Free Time to Kill by Brian Freemantle Page B

friend?’
    â€˜My friend?’
    â€˜Chambers.’
    Did she believe like everyone else that he was gay, as she very obviously was, and that because of it there would be some bizarre empathy between them? ‘Sounds like you’re taking a special interest.’
    â€˜I always take a special interest. That’s my job.’
    â€˜I’m grateful for how you’re doing it so far.’
    â€˜What about Chambers?’
    â€˜Everyone got that wrong.’ He didn’t want her to have any curious recall if she heard later of Chambers’ death. Why the hell had she raised it now!
    â€˜Sure,’ she dismissed, just as confusingly. ‘I’ve got you a room in a hostel.’
    With sheets smelling of piss, farts and jerked-off semen, he guessed. ‘I’m not staying in any hostel. If you’ve read my file properly you know I’ve got money. I was thinking of something by myself at a Guest Quarters. There’s one I remember by the Watergate.’
    â€˜I don’t like – or want – hostility.’
    â€˜Neither do I,’ said Mason. He wasn’t worried the stupid bitch didn’t like being confronted. She had to agree to his staying somewhere other than in the accommodation she had selected.
    â€˜Then let’s not have any.’
    She’d be the bull with the strap-on dick, Mason decided. ‘If you’ve read all my reports you know I’m not hostile and you would have known of my inheritance, while I was inside. I’ve got more than enough jail money until I see my lawyer and pick up the bank things he’s been holding for me.’
    â€˜I do know about the inheritance,’ said the woman. ‘And I’ll do everything I can to help you settle down.’
    â€˜Thank you. You’re heading for the interstate, right?’
    She chanced a sideways glance. ‘Why?’
    â€˜You mind stopping at a mall, first? I want to get out of this fancy dress.’
    She sniggered. ‘Good idea. Difficult to believe that suit was once snappy, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Maybe catch a coffee and a bagel, too?’ Knowing she’d expect the remark he added, ‘First food I can choose myself, now that I’m out.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    The interstate was being signposted before they came to a shopping complex. It was far bigger than Mason could remember from 1985, the year he’d been arrested and held, pre-trial. He disguised any outward bewilderment at the bustle and the size, isolating almost forgotten store names. Mason was oddly glad, although he didn’t know why, when the woman got out of the car to walk with him into J C Penny. He bought everything new, even underwear and loafers, bemused that the fitness regime had taken an inch off his old waist size and added two across his chest and shoulders. He bought an additional pair of jeans, three extra check sport shirts and a loose, Italian-labelled windbreak. Glynis Needham chose a soft leather grip to carry his purchases in. She also brought a large plastic shopping sack to the changing room for him to bag up all the discarded clothes, which he dumped into a waste bin directly outside the store, on their way to the nearby McDonald’s. Mason, who in the penitentiary had rigidly controlled his diet as he’d controlled everything else, had a sausage and egg McMuffin breakfast, with extra hash browns and drank three cups of coffee and insisted on paying for Glynis’s maple syrup waffles and coffee, as well as his own meal.
    â€˜Feel like you’ve never been away?’ said Glynis Needham.
    â€˜Feels like I shouldn’t have eaten so much.’
    â€˜You’re doing good. Damned good.’
    â€˜Good?’
    â€˜I know you’re nervous, getting out. But no one would know, certainly not now you’re dressed properly.’
    â€˜If there’s still a Guest Quarters near the Watergate, we could make a reservation from