Breaker

He'd always been fond of her. He didn't know why, except that her forthright approach appealed to him. Perhaps she reminded him of his own mother, a down-to-earth Cockney, who had been dead for ten years. Certainly he found people who spoke their minds easier to get on with than those who cloaked their feelings in hypocritical smiles. 'He probably does, you know. He just doesn't mention it.'

'But that's the whole point, you silly fellow,' she said crossly. 'A gentleman is known by his manners.'

He grinned. 'So you prefer a man who lies to a man who is honest? That's not the impression you gave me four years ago when Robert Healey did his bunk.'

'Robert Healey was a criminal.'

'But an attractive one.'

She frowned at him. 'Have you come here to annoy me?'

'No, I came to see if you were all right.'

She waved a hand in dismissal. 'Well, I am. Go and find Maggie. I'm sure she'll be pleased to see you.'

He made no move to go. 'Were either of you ever called as a witness in Healey's trial?' he asked her.

'You know we weren't. He was tried only for his last fraud. All the rest of us had to take a backseat in case we confused the issue, and that made me more angry than anything. I wanted my day in court so that I could tell the little beast what I thought of him. I was never going to get my money back, but at least I could have taken my pound of flesh.' She folded her arms across her chest like armor plating. 'However, it's not a subject I wish to dwell on. It's unhealthy to rake over the past.'

'Did you read the reports of the trial?' he went on, ignoring her.

'One or two,' she said curtly, 'until I gave up in fury.'

'What made you furious?'

A small tic started above her lip. 'They described his victims as lonely women, desperate for love and attention. I've never been so incensed about anything. It made us look such fools.'

'But your case wasn't tried,' he pointed out, 'and that description applied to his last victims-two elderly unmarried sisters who lived alone in an isolated farmhouse in Cheshire. A perfect target for Healey, in other words. It was only because he tried to speed up the fraud by forging their names on checks that he was discovered. The sisters' bank manager was worried enough to go to the police.'

The tic fluttered on. 'Except I sometimes think it was true,' she said with difficulty. 'I never thought of us as lonely, but we did rather blossom when he came into our lives, and I'm humiliated every time I remember it.'

Ingram reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a newspaper clipping. 'I brought something I want to read to you. It's what the judge told Healey before he passed sentence.' He smoothed the paper on his lap. ' 'You're an educated man with a high IQ and an engaging manner' ' he read, ' 'and these qualities make you extremely dangerous. You display a ruthless disregard for your victims' feelings while at the same time exercising considerable charm and intelligence to convince them of your sincerity. Too many women have been taken in by you for anyone to believe that their' '-he stressed the word-' 'gullibility was the only reason for your success, and I am persuaded that you represent a real menace to society.' ' He laid the clipping on the bed. 'What the judge recognized is that Healey was a charming and intelligent man.'

'It was pretense,' she said, reaching for the comfort of Bertie's ears and tugging at them. 'He was an actor.'

Ingram thought of Steven Harding's very moderate acting skills, and shook his head. 'I don't think so,' he said gently. 'No one could keep up a pretense like that for a year. The charm was genuine, which is what you and Maggie were attracted by, and it seems to me that the problem you both have is coming to terms with that. It makes his betrayal so much worse if you liked him.'

'No.' She pulled a tissue from under her pillow and blew her nose. 'What upsets me more is that I thought he liked us. We're not so difficult to love, are we?'

'Not at all. I'm sure he adored you both. Everyone else does.'

'Oh, don't be absurd!' Celia snapped. 'He wouldn't have stolen from us if he had.'

'Of course he would.' Ingram propped his chin in his hands and stared at her. 'The trouble with you, Mrs. J, is that you're a conformist. You assume everyone does and should behave the same way. But Healey was a professional con man. Theft was his business. He'd made a ten-year career out of it, don't forget. That doesn't mean he wasn't fond of you, any more than it would mean I wasn't fond of you if I had to arrest you.' His mouth twitched into a crooked smile. 'We do what we're good at in this life if we don't want to starve, and we cry all the way to the bank if it upsets us.'

'That's nonsense.'

'Is it? Do you think I take pleasure arresting a ten-year-old kid for vandalism when I know he comes from a lousy home, is truant because he can't read, and is likely to get a belting from his drunken mother because she's too stupid to deal with him in any other way? I caution the boy because that's what I'm paid to do, but I'm always a damn sight fonder of him than I am of his mother. Criminals are human like everyone else, and there's no law that says they aren't likable.'

She peered at him over her bifocals. 'Yes, but you didn't like Martin, Nick, so don't pretend you did.'

'No, I didn't,' he admitted, 'but it was a personal thing. I thought the guy was a grade-A jerk. If I'm honest, though, I never believed for one moment that Mrs. Fielding was telling the truth when she accused him of trying to steal her antiques. As far as I was concerned he was whiter than white ... bloody perfect, in fact ... every young woman's dream.' The smile became even more crooked. 'I assumed-and still do because it didn't fit Healey's MO- that it was Mrs. Fielding's senility talking, and the only reason I came to you about it was because I couldn't resist the opportunity to take him down a peg or two.' He raised his eyes to hers. 'It certainly didn't give me any insights into what he was really up to. Even when Simon Farley told me he'd passed a couple of dud checks in the pub and asked me to get it sorted quietly because he didn't want any fuss, it never occurred to me that Martin was a professional. If it had, I'd have approached it differently, and maybe you wouldn't have lost your money and maybe your husband would still be alive.'