Free Murder... Now and Then by Jill McGown Page A

else.
    â€˜You’re married,’ she said softly, getting up. ‘Forget it, Lloyd. Please.’
    She made her way downstairs, travelling on the platform until the conductor rang the bell for the next stop. Lloyd didn’t follow her down, and she headed for the Underground, not daring to look back at the bus.
    Coward, she told herself, as she got her ticket. Coward, said the doors as they closed. Coward, said the wheels, taking her back to her nice safe mum and dad. Coward, coward, coward.
    Saturday evening. Catherine looked up sharply when she heard the knock at the hotel door, and might not have answered it had she not realized that it had one of those peephole things.
    She looked through it to see Max Scott, and her lips went into a straight line. She should have known he was too good to be true. Reluctantly, she opened the door a little.
    â€˜How are you?’ he asked.
    She didn’t answer.
    â€˜I … I may have a proposition to put to you,’ he said.
    â€˜You don’t say,’ she said dully.
    The look that she had got to know quite well during their journey to London crossed his face. ‘I want’ he said slowly, ‘to talk to you. That’s all.’
    Why, though? He’d given her a lift, that was all. Catherine felt certain that other hitchers didn’t acquire their drivers for the rest of their lives. He was just trying it on.
    â€˜Oh, yeah?’ she said.
    â€˜Look – what I am thinking of doing requires a great deal of trust on my part,’ he said. ‘Do you think there’s any chance of a modicum of trust on yours?’
    He’d been as good as his word so far, she thought, and reluctantly opened the door to admit him.
    â€˜You must be joking,’ he said. ‘Come down to the lobby, where there are people. People who can swear, in court, if necessary, that I remained at all times at least four feet away from you.’ He turned, and went back towards the stairs.
    Catherine looked round the little room, and picked up her bag, in which she had everything that she deemed essential, and which she was not going to let out of her sight. Then she followed him down to the lobby.
    He walked over to the small table near the door at which there were two upright chairs. ‘Sit,’ he said.
    Catherine sat.
    He sat.
    Nothing was said.
    â€˜What?’ said Catherine, eventually.
    â€˜Do you swear to me that you are sixteen years old?’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Because it’s against the law to employ someone under sixteen,’ he said.
    She delved into the bag for her birth certificate, and handed it to him.
    He smiled. ‘You were sixteen last week,’ he said, then frowned a little. ‘ Have you left school?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes.’ She had now.
    â€˜Fine,’ he said, then looked at her again, the way he did. ‘Am I likely to have the police round looking for you?’
    She shrugged.
    â€˜I’ll have to tell them, if I do.’
    â€˜They won’t find me.’
    â€˜Have you broken the law?’
    â€˜No.’
    He looked at her with every bit as much suspicion as she felt about him, then carried on. ‘Well, I’ve got a vacancy for a … well, I would have called it a Girl Friday in the ad, but that’s a bit … well, anyway. Someone to do a bit of typing, answer the phone when I’m not there, keep the files in order – that sort of thing.’
    â€˜I can’t type.’
    â€˜No … well. Maybe I could run to … an evening class. Or something.’
    She thought about it. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked suspiciously.
    He smiled. ‘That’s what I keep asking myself,’ he said. ‘ I think it’s because I don’t like the alternatives on offer to you. Your money won’t last for ever, and … well, runaways are prey to a lot of very unsavoury characters.’
    â€˜What’s it to you?’
    He