and then goes out to his club, sometimes he dines out with clients, colleagues, business associates or god knows who. I've never asked him. On three occasions he will be attending official dinners; what he does afterwards is also a mystery. As you will see there are also several times during the day when it may be necessary to keep an eye on him.'

      'Well, it certainly looks like I'll be busy,' Kit said. And earning my money, she thought.

      'I don't expect you to follow him day in day out, Katherine. Geoffrey is nothing if not organised. The periods marked will do for a start. We can decide in two weeks whether or not we need to change our tactics or even if we need to continue. Now I would like your first report in seven days. Perhaps we could meet again for lunch at noon on Friday. I would prefer that all information is exchanged in person. If you need to ask me anything and I'm not available you may talk to my personal secretary, Byron, and no one else, to arrange a meeting.'

      'Friday will be fine Celia and I can't foresee any need for contact before then.'

      'Good. Now, we have also included in this file a list of the friends or business associates that I know Geoffrey will be dealing with according to this schedule,' she said, again tapping the social calendar. 'And a recent photograph of my husband just in case you need to share the surveillance, I assume that's what you call it, with any of your staff.'

      My staff? thought Kit, taken aback. Where did she get that idea? 'That will be useful, Celia, but I will be handling this personally.'

      'Excellent,' she said. 'I was hoping you would say that. That just leaves your fee.' She turned her attention to Byron who obediently unfolded his sallow body from behind the computer screen and was at his mistress's side before she had uttered his name. He placed an envelope in her hand, which she in turn passed to Kit.

      'Celia, I usually just agree on a fee and settle the account at the end of the case,' Kit said.

      'This is an advance to cover you till our next meeting. Any costs you incur, in the line of duty so to speak, we can settle at the end if you keep a record of them. I am employing you for a service, Katherine. I have always found it to my own advantage to pay for what I want before I get it, then it becomes a matter of trust. I do not want you to be out of pocket before you start. Will it be sufficient?'

      Kit flipped open the unsealed envelope and pulled the cheque out just far enough to read $3000. For one week! She fumbled it back into the envelope and tried to place it casually on top of the papers in the Geoffrey Robinson dossier, though she didn't actually want to let go of it. 'It's quite sufficient,' she managed to say.

      'Good. Then you begin tomorrow evening and I shall see you again next week. I will show Miss O'Malley out Byron, you can carry on with, ah, whatever. Just carry on.'

      Kit stood on the doorstep and shook Celia's offered hand. 'It has been a pleasure meeting you,' she said.

      'And you too my dear. Despite the circumstances.'

      'Can I ask how you came to choose my agency, Celia?' Kit said trying to make it sound like she did indeed have more staff than just herself and an insane black cat.

      Celia Robinson's sudden smile was a tad disarming. There had been an attractive woman there somewhere before the hornets had made a nest on her head.

      'I went to school with your mother,' she said. It was obviously of some amusement to her. 'Remember, young lady, it is always who you know in this life that counts.'

      So, Lillian was responsible for O'Malley Investigations taking on Pinkertons' proportions, Kit thought as she got back into her car and headed it towards the office which would not, as Celia Robinson obviously thought, be abuzz with smartly-suited detectives to-ing and fro-ing on all manner of operations covert.

      CHAPTER TWO

      The headquarters of O'Malley Investigations measured approximately 14 feet by 12. What that was in metric Kit had no idea and no desire to find out - it would only reduce the spaciousness she didn't have. The Imperial dimensions provided enough room to hold an impressive oak desk, three filing cabinets, two bookshelves, a kitchen sink, a pathetic potted plant of some tall variety in perpetual death throes, and two chairs - one for the only detective employed by the agency and one for clients. On the rare occasion that clients arrived in numbers greater than one, Kit simply borrowed a chair from her friend Del who produced, among other things, a feminist magazine in the front four-fifths of the Richmond premises.

      A glass door opened from the main street into a small tiled hallway which featured two interior doors and a stairway going up. Kit didn't mind stairs when they went in that direction but, as her apartment was on the next floor, it meant she had to descend the damn things at least once a day. One of the strange things about suffering from vertigo was that coming down was always a lot harder than going up.

      A large sign on the first door off the hallway announced Aurora Press loudly in purple lettering. However, the fact that Kit's office had, until recently, been Aurora's lunch room explained, not only the sink that skulked in one corner, but why only the smallest of wooden plaques on the second door at the rear of the hallway indicated the centre of operations for O'Malley Investigations.

      When she'd first set up shop, Kit had contemplated advertising СКАЧАТЬ