FOUR
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'So how's it going with
Liz?'
'Don't even ask.' Alison
took another shirt from the open case on her bed, put it on a hanger
and hung it neatly in her wardrobe.
It wasn't really her bed
- or her wardrobe. They were both her Uncle Frank's and currently
occupying his spare room. The man himself was sat behind her, on the
bed, by her cases, as she unpacked. He was in his mid-thirties and,
in all the time Alison had known him - which was a long, long, time -
she'd never once seen him with his laces tied. Today was no
exception.
As for how he paid the
bills, he managed a small computer supplies shop in Heeley, just
outside the city centre and reckoned that it didn't matter what it
was, if something was meant to be plugged into something, he could
get it for you.
Right now what he'd got
for Alison was a spare room in his house by the allotments.
'You've not had another
argument?' he said.
'No we've not had another
argument.' She yanked another shirt from the case and slipped it on a
hanger.
'I don't know what it is
with you two. When I fixed you up together, I thought you'd be a
perfect fit; one because you're both women, and two because you share
an unhealthy interest in the occult.'
'Want to know why we fall
out? Look at this.' She retrieved an object from the bottom of case
and thrust it at him.
He took it from her; the
single sheet of A4 she'd shown Liz in the pub. Reading the title he
said, 'What is it?'
'My new novel.'
He studied it front and
back. 'Isn't it a little short?'
'That's because of Liz.
She Went
in Search of Oblivion,
a title inspired by my flatmate's blatant death wish.'
'Liz doesn't have a death
wish.'
'Yeah, right. That's why
she goes off each night in search of darkness.'
'That's how you see it?'
'That's how anyone'd see
it. Think about it, Frank; the stuff with her dad, the stuff with
ex-husband. It's obvious. She's the only one who can't see it.'
'Or you could just be
reading things into it that you want to be there coz you're a writer
and you have a natural tendency to dramatize real people.'
'No, Frank, I'm right,
she's wrong. That's all there is to it. Either way it makes my
point.'
'What point?'
'That to write my book, I
need to know my subject, get into her head. To do that I need to know
what she gets up to in her work life. And, after six months of
cohabitation, do I know what she gets up to in her work life? No.
Why? Because she won't take me along on any of her missions. She
won't let me sit in the van and watch. She won't let me hide behind a
wall and watch. She won't even let me take a telephoto lens and spy
on her from half a mile away. And when the mission involves me, when
it's my house she's investigating, even then she won't let me get
involved.'
'I'm sure she's only
trying to protect you.'
'I'm a grown woman. It's
for me
to decide if I need protecting.' She turned her back on him to put
the shirt in the wardrobe.
But that was when
something grabbed her left wrist.
It was Frank's hand.
Before she could say
anything, he was tugging her toward the door.
'Where're we going?' she
said.
'You want to go with
Liz?' He dragged her out into the hallway. 'Well this must be your
lucky day because I might have just the thing you need.'
*
'I still don't know what
you think you're going to find out here,' said Rachel.
Liz didn't know either.
She was at the site of Daniel Robinson's death - a downward slope,
round one side of the house - searching for clues; anomalous
footprints, blood, signs of a scuffle, anything.
She found nothing.
Giving up on that, she
gazed down toward the woods that hugged the hill's base. They stopped
at the point where the mount began, as though refusing on principle
to live on it. She couldn't blame them for that. Only a madman would
want to inhabit a place like this.
That thought brought her
back to Valentyne Delgado and - through him - to his not-so-lucky
heirs. She gazed up at the house's narrow Tudor windows. 'Which one
was Daniel's room?'
Rachel pointed to a
triptych of windows on the second floor. 'That one there, first on
the left.'
'Take me to it.'
*
Daniel Robinson's
ex-bedroom was just along the corridor from the stairs. Like most
rooms in the place, it was a large, square thing with blank stone
walls, its most noticeable feature being the four-poster bed Rachel
was sitting on.
'This was Delgado's
room,' she said as Liz stood gazing around. 'Because of that, Mrs
Hobson insists every owner has to use it. When Daniel moved in, he
didn't want it. He wanted one on the west side so he could watch the
sheep on the nearest farm. Mrs Hobson planted her hands on his
shoulders, fixed him with her gaze and told him, "Young man,
this room was good enough for Valentyne Delgado. It's more than good
enough for the likes of you."'
'I take it that means I
get it too?'
'Fraid so.'
Liz was about to say
something when a new voice cut in. 'Oh yes?' it said. 'And who might
you be?'
She and Rachel looked
toward the door.
And, there, stood a woman
in her late forties with the build of a stork and an air that said
she could have haughted for England.
'Mrs Hobson,' said
Rachel, 'meet our new boss, Miss Alison Parker.'
The woman raised an
eyebrow then entered the room as though it and everything within it
were hers. 'But of course. Mr Rowling told me about you.' Her gaze
strolled all over Liz like it could go wherever the hell it pleased.
'Though he gave the impression you were considerably younger.'
'I'm twenty two.'
'And therefore clearly
the victim of a harsh and cruel life. Well?'
'Well what?'
'Let the cat see the
milk. Give me a twirl so I can best familiarize myself with you from
all angles. I wouldn't want to see you from behind one night, fail to
recognize you, mistake you for a criminal and bash you over the head
with a steel bar.'
Planting her bony hands
on Liz's shoulders, she jerked her round so the investigator's back
was to her, lifted the back of Liz's coat, waited a moment then
released it.
She jerked Liz round to
face her again, parted Liz's coat, took a good look at her front then
released the coat. 'Well, you're vaguely attractive I suppose, though
irredeemably sluttish. I've no doubt Mr Delgado would have made quick
work of you.'
'In what sense?'
'In the sense that, any
attractive woman who entered this house invariably left it as his
latest conquest.'
'And did you?'
'My relationship with Mr
Delgado was purely professional. As for you, given the pertness of
your buttocks and the flatness of your chest, I rather think he'd
have opted to take you from behind.' And she was gone, the harsh
clicking of her heels receding along the adjoining corridor.
Liz watched the doorway
through which the woman had just left. 'She's like that with all the
owners?'
'She's like that with
everyone,' said Rachel. 'She made no secret of the fact that neither
of Mr Delgado's successors before you were fit to lick his boots.'
'And neither of them
sacked her?'
'To do that they'd've had
to find the courage. Besides, Mrs Hobson makes it clear to everyone -
owners especially - that she doesn't work for them, she works for the
house, and the house alone shall decide her fate.'
'Rachel?'
'Yeah?'
'What's the name of the
local paper?'
'The
Slydale Eye.
Why?'
'No reason.'
*
Once Rachel had gone, Liz
had the chance to start weaving webs. She took the phone from the
table by the wardrobe, sat on the bed and gave her boss a call.
'Lou?' she said, 'It's
Liz. I need a number. The Slydale
Eye's
advertising department.'
Lou moaned about her
calling him at eight o'clock at night, and kept calling her Betty,
which she hated, but finally did as he was told. Once she had the
number, she called the local paper, whose representative didn't seem
to care what time it was.
That done, she hung up
the phone just as a man walked in with her cases.
He was a white-haired
whippet of a man, in his early fifties, and wearing a donkey jacket
over a white shirt. The fact he was carrying her bags suggested he
was the 'Joe' who Rachel had mentioned earlier.
He put the cases just
inside the doorway then looked across at her. 'So you're the new
owner then?'
'That's me.'
'I don't fancy your
chances.'
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