Emma Page - Every Second Thursday

COPYRIGHT Copyright Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 About the Author By Emma Page About the Publisher

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 1981 by Collins Crime

Copyright © Emma Page 1981

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.

HarperCollins Publishers 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: 9780008175900

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175917

Version [2016-02-18]

DEDICATION Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 About the Author By Emma Page About the Publisher

For Christopher

with love

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 About the Author By Emma Page About the Publisher Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain in 1981 by Collins Crime Copyright © Emma Page 1981 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. HarperCollins Publishers 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: 9780008175900 Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175917 Version [2016-02-18]

Dedication DEDICATION Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 About the Author By Emma Page About the Publisher For Christopher with love

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Author

By Emma Page

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Eight o’clock on a clear golden morning in late September. The village of Abberley had been awake and astir for an hour or more. On the road that led north out of the village to the town of Cannonbridge two miles away, a tall house named Lynwood stood up on a bank and looked west across the valley. It was a substantial dwelling of graceful proportions, dating back to the early years of Victoria’s reign, set on the edge of farmland with smooth lawns falling away from it on all sides.

In the large front bedroom on the first floor Vera Foster settled back into the nest of lacy pillows that Miss Jordan had just shaken up with professional efficiency.

Vera ate the last of her porridge, beautiful thick creamy porridge cooked all night in the kitchen Aga in the Scottish fashion. Her father – now dead – had been Scottish. That was how he liked his porridge cooked, that was how it continued to be cooked at Lynwood, nine years after his death.

Very gingerly she moved her left leg into a better position. The sciatica was receding now but regular attacks over the last few years had taught her a wary respect for the pain and its ability to spring suddenly back at her when she had fancied it vanquished.

Over by the long windows Miss Jordan drew the rose-flowered curtains further apart.

‘It’s a lovely morning,’ she said in her precise tones. ‘I’m sure it’s going to turn out warm this afternoon. I could move a chair out on to the balcony. If you wrapped up you could sit out for half an hour.’

‘I’m certainly not well enough to sit outside,’ Vera said crossly. A stubborn look appeared in her china-blue eyes. She drank her coffee with a moody air.

The sciatica laid her low with relentless regularity twice a year, in spring and autumn. She made the most of these enforced retreats, expecting – and receiving – a good deal of pampering and cossetting.

But Miss Jordan was a newcomer to Lynwood; she had been sent by the Cannonbridge agency a couple of weeks ago in response to an urgent request from Vera. She was not a trained nurse but a companion help with some nursing experience. She was a tall angular woman in her early forties with a sharp-featured face and a disciplined, authoritative manner. She adopted towards her patient a more bracing attitude than Vera was accustomed to. Competent and careful Miss Jordan certainly was, attentive enough, even kind in her impersonal way, but indulgent and cossetting she certainly was not.

Vera had attempted at the start of the fortnight to address Miss Jordan by her first name – which was Edith – but Miss Jordan was by no means disposed to allow such familiarity. She had never done so, never considered it wise, certainly didn’t intend to begin now. Had she permitted it, Mrs Foster would very shortly in return have asked her to call her Vera, in the hope of establishing the kind of indulgent cosy intimacy she had known with her father and had been ceaselessly trying to find elsewhere ever since his death.

Vera’s father, Duncan Murdoch, was over seventy when he died and he had been in declining health for several months. But his death had all the same struck his daughter a shattering blow.