Free Running Scared by Ann Granger Page B

and I take over control of this house, including this flat. We might want to reconsider your position.’ I said nothing and he went on, ‘You are aware of your legal position with regard to fully furnished accommodation?’
     
    ‘Get on with it!’ I said crossly.
     
    Unfortunately, the silly old goat misunderstood.
     
    ‘I knew you’d see reason!’ he yelped, dropped the notebook on the bed, and threw his pudgy arms round me.
     
    My knee came up in automatic reaction. He let out a shriek, a gasp, and tottered back, doubled over. I scooped up his notebook and then I grabbed him by his collar. He spluttered and coughed and looked terrified.
     
    ‘Look, Charlie boy,’ I said, ‘no fun and games. No deals. Got that? Now take your notebook and go back upstairs. And if I see you down here again, or if you try anything silly now, you’re going to come off very much the worse, got it?’
     
    ‘You little cow!’ he gurgled. ‘You assaulted me!’
     
    ‘No, you assaulted me, and if you try anything like that again, I’ll scream blue murder and make sure the whole street knows. Now get out!’
     
    He staggered as far as the front door where he turned, straightened up as much as he could, and spat, ‘Street is where you belong and I’ll see you back out there before you can say knife, you – you trollop!’
     
    Then he bolted before I could reply.
     
    I slammed the door after him. Trollop? I didn’t know whether to be angry or laugh. Perhaps I ought to be worried. I thought Daphne would resist their bright idea that she make over the house to the twins. But she was elderly, there were two of them to her one, and blood was notoriously thicker than water.
     
    No time to brood over it now. Thanks to Charlie, I was running late. I pulled on my jacket and dashed out of the house.
     
     
    ‘You choose,’ said Ganesh. ‘Indian or Chinese?’
     
    ‘Greek,’ I said. ‘That nice new taverna. The shop’s paying, isn’t it?’
     
    The taverna was busy and we were lucky to get a table without booking. What they call the chattering classes were well represented in the crowded room, together with well-heeled City types. The general atmosphere was just that bit noisier, the customers just that bit more jovial, more slap-happy, because Christmas was coming. They all felt they had a licence to go out and make merry, even an obligation to. After all, that’s what Gan and I were doing there. The Greek staff were taking it in their stride. It was all good business. But since their Christmas wasn’t due until January, they were keeping their heads about it.
     
    ‘Why do people do it?’ I asked Ganesh, as I looked around the crowded room. ‘I mean, years ago, I suppose people didn’t take many holidays or go out for a good blow-out so often and once a year was special. But this lot – half of them are on expense-account lunches all the year round and eat pretty well even when they aren’t. They party all year. They take holidays, sailing round the Caribbean or skiing or pretending to be Tuscan peasants or what-have-you. But just look at them. You’d think they’d been let out of the workhouse for a binge.’
     
    ‘It’s truce time,’ said Gan. ‘You know, bury the hatchet in the ground and not in each other. It doesn’t happen often. It’s like the old Greeks. They used to call a halt to their wars during the period of the Olympic Games. I read that in a Sunday supplement.’
     
    I had noticed, that since working at the newsagent’s, Gan had become a mine of odd information gleaned from a variety of magazines. He could tell you the top restaurants, the season’s fashion colour, how much it would cost you to go camel-trekking across the Gobi desert, the world’s ten best-dressed men and the best-kept secrets of the stars. None of this was of the slightest use to him, but he just liked knowing it and, if the opportunity offered, telling me.
     
    Over the meal, I told him about Charlie’s visit and