Fearful Symmetry Read Online Free PDF Page B

neighbours. And as it happened Sara had their other numbers.’ He lowered the paper. ‘Look, I’ll try to make it to the rehearsal tonight. But this letter-bomb case will be coming first with everyone for a while. There’s a lot to do. There are no obvious suspects. We need to interview a lot of people, and quickly. So I’ll try, but don’t count on me. All right?’
    Valerie grimaced with understanding, for which Andrew felt a whole second’s worth of guilt. But only another twelve hours until he would see Sara, until she would be stepping off her plane and coming through the Arrivals Hall. She would be tired out, laden with her luggage and cello case, but still the most beautiful woman in the whole building. And she would be a little lost, looking for him, and as soon as she saw him the anxiety would leave her face and she would smile and walk towards him, because she had asked him to be there and of course he would be, waiting to wrap his arms around her and take her home.
     
    ‘O NE FUR coat isn’t the issue. The issue is exploitation. Totally innocent animals are being exploited. I happen to believe that’s worth fighting for.’ As she finished speaking Anna Ward-Pargiter opened her eyes very wide behind her glasses and took a deep breath, clenching her lips tightly as she did so. This arrested, momentarily, the wobble that had started up in her chin, but after a few seconds back it came, the involuntary contraction that puckered up her lips and tightened her throat. She grasped her chin tightly between a thumb and forefinger and tried to blink away the moistness that was gathering in her eyes. Now there was stuff wanting to come down her nose and invisible wires seemed to be tugging down the corners of her mouth. Oh shit shit shit shit shit—she was going to cry.
    Andrew exchanged a glance with WDC Frayling, who took the cue and said quietly, ‘All right, Anna? Shall we stop there? We can stop for a minute if you like—there’s no problem.’
    Anna was now finding that it was impossible to leave off gulping and sniffing. She didn’t understand this. Bren had said they were pigs. But these pigs were coming over all nice. She took off her glasses, reached for a hanky, found none, sank her head onto her arms across the table and bawled like a three-year-old. Shit—now there would be stuff all over her sleeves.
    ‘Anna, it is quite clear to you, isn’t it?’ WDC Frayling went on. ‘You are being interviewed as a witness, not, so far, as a suspect. You are not under arrest. And I know you said you didn’t want to, but you can still use a phone and let someone know you are here. You’re allowed to change your mind, you know.’
    Anna always collapsed the minute people were nice. From the day Mum left, and right through the divorce, she had kept a hold on herself. She knew it was only a question of winding a part of yourself up so tight inside that it took up a very small space, and then you could forget it was there, like looking after your tights at boarding school. The small drawer you had was fine when you rolled each pair into a hard little bumpy ball, but a complete mess if you let them unravel everywhere. Her brain told her that she was a statistic, another ‘child of divorced parents’. It achieved nothing to blub about it. And that had been absolutely fine until her housemistress had wanted to see her about her bad marks and, instead of the scolding she was expecting, Anna had been asked gently how she was coping with it all. She had not even finished saying ‘absolutely fine’ before the tears had come. Now here she was blubbing again. Thank God Bren wasn’t here to despise her for it.
    At the sudden scrape of the chair she looked up. DCI Poole had stood up and was towering over her. He was very tall, strong-looking too. The lady policeman was leaning back in her chair, waiting. Now Anna understood. The man was reaching down into his pocket, probably for a truncheon. The floppy, unravelled