The Society by Karen Guyler (feel good fiction books .txt) 📗

incurable philanderer. He dates, dated, he dated more than one woman at the same time.”

“Did you try to cure him?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said he was an incurable philanderer. Suggests you tried to mend his ways.”

“No, I’m happily married. I meant he had no intention of changing. He’s, he was, a one-off, charming, which is perhaps why so many would share him.”

DI Smith walked behind her, resuming his stroll around the room. “Do you know their names?”

“Not current ones.” Saucy Sue, what doesn’t she do? She remembered he’d been with her for a long time. Eric, did you hurt someone you shouldn’t?

“Why would you want him dead?” DC Truman’s expression didn’t change, even though she was asking the worst question.

“What? I don’t, I didn’t.”

“Last person to see him alive though.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I think you’ll find it does.”

“Nothing sinister.” Eva was losing her second interview of the morning. “How did Eric die?”

“You met where?” DI Smith arrived back at the neon scribble.

“Coffee Espresso on Russell Street. We had one coffee each, he had cake.”

“What time was this?”

“I got there at five fifteen, he was already there. I’m sure the staff can verify that, Eric would have tipped well.”

“Is money important to you?”

Eva frowned at his unexpected question. “I run a charity, I’m used to trying to wring as much as I can out of our budgets, the donations. The good use I can put it to is important to me. How did he die?”

Again he ignored the most important question. “Any of his ex-mistresses have it in for him?”

“I’d be surprised, Eric always looked after them.”

“That’s it for here.” DI Smith’s comment had DC Truman closing her notebook.

That was it? Eva tried to tame the hurricane in her mind. Had she said anything she shouldn’t? She wasn’t sure of the protocol for this situation—

“Ms Janssen?” He was holding the door open for her.

“Thank you.” She looked up and down the corridor. Where was the green room that housed the locker with her things in it?

“I believe we can get out this way.” DC Truman gestured that Eva should precede them to the left.

Past the open plan office with that computer in it. She needed a minute. “After you.”

DI Smith shook his head. “You’re coming with us, I’m sniffing obstruction in your answers. At the station you might feel more inclined to be truthful.”

3

“You’re popular.”

Sitting directly behind him in the detectives’ car, Eva couldn’t see DI Smith’s face, but he didn’t sound thrilled at her receiving yet another call. She messaged Dario, ‘what’s up?’

 ‘Are you still at the BBC? We need you here now.’ Not what she expected, being unflappable was one of the reasons he was her deputy.

‘A friend of mine’ Eva deleted the words. ‘I’m with the police.’ Her thumbs paused on ‘helping them with their enquiries’, trite words she’d heard on the news a hundred times that made her shiver now she was on the wrong side of them.

Never suppose, her father had said it often enough, one of the many life instructions he’d drilled her with.

She deleted the words, tried again. ‘Anything to do with donors, you deal with, everything else delegate to Vaishali. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

She put her phone on silent, dropped it in her handbag, stared out of the window. What happened to you, Eric?

Her ring tone filling the car confused her until she heard DI Smith answer his phone. “We’re in the middle of something. . .No, but—statement. . .” His voice sounded tighter with every syllable. “Yes. . .I will. Understood, DI Smith, DC Truman responding.” He disconnected, “pull over,” turned round to Eva. “There’s a major incident,” held a business card out to her. “Report within five days to give your statement.”

Eva reached for it, but he held onto it. “Don’t make me come and find you.”

“You won’t have to.”

DC Truman roared away, lights flashing, sirens blaring. By the time Eva got back to Every Drop, Breaking News confirmed the incident was on the tube network. Lily, at school and Charles in his lab, they were safe. Eva felt her tension level dropping. For her, at least, the most important thing was going right today.

“What happened?” Dario stopped Eva passing his office. “You’ve been ages, ‘Your Good Morning’,” he added at her blank look.

The interview, how could she have forgotten that disaster? “I said you should have done it.”

“It wasn’t as bad as you think.”

She leant against his door frame. “Except for me not getting out anything I went there to say.”

“Except that. But we didn’t lose—”

“Except for what Stuart apparently said. Did he really?”

Dario gestured at his desk. “Haven’t had a chance to look. Logistics for the next supply wait for no one.”

“What’s going badly?”

“How—?” He caught himself running his hand through his straying into grey dark hair for what must have been the hundredth time. “Ah.” Always a hundred percent, a smile for him, sparkling his brown eyes, showing off neat teeth, extra white against his olive skin. His Italian heritage embraced emotion.

“Hair like a bird’s nest, it’s your poker tell. What’s the problem?”

“Nothing specific, the whole thing’s a bloody nightmare.”

She’d known it would be, but to get the new installation operational before Time Magazine announced their company of the year was so important to her. “Is it the schedule?”

He shrugged, nodded.

“You need me to help?”

He gestured at the wall between their offices. “You’ve a stack of messages.”

“Catch up later then, with coffee?”

“If you’re offering, sure.” His grin made her smile back, something normal.

Her office welcomed her in, but she felt more conscious than usual of her father watching from behind the framed cover on the wall when he’d been Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, serious in army fatigues and a microphoned headset on his helmet, and again from behind his framed photo on her desk. He smiled at her from that one, his hand raised against the glare of a strong sun that highlighted the colours around him: sand, sky, washed out khaki clothing,