by Roy Lewis
‘If it hadn’t been for me, you’d never have got away from Rowland’s Farm,’ Charlie growled.
‘Now exactly how do you make that out?’ Ward asked calmly.
‘Jackie Parton rescued you both from a tight fix. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if I hadn’t asked you to get him involved.’
The silence grew around them. Eric Ward shrugged. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at things.’
Charlie hesitated. ‘I’ve packed it in. The job, I mean.’
Once again, the solicitor did not seem surprised. He waited.
‘So you owe me one,’ Charlie suggested. ‘Getting Parton involved like that. Saved your neck. And Miss Owen’s.’ Charlie hunched his shoulders and slid down in his seat. ‘So I was thinking. I mean to stay up here. Find an office, take on security work. Do some private enquiry stuff. You use agencies from time to time. You could use me.’
Eric Ward raised an eyebrow. Charlie guessed what he was about to say. They had a history, he and Eric Ward. They’d never got on. And now Charlie was asking for a job. In the tense silence that followed he could almost see the words forming on the solicitor’s lips. A job? Not in a million years.
Instead, after a little while Eric Ward said quietly, ‘Yes. Perhaps I could at that….’
Copyright
© Roy Lewis 2010
First published in Great Britain 2010
This edition 2011
ISBN 978 0 7090 9546 0 (ebook)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9547 7 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9548 4 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 8969 8 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Roy Lewis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988