Recalled to Death

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘I know,’ she said, spooning some mashed potato into her mouth.

  There was an answering light in Randall’s eyes. ‘I guessed you would. Martha,’ he said tentatively. And stopped.

  And she didn’t know whether she wanted him to finish the sentence or not. She didn’t know what to say, whether to stop him right there, when she didn’t know what it was he had been about to say. She eyed him then put her fork down and waited.

  Alex Randall gave a deep, drawn-out sigh, smiled, reached out and touched her hand. ‘Oh, Martha,’ he said.

  ‘Good gracious.’ The voice came from over her shoulder. ‘Martha. Darling. Wonderful to see you. I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’ve been abroad. Expanding the business, you know, to the Cayman Islands.’

  She stood up, flustered. Simon Pendlebury. Of all the rotten luck. Alex Randall seemed to shrink beside the confident and charismatic Simon Pendlebury, he of extortionate wealth and a widower, parent of two of the nastiest young women she’d ever met. Pendlebury bent and kissed her cheek.

  She introduced the two men and felt their wariness and suspicion, skirting around each other like two wrestlers, shaking hands almost with their fists closed.

  She looked beyond Simon and sighted a young woman in a very tight black skirt and some impressive high heels. ‘My new secretary,’ he said, wafting a careless hand. ‘Cerys Watkins.’

  She was a stunning-looking woman – confident, too. Long, thick, straight black hair which fell to her waist, a pale, flawless complexion, startling blue eyes and scarlet lipstick.

  She held out her hand. ‘I can’t believe my luck,’ she said in an undisguised Welsh accent. ‘I’ve heard such a lot about you from Simon. I’ve been dyin’ to meet you.’

  Martha simply smiled. Truth was she warmed to Cerys immediately. Her accent reminded her of her gentle, tolerant father smoking his pipe in the greenhouse.

  ‘They all love you, you know, Hannah, Jocasta, Armenia. They all think the world of you.’

  So … Simon’s housekeeper and his two daughters. That was nice.

  Cerys turned her attention to Alex Randall, who was standing back, maybe in the hope that they would not notice him or maybe it was simple embarrassment.

  ‘And you are?’

  Alex Randall held his hand out with a warm smile at Cerys and her boss.

  ‘Detective Inspector Alex Randall,’ he said without embarrassment. ‘Martha and I were sort of celebrating, sort of discussing a recent case we’ve both been involved in.

  ‘Oh,’ Cerys said. ‘That’s nice.’

  They all shook hands. Simon suggested they share a coffee in the bar area and the four of them sat down, drinking, enjoying each other’s company.

  It could almost be, Martha thought, two couples. A foursome.

  But it’s never going to be, Martha, said the annoying, honest voice deep inside her. DI Alex Randall, for all his friendliness towards you, is a married man.

  But his words pushed insistently into her brain.

  I wish she would die.

  That one phrase made her nervous for the future.