Free Two Women by Brian Freemantle Page B

that could cause us a lot of harm?’
    The capo smirked and Burcher realized the man was playing to the rest of the audience in the room. Brescia said: ‘He was being persuaded. There’s a guy taking over the firm, married to Northcote’s daughter. Carver. He knows all about it. And a woman, Janice Snow, did the computer entries.’
    It could all be turned into a coup, Burcher decided. And if it could be, it would be his coup, not that of these half-assed small-timers. ‘What about the material Northcote was holding back?’
    â€˜I told you, he passed out before they could get that out of him.’
    â€˜What about in the house?’
    â€˜There’s staff. We couldn’t get near it.’
    â€˜Here’s what you’re going to do,’ said Burcher. ‘You’re going to send people back to Litchfield, to find some way in. You’re going to find out everything I need to know about this Carver guy. Use a legitimate private detective agency in the city. And you’re going to find out how much the woman, Janice Snow, knows. All that very straight and very clear?’
    â€˜I don’t enjoy disrespect, Mr Burcher,’ said Delioci.
    â€˜I mean no disrespect to you,’ said the lawyer. ‘I was told very specifically to pass on the feelings of those to whom we are all answerable and most specifically of all to ensure that everybody understood there are to be no more mistakes.’
    â€˜I think you have done that,’ said the old man.
    â€˜Then it’s been a good meeting,’ said Burcher. How much more, to his personal benefit, could he manipulate it? He wondered.

Six
    J ohn Carver thought he’d prepared himself for what he had to do but he hadn’t. He gasped, aloud, and felt his legs begin to go at the sight of George Northcote’s body on the gurney. He instinctively snatched out for the table upon which the body actually lay, pulling further aside even more of the covering sheet and seeing more awfulness and when he tried to speak he couldn’t. What he tried to say came out as an unintelligible hiss. He finally managed: ‘Oh dear God,’ his voice still a dry whisper.
    He felt Al Hibbert’s supportive hand at his elbow. The sheriff said: ‘Easy, John. Take it easy.’
    â€˜I’m OK,’ croaked Carver, his voice better but only just. Stronger still he said: ‘What the hell happened to him? It’s like … it’s like he’s been flayed …’
    Northcote’s face was practically non-existent and there was virtually no skin and most of the lion’s mane had been torn off, scalping the man. There seemed to be no skin either on much of Northcote’s chest, from which Carver had tugged the sheet. It was flat, not a body shape at all, and there was a lot of bone and grey, slimed viscera.
    â€˜The mower got him first, then the tractor,’ said Hibbert.
    â€˜No,’ refused Carver. ‘It isn’t possible. I saw the rig. The mower blades were covered, shielded against just such an accident. If he fell backwards he wouldn’t have been cut … skinned like that. He’d have maybe broken an arm or a leg on the protective covering but that’s all. And going backwards would have taken him away from the tractor, when it tipped over, not underneath it …’
    â€˜That’s what Pete and I thought at first,’ said Hibbert, nodding to Simpson on the other side of the slab. ‘We stayed up there past midnight last night: got engineers in. Here’s how we worked it out. George goes too close to the dip, throwing the tractor sideways. The force of it going tips the mowing rig, which runs on its own motor. When George hits it, it’s upside down, the blades going full belt. Does that to him. The mower is wider than the tractor that’s pulling it. For a moment or two – God knows how long – it prevents the tractor going right over but