The Society Karen Guyler (best books to read .TXT) 📖

held his hands out as though he were placating a small child. “As long as is necessary to repair the damage, soothe some offended egos.”

Charles was nodding. “That makes sense. It’ll be good for you, Eva, to take a rest. You’ve been working too hard.”

“A rest? Now? Right when we’re facing a crisis?”

“You’re not the only person who can deal with it. Your number two seems capable.” Stuart waved his hand at the corridor beyond Eva’s office.

“He is, but. . .” Dario hadn’t used his inheritance from his father’s far too premature death to set Every Drop up, its mission wasn’t in even his heart as deeply as it was in hers. “When Every Drop needs me the most?” The hurt in her voice cut through the anger in the room. “I can’t just walk away.”

“You recognised the statutes we’re invoking?”

What difference did that make? Kicking her out was kicking her out.

“It’s the ones you insisted on, Eva, to keep Every Drop beyond reproach.”

How could he use that against her? She’d had them written into the regulations to stop others from jeopardising Every Drop, she never would.

“Without you involved in the new campaign, there won’t be any need to dredge up videos from last night. Look at it as a holiday. If I were you, I’d want to be out before everyone arrives, it’ll make things more pleasant. I’ll stay here to brief them.”

It might be more pleasant for him, but she didn’t work that way. “I’ll tell them myself.”

“It’s not a choice, Eva. You are to leave now. As per the terms of the clause activated by that letter,” he nodded at the crumpled mess in her hand, “you’re trespassing. We’ll call the police in five minutes.”

The police, again, for the third time in two days, wouldn’t that be awkward?

He produced another envelope from the inside of his suit jacket. “If you don’t leave of your own volition, I have the power to supersede that letter with this one. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what’s—”

“You can’t take Every Drop away from me.”

“You know very well no one is above the Board, you set it up that way as a safeguard. This means you are to do nothing related to or for Every Drop until such time as the Board reappoints you.

“But the crisis—”

“Will be handled.”

Her father’s face smiled out at her from his photo. Tread softly, she could almost hear him saying it. Would you though, Daddy, for something that meant everything to you?

Her gaze traced every two-dimensional contour on his face as her child’s fingertips had his skin, the lines that gathered at the edges of his smiling eyes, the strength and surety of him. All gone to dust now.

“What’s it to be?” Stuart persisted.

Eva closed her eyes.

Tread softly? Like hell.

18

“You ain’t gonna get no answer, even knocking so the dead can hear ya.” The old man peered out of the front door next to the one Luke was banging on. “S’not funny though, is it, seeing as ‘ow he’s an actual goner. No family, who’s gonna do the necessary for ‘im?”

The neighbour didn’t know about the brother? Interesting.

“Do you have a key?” Luke asked. “I’m from the funeral home, I need to get something suitable to bury Mr Banks in.”

“You’re a bit pronto, ain’t ya? They only took ‘im yesterday.”

“I was in the neighbourhood, it’ll save us time later.”

The man shook his head, his jowls wobbling. “Nah, didn’t trust no one, that one. Quiet like, anti-social. Not like the old days, used to be everyone looked out for everyone ‘ere.”

He gestured at the Victorian terraced houses on both sides of the road, busy with parked cars even in the middle of the day, then dipped his head.

“Gawd rest his soul. Found him halfway out the ‘ouse I did, lying right there, nose on the path. Already too late, but I called the old bill anyway, no point tying up an ambulance. Not ‘ow you expect your day to go, is it?”

For the average person, maybe not, but for the man ordering a hit on the President of the United States, maybe certainly.

“Anyway,” the neighbour went on, “he used to ‘ave one out the back, a key. All secretive, like, but he never fort we was watching. You want to jump me fence?”

A glance at the front of Banks’ house, no flashing light on the alarm box - dummy or just not activated? Luke would soon find out.

He followed the old man into his narrow hallway, through a lounge where the sun was trying to get through the French doors. Down two steps to a clapped-out kitchen that smelt of smoked fish, where he struggled with the shoot bolt at the top of the back door. “Me daughter’s put it on again. What’s the point in that, I can’t reach it no more.”

“Would you like me to?” Luke gestured at it and waited for the man’s nod.

“You wanna cuppa, got to be a rotten job, what you do, ain’t it?”

“It’s a hell of a way to make a living. Thanks for your help.”

“Don’t mention it, mate. Go down the garden, fence is easiest there.”

Past the six-foot panels, round the skeleton of a tall fruit tree the man had probably planted in his youth, the fence thinned to greyed out spindles, weathered almost to driftwood, strung together on wire. Using the concrete support of the proper panel and a foot against the tree trunk, Luke got over it easily. Not as obvious as under a plant pot, Banks had taped his key to the side of the concrete step beneath the French doors.

The silence and stillness of an empty house greeted Luke. Through the kitchen, dining room, front room, up the stairs, Banks had been show-house neat and minimalist. Until Luke reached the master bedroom doorway. A chair, on which Banks had placed trousers and a shirt, lay on its back, the snake of a pink tie coiled beside it. The duvet looked as though