Free Third Strike by Zoe Sharp Page B

actually eating them.
    “Speaking of tarts,” I said bluntly, ignoring the sudden consternation on Parker’s face, “have you heard from my father today?”
    “Your father?” my mother said vaguely, as if we were discussing a casual acquaintance. “I don’t believe so, darling. He’s, um, away at the moment.”
    I suppressed a sigh. Up until her retirement the previous year, my mother had been a local magistrate and, contrary to popular satire, she was far from the bumbling picture of the rural judiciary that was so often portrayed. Hard to believe now that she’d once been praised and feared for her incisive mind.
    “Oh, yes?” I said. “Run away with a younger woman?”
    “Well, really, ” my mother said, but there was more stiffness than heat. “He’s attending a medical conference. You know how often he’s called upon to lecture these days.” She paused again, uncomfortable, but she’d always been a bad liar. “I—I spoke to him only yesterday. He sends his love.”
    I heard a slight sound in the background at her end of the line and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had visitors.”
    “W—what? Oh, no—just the radio, darling. I was going to listen to the six o’clock news when you rang. Anyway, I must go. Things are starting to burn.”
    “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.
    “No, don’t do that,” my mother said quickly. “I have people coming round for dinner and I shall need all day to prepare. I don’t expect you remember the Hetheringtons, do you?”
    “Yes … yes, I do,” I said, and allowed my voice to take on a slightly disappointed tone. “Well, in that case, Mother, I’d best leave you to it.”
    “Yes, all right,” my mother said faintly, her relief at my imminent departure evident. “Thank you for taking the trouble to call, Charlie. We don’t see enough of you these days, you know.”
    “I know,” I said, and ended the call. I stared for a moment at the surface of the table as though the future would eventually present itself in the pattern of the grain.
    “Wow, she sounds like one tense lady,” Parker said.
    “I wouldn’t read too much into that,” Sean said. “She always sounds on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
    I looked up. “She’s in trouble.”
    Bill grunted. “How’d you work that one out from a conversation about baking?”
    I turned to eye him coldly. “Because there’s no way my mother would be making tarts a week before they were needed. She’s a perfectionist, and they’d be stale.”
    Bill’s grunt became a snort. He rammed his chair back and got to his feet as if he could no longer bring himself to sit through such crap. I let him take half a dozen paces.
    “Quite apart from the fact that my father has never sent me his love in twenty-seven years, she called me Charlie,” I said quietly. “She never does—absolutely hates it. They both do. I was always Charlotte at home, right up until I joined the army. She told me once that nothing reminds her of me as a soldier quite like hearing that name.”
    “So you think she might be trying to make some reference to your military career? Then the comment about not seeing enough of you,” Parker said. He never took notes and his recall was practically recording quality. “You think it might indicate she needs that kind of help?”
    “Maybe.” I shrugged. “But the real clincher was the fact she mentioned the Hetheringtons,” I said. Bill had stopped and turned back almost in spite of himself. “No way are the Hetheringtons going for dinner at my mother’s tomorrow night.”
    “Right,” Bill said. “Another cryptic clue?”
    “Well, they certainly wouldn’t be able to eat much,” I said coldly. “Seeing as they’ve both been dead for five years.” I looked from Bill to Parker to Sean. “They lived not far from my parents for years. Nice people. They were shot and killed by intruders who broke into the villa where they were staying on holiday in