Литагент HarperCollins - Touch and Go

M. R. D. MEEK

Touch and Go

A Lennox Kemp mystery

COPYRIGHT Copyright Prologue 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 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Keep Reading Other Books By About the Publisher

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.

HarperFiction

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 1992 by The Crime Club

Copyright © M. R. D. Meek 1992

M. R. D. Meek asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 ebooks

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: 9780002323864

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2017 ISBN: 9780008252694

Version: 2017-03-28

Touch and Go

Chance is a fine thing, thought the nurse who had watched wealthy Muriel Probert die in her Fifth Avenue apartment, so she took that chance—along with other fine things—and ran.

To Lennox Kemp, Muriel’s ex-husband, the string of gambling casinos in Las Vegas left to him in her will seemed a dubious inheritance, bound to bring out the worst in everyone concerned whether they be prevaricating lawyers or predatory gangsters.

But the slow legal process is undercut when a body is found in the East River, and there will soon be another victim as the hunt for the missing nurse turns murderous. Kemp would prefer the nastiness kept on the far side of the Atlantic, but when the final showdown comes it is on his own home ground of Newtown, where the local police force gets a taste of gunplay, Nevada-style.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page M. R. D. MEEK Touch and Go A Lennox Kemp mystery

Copyright

Prologue

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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Keep Reading

Other Books By

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

The woman had been beautiful. Now she was dying. The nurse had never seen the beauty nor would she have been greatly impressed if she had. To her this was simply another case of the kind she was supposed to specialize in because, it was said, she had the expertise.

‘I asked for someone trained in dealing with terminal cancers,’ the doctor had said when she arrived from the agency. ‘I understand you have that experience?’

‘Yes,’ she’d replied, adding no more.

They had been standing in the doorway of the bedroom, and he’d looked over to where the patient lay asleep.

‘She insisted she would not be hospitalized …’ He had sighed and shrugged his shoulders, but not casually. ‘They’d done all they could, anyway. That last tumour’s inoperable, and she wanted to die at home. She does know … if it’s any help to you.’

The nurse had nodded, making no comment.

‘You’ll only be required to stay a few days. I doubt if she’ll last the week.’ He had raised sad eyes to take in the luxury of the room as if the white and gold furniture, the peach-coloured velvet drapes at the big windows high above the muted roar of Fifth Avenue might in some measure mitigate the other misfortune. ‘Some of the staff have been kept on, and the housekeeper, Mrs Hermanos, has been with the lady for many years. I think you will find the place quite comfortable.’

Following his glance, the nurse had given a half-smile. ‘I’ve seen worse … Now I must attend to my duties.’

When he left the doctor was pleased by her attitude. With that blank face, those meek downcast eyes, the drab uniform worn without concession either to feminism or figure, he had had his doubts. But he trusted St Theresa’s Nursing Agency; there was nowhere else left to put your trust in with these cases.

I mustn’t get too used to this, the nurse thought as she unpacked her few personal belongings in one of the spare bedrooms, itself bigger than the whole of her walk-up flat in downtown Brooklyn.

Her duties proved not to be onerous but from habit she performed them well. The doctor called each day, staying no longer than half an hour to chat with the patient if she was awake, less if she was sleeping.

‘It’s only at night she’s restless,’ the nurse reported to him. ‘Seems it’s then she likes to talk. Night duty doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it. I get the hours off in the daytime when Mrs Hermanos sits with her but even then I prefer to think I’m still on call …’ If there had been in the nurse’s tone implicit criticism of a lay person by a professional, it was muted. The doctor was relieved; Mrs Hermanos seemed devoted to her mistress but the case needed someone with medical knowledge and expertise. The nurse had both.

‘So long as the patient is never allowed to be in pain,’ he said, anxiously.

The nurse shook her head. ‘The dosage you’ve prescribed has worked well so far, Doctor, and you can rely on me to see she doesn’t suffer unnecessarily. When she’s awake at night I’m always there and if she wants to talk, then I just let her go ahead. Lots of patients in her condition will ramble on to a stranger if they don’t have any family around. We learn not to listen overmuch.’

This was not strictly true. Although it was the nurse’s habit to take a book or a magazine into the sickroom to while away the long hours by the bedside, they remained largely unread. Establishing rapport by a sympathetic squeeze of the hand, murmured words of encouragement, and a proper attendance to the most trivial but essential matters of the patient’s comfort, these things came naturally to her and in this case had been very rewarding.

For the life that was too early drawing to a close—the patient being only in her forty-fifth year—had been an intriguing one, lived in many places, and as the memories came and went the thin voice would strengthen and take on vigour in their telling. To the nurse it was like trying to follow a film told in flashback, and much more fascinating than skimming the pages of any novel. She’d never been much of a reader, anyway, reality for her providing troubles enough without getting into fictional ones.