Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

He frowned at her for a long moment. He looked almost shocked, affronted, but not by Dehan or what she’d said; by life, by a world that could do this to him. He nodded a couple of times, then turned and marched to the door, opened it and strode out.

Dehan wiped her eye with her fingers. When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. “I thought he didn’t care. He does, though.”

“That was nice, what you said.”

She came over and placed her fist gently on my chest. “No one gets out alive, Stone. We know that. So we have to make every moment count. You can’t save anybody, not really. But you can help make it worthwhile.”

“Are you going philosophical on me, Dehan?”

She didn’t smile. “That’s not philosophy, Stone. It’s just an attitude. It’s been a hell of a honeymoon. It makes you think. What is each moment worth? How do you measure its value? Katie, what was she? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? If she had finished her article and published it, and changed the face of British politics, would her life have been more valuable than it is now? Or would it have been more valuable if she had left her research, and lived to a ripe old age and made her parents, her husband and her children happy? How do you measure the value of a life, Stone?”

Outside, the blackbird went quiet, and inch by inch, the dark closed in. I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”

TEN

The door opened and a woman stood framed in the ancient Tudor archway. She was in her early fifties, attractive, nicely curvaceous, dressed in a white satin evening gown with a single string of pearls at her throat. Her face was attractive too, but she was drawn and pale, and the makeup around her eyes could not quite conceal the redness or the swelling from where she had been crying. She stood with extraordinary dignity and smiled at us. Her voice, when she spoke, was husky, slightly nasal, as though she had a cold.

“Have you been left alone? That really is too bad of Chiddie. I shall scold him when he gets back.”

I stepped forward. “Lady Chiddester. How do you do? I am John Stone. May I present my wife, Carmen?”

She laughed and it was a surprisingly earthy sound, almost like a gurgle of pleasure. “Oh please, we are friends here, and at home. Call me Fiona, or better still, Fi. All that Downton Abbey stuff gets so tiresome, don’t you agree?” The question was directed at Carmen, who smiled and took her hand but didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

So she grinned and said, “Yes, very tiresome.” She turned her grin on me. “Isn’t that what I’m always telling Mo? ‘Enough with the Downton Abbey stuff, already!’”

Lady Chiddester, Fi, hooted and smacked Dehan’s arm. “I’m going to like you, you’re naughty! Now, do you think you can persuade your gorgeous husband to fix me a very strong martini, New York style?”

Dehan winked at me. “Make it happen, Stone. Two drinks for the naughty girls.”

I found the drinks tray and started mixing a dry martini with what I told myself was a Bronx kicker, but was simply an extra dash of vodka. I figured she needed it. Meanwhile, she linked her arm through Dehan’s and led her to the sofa.

“I suppose Chiddie has told you everything…” They sat and Fi made a noise that was wistful. “People of our generation don’t really show our feelings much, you know. It’s not considered the done thing. At least in our circle. God alone knows what everybody else does. I know you Americans positively encourage it. Perhaps you’re right to, I don’t know, but it does make it awfully hard to cope if you’re blubbering all over the place, doesn’t it?”

I handed them their drinks and sat in a comfortable old chair opposite.

She smiled her thanks. “Life doesn’t get any easier, does it, just because we feel entitled to be upset?”

“I guess it doesn’t. Lord Chiddester suggested that you might have a perspective on Katie that he lacked. If you feel up to…”

“Oh, goodness, with a couple of your martinis inside me, I’ll be up to anything. For heaven’s sake, don’t be kind.” She gazed at the open window for a moment. The last of the light had finally gone beyond the horizon, leaving only an inch of pale glow behind the inky silhouettes of the trees. “Perspective?” she said, vaguely. “I know she would have done anything on Earth to please her father. She adored him.” She gave a small, distant smile. “Poor love, she never realized that he felt exactly the same way about her.” She blinked and seemed to return from a distant place, then turned her watery eyes on me. “No man was ever good enough, naturally, for either of them. He is…” She sighed. “He is a hard act to follow. There is an awful lot of him, and you tend to get it all at once, without let up. Most men sort of wilt in his presence.”

I thought of Harry and couldn’t help smiling. “You were aware of her project?”

“Yes.” Her face said she had found it distasteful. “She could have done so many things. But they were both obsessed with this national thing, England had to be saved. Not Britain, you understand, Scotland and Wales could sod off. England had to be saved… And I suppose they were right, to some extent. But we have paid such a heavy price, and what have we achieved?”

I waited a moment, watching her, then said, “We won’t know that until we find who did this. But whatever she did achieve, it will never be enough.” She didn’t answer, and after a moment, I