A Deadly Imperfection: Calladine & Bayliss 3 Read online

  Eve Walker, or Buckley as she was not, was staring up at the painting he’d admired so much.

  ‘It’s very good of you to let me have it – you must let me pay,’ he said politely.

  She spun round and gave him a dazzling smile, ‘I wouldn’t hear of it. Take it with you when you leave.’ She looked at him, stared into his face for several seconds. ‘Do you want to talk, Tom?’

  ‘Not really,’ he cleared his throat, ‘but we’ll have to at some stage, I expect,’ he sighed. ‘Don’t misunderstand,’ he added hurriedly. ‘I have questions, it’s the answers I might not like - that’s what’s stopping me.’

  She put a comforting hand on his arm. ‘All in good time then, there’s no rush,’ she smiled at them both. ‘Easy does it, we have a lot of catching up to do.’

  Tom Calladine looked into the face of the woman who’d given birth to him and smiled weakly. Eve Walker was a looker now so he could imagine how she must have looked when his dad knew her. He’d never really thought about it but perhaps his dad had had the same trouble with women that he did – Eve was his Lydia and Freda …?

  Freda Calladine had been his rock, his steadying influence. She’d guided him, taken him in hand. She’d run their home, worked, and loved both him and his dad unreservedly. He looked at Eve Walker – no matter what she turned out to be like – no matter how fond of her he became over time – Freda Calladine would always be his mother.

  The End

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