Emma Page - Cold Light of Day

COPYRIGHT Copyright 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 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 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 1984 by Collins Crime

Copyright © Emma Page 1984

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: 9780008175863

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175870

Version [2016-02-18]

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright 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 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 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 1984 by Collins Crime Copyright © Emma Page 1984 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: 9780008175863 Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175870 Version [2016-02-18]

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

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About the Author

By Emma Page

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

The wind had veered in the night and blew now soft and warm from the south. In the garden of Manor Cottage, three-quarters of a mile from the village of Littlebourne, the snowdrops were out; fat spears of daffodils were pushing up under the ancient apple trees.

The garden was large and rambling and had stood neglected for some years before the Pictons bought the property eighteen months ago. The garden was enclosed on three sides by an old wall of rose-red brick, mantled with ivy. Here and there a self-sown tree had sprung up in the shelter of the walls and stood now strong and established. The Pictons’ daughter, Emily, their only child, climbed the trees summer and winter, made her dens among the branches, perched up there unseen, watching folk walk by along the road to Littlebourne, or a car going past in the other direction to Cannonbridge, five miles to the south-west.

In the cottage kitchen, cosy from the heat of the old solid-fuel stove, restored now and refurbished, the Pictons were finishing breakfast. All three of them wore Fair Isle jerseys painstakingly hand-knitted by Mrs Picton.

Emily sat opposite her father. She was nine years old, short and sturdily built, with a bright darting eye and a look of lively curiosity. She finished her porridge and began to fold her table napkin.

‘Is that all you’re going to eat?’ Leonard Picton said with reproof.

‘I have to be at school early.’ She assumed an air of importance. ‘I have to give out paper for the geography test.’

Leonard glanced at the clock. ‘You’ve plenty of time. Finish your breakfast properly.’ Emily unfolded her napkin again and cut herself a slice from a densely-textured wholemeal loaf; she spread it with butter and honey.

On a shelf of the dresser a radio recited its morning litany. Leonard gave it half an ear as he ate his coarse porridge of mixed whole grains, filling and sustaining, with an agreeable nutty taste. He was a spare, bony man in his middle forties with sharp features, thin fair hair receding at the temples, long, straggling side-whiskers. He taught history at the College of Further Education in Cannonbridge.

He glanced across at his wife who was standing by the stove, staring out through the window. ‘Any more coffee?’ he asked.

Olive came out of her thoughts. She picked up the jug that was keeping warm on the side of the stove and carried it to the table. She poured the coffee, fragrant and dark, made from a mixture of roasted barley and dandelion roots. Her hands were red and rough, marked and scarred from old scalds and burns, cuts and blisters.

She was a plain woman, a few years younger than her husband. Her figure was thin and angular. She wore no make-up and her hair, a nondescript brown already tinged with grey, was drawn severely back into a scanty bun.

She was just entering the streaming stage of a cold; her husband and daughter were more or less over theirs. Not that any of them referred to the ailment as a cold, the Pictons didn’t believe in colds. They spoke of the body’s attempt to throw off accumulated poisons, they dosed themselves with herbal concoctions and fruit juices. But however they referred to it and however they treated it, the malady seemed to affect them in very much the same way as less enlightened sections of the populace.

In the middle of the radio’s calm recital of slowdowns and hold-ups, lay-offs and lock-outs, run-downs and snarl-ups, Leonard’s ear caught the words Wall Street. He sat arrested in the act of lifting his cup to his lips and listened with fixed attention. He began to frown fiercely. An overnight fall in Wall Street, sudden and sharp, acute concern in Tokyo, fears in London of what the day might bring.