In Loving Memory
A standalone mystery from the author of the Kelsey and Lambert novels.A number of people stood to benefit from Harry Mallinson’s death and Henry Mallinson was old and sick and very rich.His estranged elder son needed money for his business. His younger son did not want to see his father’s will changed. His pretty daughter-in-law needed money to lay of ghost from her past to rest. His godson was behind with instalments on a motorcycle. His nurse needed a few thousand to buy a son a small-holding and his secretary a few hundred to buy herself expensive clothes.So when Henry Mallinson died – not from natural causes – there was no lack of suspects for the police.
Читать In Loving Memory онлайн беплатно
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 1970 by Collins Crime
Copyright © Emma Page 1970
Emma Page asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780008175962
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175979
Version [2016-02-18]
CONTENTS
TWO O’CLOCK in the morning. A silent hour, the time of darkness, of the first deep sleep. A stirring in the tall thick branches of the great trees standing sentinel at the rear of Whitegates, the sudden melancholy screech of a night-owl, a rustling of fieldmice in the thick carpet of old leaves.
In the bedroom next door to old Mr Mallinson’s room, Mrs Parkes woke with a start, coming at once to full consciousness from long years of training and habit. She put out a hand and pressed the switch at the base of the bedside lamp, glanced at the little clock, screwing her eyes up against the light.
She turned her head in the direction of Mr Mallinson’s room, remaining rigid, listening.
The sound of confused movement, Mr Mallinson’s voice calling her name … ‘Mrs Parkes! Mrs Parkes!’ A window being flung open.
‘It’s all right! I’m coming!’ She snatched at a dressing-gown, shrugged it on and drew the cord tightly round her waist.
‘It’s all right,’ she said again with professional reassurance, opening the connecting door and going through into the old man’s room. ‘I’m here, don’t worry.’ He was standing in his pyjamas, leaning out of the window, drawing great gasping breaths of air.
‘What is it?’ She put a hand on his shoulder. He remained where he was, struggling for breath, unable to speak.
A whisper of footsteps in the corridor, a low double knock at the door. The handle turned and Gina Thorson put her face round the door. She looked anxiously at Mrs Parkes.
‘I heard you get up. Is there anything I can do?’ Her young, pretty face looked frightened, her eyes asked a question of Mrs Parkes … What’s the matter? Is he having some kind of attack? Is he very ill?
‘Run down and ring Doctor Burnett.’ Mrs Parkes took a dressing-gown from behind the door and draped it round the old man’s shoulders. He seemed unaware of her action. He was clutching at his chest now, breathing as deeply as he could, striving to conserve strength, to fight, to hang on. ‘Tell him I think it’s Mr Mallinson’s heart. Ask him to come over right away. I’ll stay here.’
Gina closed the door and ran silently and swiftly along the corridor, down the long curving flight of stairs into the hall, switching on lights as she went. She dialled the number rapidly, stood listening to the brr … brr … willing Doctor Burnett to wake up, to pick up the receiver beside his bed.
At the fourth ring the phone was lifted from its hook.
‘Rockley 47, Doctor Knight speaking.’ Richard’s half-awake tones. In spite of her anxiety Gina gave a little involuntary smile.
‘Oh, Richard, Gina here—’
‘Gina!’ His voice sounded suddenly alert, sharply concerned. ‘What’s the matter? Are you—’
‘It’s not me, I’m all right, it’s old Mr Mallinson. Mrs Parkes thinks he’s having a heart attack of some kind. He’s standing by the window, gasping for breath. You’d better come over at once.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Though Mrs Parkes said to get Doctor Burnett. Do you think you’d better wake him? Mr Mallinson might prefer—’ A difficult man, Mr Mallinson, a friend of Dr Burnett’s since they were boys together in Rockley; he might not be at all pleased to be fobbed off with Dr Burnett’s young partner, scarcely more than a lad in Mr Mallinson’s eyes, competent enough no doubt, but a lad all the same, no experience, no maturity, no judgment.
