The Traitor Among Us by Anne Perry EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Anne Perry
- Language: English
- Genre: Traditional Detective Mysteries
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- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Lucas Standish was not asleep in his chair, not quite. The September
sunlight lay in a soft, bright pool on the floor, picking out the colours of the
carpet, and the patches worn by the passage of feet over the years. He could
still hear the chattering of the birds in the garden. When the telephone rang,
its shrill noise startled him fully awake. It had to be important for anyone to
call at this time on a Sunday afternoon.
He reached for the phone. ‘Standish,’ he said quietly.
‘Sorry,’ the voice at the other end replied.
Lucas recognised it, even from that one word. It was James Allenby,
back in England after his two years in the United States. He did not bother
to say that it was urgent. Of course it was. He would not call Lucas for
anything less.
‘What is it?’ Lucas did not waste time with trivia.
‘I’m afraid it’s bad.’
Lucas knew Allenby well enough to recognise that the man’s carefully
controlled voice betrayed the depth of his emotion.
‘John Repton is dead,’ Allenby told him. ‘Shot, and left in a ditch in the
countryside. In the Cotswolds, near a private estate called Wyndham Hall.
Single rifle bullet to the heart. I think he was killed somewhere else, and
then moved. Not enough blood on the ground where he was discovered. Not
visible from the road. In fact, it was only by chance that he was found at
all.’
Lucas was intensely aware of the pain of loss. He had known John
Repton for years. They had worked together in MI6 during the Great War,
which had spread ruin across half the world, from the late summer of 1914
to November of 1918. That was sixteen years ago. Now in the waning
summer of 1934, the prospect of conflict was returning. Less than three
months ago, Adolf Hitler had silenced, banished or executed thousands of
his most dangerous enemies within his own country. Those who survived
were forced to live in mute obedience. The events, now known as the Night
of the Long Knives, were still fresh in Lucas’s memory.
‘What was he working on?’ Lucas asked. ‘I thought John was retired.’
‘You understand,’ Allenby replied. ‘There’s always the one last time.
And he was passionate about this particular project.’
Allenby was referring to the fact that Lucas had more or less retired. He
was well over the age when most men sat back and relaxed, taking up
gardening, or beginning that book they had always intended to write. But
Lucas could not leave the job alone:
he cared too much; it involved every
part of his life. He had been willing to be called on by those who had
previously worked for him, and eventually he had returned as an adviser
and, sometimes, more than that. He had a good idea that John Repton had
been doing something very similar.
‘John was looking into personal influence,’ Allenby continued. ‘That is,
people who were using their influence to back some candidates for
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