Bloody London Read Online Free PDF

a small yellow basket she carried. “I’ll get her things, then I’ll take you to see her if you like.” She was polite and very cool.
    I gave her the icon and she took it, then set her bag on the bed, put the hairnet and toothbrush inside. She pulled her sweater around her shoulders and pushed the short hair away from her eyes. A wry smile animated her cold, ageless face and I couldn’t stop looking. Frances Pascoe was very sexy. I don’t want anyone except Lily, but this was an interesting woman. Adhesive. You wanted to touch her. She glanced at me, then at the bed and smiled.
    I followed her into the corridor, where she said, “You might want to get rid of your sleuth costume.”
    I dumped the white coat in a laundry bin. “My car’s outside.”
    When we got to the street, she put her hand on the door of my red Cadillac and said, “Marvelous car.”
    This was a woman who watched men: she saw where the soft tissue was; she clocked right away how I feel about the car. I reached over and opened the door for her, felt her sweater brush my arm, then her hand on my wrist, her letting me feel the cool light fingers, as she slid into the seat. She closed the door, shifted her thighs on the natural leather seat appreciatively, then waited until I got behind the wheel and said, “You’re wondering why I don’t seem more upset about Tommy’s death, is that it?”
    I didn’t answer her.
    She said, “I don’t do grief, you see. It’s not who I am.”
    Ulanova’s place was made up of a couple of maids’ rooms; the bedroom was small and crowded with boxes, trunks, a narrow bed. The end of the line for the old woman who lay on the bed. Grimy white walls. On the mahogany bureau stood a gilded icon, the gold leaf mottled and flaky, the figures rubbed out.
    Inert, emaciated, the old Russian lay on the narrow bed, head wrapped in bandages and a red silk scarf. A black woman in a white nylon uniform, face weary, sat thighs apart on a kitchen chair. I crouched next to the old lady’s bed. The breathing was shallow, the face barely haunted by life. A noise came out of her mouth and I leaned closer; she spoke in short bursts.
    I leaned my elbows on my knees and bent my head closer to the mouth. I whispered to her in Russian. I want to help, I said. Talk to me, please, I said. Suddenly her hand moved towards mine, the fingers crawling over the sheet like spiders. I put my hand in her claw and she dragged it up to her cheek. It felt like onion skin, thin, brittle, greasy. Her eyes stayed shut, but she forced out the words into a stream of venom.
    The breath was putrid, her Russian was exquisite. Like some hideous metaphor for the whole goddam country.
    I leaned closer. She whispered how much she hated Thomas Pascoe. He had stolen her apartment and left her the maids’ rooms and she hated him for it.
    The attendant said, “That’s enough.”
    â€œThis is important.”
    â€œI’m sorry. You can come back tomorrow.”
    I said softly, so the old woman wouldn’t hear me, “What if she’s worse?”
    â€œThat’s a chance you’ll have to take, hon, all right? Let her be.”
    But Ulanova pulled on my hair. My face was against hers.
    â€œI came home,” she hissed in Russian. “I had to come home from the hospital.”
    I said, “Why?”
    She said, “They planned to steal my home from me.”
    Mrs Pascoe was waiting in the living room. It was small. It had one window, leaded panes, a rusted handle that didn’t work right. It faced a brick wall. Under it was an upright piano with yellow keys, some of them missing. The room was jammed with black walnut furniture and carved statues, wooden crates, old books, battered icons, oil paintings, some of them stacked three deep, in piles, shoved against the walls, covered with drop-cloths and padded moving blankets. Seedy oriental rugs were