A Chance Encounter by Rae Shaw (e manga reader TXT) 📗

hard.’ She was surprised Mark hadn't regaled her with a woeful tale about his mother's response to the news.

‘Haven't told her.’

She snapped one of his hairs and he slapped her hand away.

‘Don't. She's in this bubble, why pop it? The longer I hold off the better. She'll be impossible to handle. Weeping, wailing. Gnashing of teeth. She can tell Dad then. I'm not going to see him. Ever. I'm considering burning his letters.’

Beneath her steady hand, she felt his heartbeats, the rapid knocks on his breast. The burning, she assumed, would be metaphorical. ‘How did Ellen take the news?’ she asked gently.

‘Indifferent. If she cares, she can't be bothered to show it. I doubt she does. In any case, she's moving on.’

‘You mean moving in?’ Julianna sat up. Mark remained rigid. He pulled the sheet back over his lower half, hiding his failure.

‘Nope. She's going to Ireland to do some field work. As in real digging in the dirt. She's going to dump her stuff at mine for the duration.’

‘Wow. How long will she be gone?’

He folded his arms across his chest. The arrangement of limbs was uncomfortably defensive and unnatural in bed. ‘Does it matter? She's excited. It's more interesting than her job and they'll give her somewhere to live out there.’

Julianna drew her knees up and hugged them. ‘Sounds fun for her. Who is they?’

He screwed his face up. ‘Dunno.’

‘She met someone?’

‘I don't think so. Dunno. She's got this friend, Freddie, I think she called him. He's out there helping her.’

Julianna frowned this time. ‘She's not met him?’

‘I don't think so. No, she said she hadn't.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘It's her life.’

Mark's interest in Ellen's life had peaked and fallen away. Julianna wasn't in a position to judge. She barely spoke to her own sister, although that was more to with envy than belligerence.

‘I'm sure she'll be fine,’ she said. What that meant was up to him. If he wasn't worried about his sister, why should she be? Something else was bothering him. He had heaped countless things on his plate in the last few weeks.

‘I'm sorry. I’m probably tired. Busy day at work. Which reminds me. I’ve been given this assignment and it turns out to be pretty complicated. I could do with your analytical mind.’

‘You think you’ve got a terrorist network?’

‘No.’ He skipped over her attempt at humour. ‘A problematic Jackson Haynes acquisition. He’s asked me to go through some irregularities.’ Mark waved two fingers in the air to indicate the speech marks. ‘Can you come by my office first thing tomorrow?’

‘Sure.’ She kissed his cheek. The wiry bristles grazed her lips. Humour hadn't lifted his mood, so she tried a different tactic. ‘You're good at this job, you know that. You don't need me.’

‘Once, maybe...’ He stared at the lampshade above his head.

‘Come on.’ She swiped his arm with her knuckles. ‘That business in Manchester, you caused the collapse of a corrupt accountancy firm.’

He covered his face with his hands and groaned. ‘People lost their jobs. I betrayed my boss.’

She snuggled closer to him again. ‘What was his name?’

‘David Henderson. The senior partner in the firm. Haydocks was his baby.’

‘Must have been worth his while: laundering money, dodgy deals.’

‘Let's say he had these.’ He spread his fingers out and stabbed them in the air. ‘Pies.’

Henderson had to be a specialist in money laundering and not just a casual operative. ‘Oh, more than one?’ she asked.

‘I found six clients with dubious accounts.’

‘Six!’ What a treasure trove. ‘Why wonder you went into hiding. Didn't you want to take the credit?’

‘I worked there for three years – my first job. Dave was my mentor. I wonder sometimes if he thought I was going to help out, become a crook like my dad. Perhaps he let me find the money. I don't know. I left. I didn't want to be implicated.’

‘Oh, I guess that's always a risk if you blow whistles.’ She pursed her lips. ‘So, these clients, who were they?’

‘Names. Just names and accounts. It was complicated. He'd covered his tracks and I didn't suspect anything for three years, until...’ He yawned and stretched his arms above his head.

‘Yes?’ She twirled a few chest hairs again.

‘Swedish... no Norwegian. Redningsmann, something like that. Redder: that cropped up too. It made me curious – those two: Redningsmann and Redder accounts were the biggest. Look, I drank a lot for a few months, trying to work out what to do with what I had found out. Then I panicked when Dave started bombarding everyone with questions. He was under pressure from somebody, probably the dodgy clients getting twitchy. I handed in my notice and decided to tip off the police, anonymously. Hardly the actions of hero. Dave knew something was up, but by then, a few of us had resigned from Haydocks; it helped cover my back.’

‘You weren’t going to help the police?’

Mark examined his fingernails. ‘I don’t exactly feel comfortable talking to the police. My family is known to them. It was easier not to get involved. They had all the clues they needed to arrest Henderson for money laundering.’ He flung back the duvet. ‘I should go.’

He grabbed his pants and left Julianna stranded on the bed.

‘Sure you don't want to stay?’

‘No, thanks, sweetheart.’ He disappeared into the bathroom.

The endearment felt wrong. They weren't sweethearts, or darlings, or honeybuns, or whatever stupid phrase came to mind when they kissed. She’d not even considered calling him anything other than Mark. She was on a fence, somewhere between lover and friend. It didn't help she was wearing her detective hat too. Mark didn't seem the slightest bit curious about the criminals he had upset. Probably because it reminded him of his father. Somewhere, a hive of angry bees