Page 96 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
20
Single Cell
A thoroughly purging read!
Charlie Rhymer:
Skint Old Northern Woman Magazine
As I crunched up the freshly weeded drive and came to a halt, Dante sauntered out, looking ravishing in those leather trousers, or an identical pair, obviously his favoured working garb.
Talk about forbidden fruit.
‘Couldn’t wait, eh?’ he said, and I gave him a cold look.
‘My parents are stayingat Orla’s with my brother Francis, because they think I’ve got Jane hidden away somewhere, but actually she’s in London with my sister-in-law, Phily. So I’m only here because I need a bolt hole until they leave.’
‘You can have your bolt hole, but don’t think just because you’ve arrived early that I’m going to let you go early,’ he said, and gave me that particularly sharp-edged smile before helpingme remove my belongings from the car.
I mistrusted that smile: it was the kind that should have theJawstheme tune playing in the background. De-dum … de-dum …
‘I’ve got you a sort of white ghost outfit,’ he said, dumpingmy bag on the doorstep. Just as well I’d padded the whisky with my cobweb. ‘More suitable than the vampire stuff, though that greenish make-up you’ve got should look good.I’ll tell you what I want you to do later.’
‘As long as it doesn’t involve running naked along corridors, I am resigned to my fate.’
‘Are you?’ He raised one straight dark brow. ‘I might hold you to that.’
‘And I’m quite happy to give Rosetta a hand with her first houseful of guests, too, if that’s what you want,’ I added, dampeningly. ‘Have any of them arrived yet?’
‘No, but I think one ofthem is about to,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at the scrunch of wheels on gravel. Then he went still, and something in the quality of his silence made me turn and look too.
A large woman was levering herself out of a taxi, gauzy scarves and improbably scarlet tresses flying in all directions.
‘What the hell …?’ Dante exclaimed loudly.
She straightened and, leaving the taxi driver toremove her suitcase, strode up to the foot of the steps. She had a Roman nose, black eyes, and the face of a middle-aged Bacchae. When she pointed a simian arm at Dante and boomed: ‘I am retribution! Cower before me, murderer and unbeliever!’ the effect was quite awesome.
‘Unbeliever!’ she repeated on a rising shriek.
…holding his severed head aloft, the black silken hair dabbled in the still-spoutinglifeblood, she—
Somehow I found I was standing protectively in front of Dante, with my arms outstretched like a mother hen with one chick. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ I demanded.
His hands came down hard on my shoulders and gripped them, and there was a sort of grim amusement in the voice with which he said: ‘It’s all right, Cass: this is – or was – my mother-in-law, Mrs Dufferin.’
‘Duval!MadameDuval!’ interjected the woman.
Behind her a small man had also emerged from the taxi, which drove away leaving him standing among a pile of luggage.
‘I’m not interested in what name you’re going under: what I don’t understand is why you are here on my property?’
Rosetta came out, looking harried: ‘Did I hear voices? Oh! Why didn’t you call me to say some of our visitors have arrived,Dante, and—’
She broke off and stared, wide-eyed. ‘Mrs Dufferin! What on earth areyoudoing here?’
‘Duval, Rosetta,’ she snapped. ‘Madame Duval! And I’m booked in for the weekend.’
‘But … well yes, I do have a booking for a Monsieur and Madame Duval, but I didn’t realize it was you! And why on earth you want to keep hounding my poor brother like this, I don’t know!’ she added more fiercely.She turned and said, helplessly: ‘Sorry, Dante: I didn’t realize.’
