Free Resolutions by Jane A. Adams

the hell he meant. He just smiled, said I’d remember in time, but if you ask me, he was just trying to wind me up.’
    â€˜And did he manage it?’
    Marlow sat down again. ‘Damn right he did. But I still don’t know what he meant.’
    â€˜So . . . you think it was more than a wind-up?’
    Marlow glared. ‘No, I don’t. Don’t you go putting words in my mouth.’
    â€˜But suddenly you were afraid of him,’ Alec said. He sounded, frankly, disbelieving.
    Marlow flared, leaping back to his feet and pointing to the door. ‘Go, now,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got nothing more to say. Not to you, not now, not any more.’
    Mac stood this time, but he took his time crossing the silent, almost quilted floor. He could feel Marlow’s frustration and building anger as they left, footsteps loud on the precious parquet floor and then crunching on gravel as they returned to their car.
    â€˜You rattled his cage,’ Alec said.
    Mac nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I still don’t know what about.’

SEVEN
    R ina had never been one to let a spot of weather stop her and she was out on the promenade mid-morning, breathing in the chill, damp morning air. The storm had raged all night, suiting her moiling thoughts perfectly, and now, having had little sleep, she was at least close to some kind of plan.
    Out at sea, the first glimpse of a clearing day lightened the horizon, though grey clouds still sat low over Frantham as the night storm swept on inland.
    â€˜It’s going to be a lovely day,’ Rina announced.
    â€˜When?’ Her companion was less impressed by a bit of white space in clouds that were still far out at sea. Tim pulled his scarf more tightly around his neck and tugged his hat down over his ears. It was, Rina thought, a measure of his discomfort that he’d agreed to wear not only the bright blue scarf that Bethany had knitted for him, but also the purple tea-cosy hat that Eliza had provided. The Peters sisters were inveterate knitters, though to Rina’s knowledge they had, between them, only mastered two stitches and their choice of colours sometimes left a little to be desired.
    â€˜When’s it going to improve, then?’ Tim demanded again. He did not like the cold or the wind, or being up this early in the morning when he’d been working the night before, his mentalist act at the Pallisades Hotel a few miles up the coast having been reprised at a very late private party after closing time.
    â€˜Oh, by this afternoon, I expect,’ Rina said. She smiled at the tall man shivering beside her. ‘You need to get a bit of meat on those bones,’ she told him. ‘Then you’d feel the cold less. Lord knows how you eat as much as you do and never gain an ounce.’
    â€˜Can we at least walk?’ Tim asked plaintively. ‘Or even go and have a coffee. I’m freezing, Rina.’
    She took pity on him and began to stride along the promenade, avoiding the coffee shop, much to Tim’s disappointment. ‘Rina, this isn’t going to turn into one of your yomps, is it?’ He looked anxiously towards the end of the promenade and the cliff path that rose precipitously beyond that, leading out of town and into very exposed country.
    â€˜I don’t yomp, Tim. Only the SAS yomp, so far as I’m aware, and that is one role I never played, even in my extensive career. In fact, I was never much of a male impersonator.’
    â€˜You actually like this weather, don’t you?’ Tim complained. ‘ You had a good night’s sleep. I didn’t get in until nearly four. I shouldn’t even be aware of the state of the weather yet. Why do you have to come out here to think when you’ve got a perfectly nice sitting room at home?’
    Rina took his arm. ‘It will clear your head,’ Rina told him, ‘and, Tim dear, I really do need you to have a clear