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as the plastic slats tumbled down and blanked out the building across the street. Loretta thought it was an office block, in which case most of the employees would already have gone home, but she felt safer with the blinds shielding her semi-nakedness.
    Could
it have been someone across the street? Someone who had been watching Toni’s apartment? If so, it seemed a remarkable coincidence that he should choose this of all evenings to call for the first time, catching Loretta so soon after she arrived in the city. Yet if he had phoned before, had been making these calls on a regular basis, wouldn’t Toni have warned her before she left? Loretta folded her arms across her chest, over the bath towel, and tried to remember how the conversation had begun. She had supplied both names, her own and Toni’s, she was almost certain of that, but had he said anything that suggested he knew who he was talking to? Getting her hair colour right was probably just a lucky guess, either that or he was fixated on blondes; Loretta shivered, not wanting to visualise the possibility that Michael, whoever and wherever he was, had been masturbating while he talked to her. She had read Arthur Miller’s autobiography immediately after seeing
A ViewFrom The Bridge
and vividly recalled his description of seeing a man, a total stranger, jerk off as he watched Marilyn Monroe browse in a bookshop.
    From the other side of the room, next to the front door, the dog let out a long rumbling snore. Loretta turned to see her shoe, which she had completely forgotten, lying abandoned close to its jaw. ‘Oh well,’ she said, trying to make light of what had happened, ‘I suppose you do have a use after all.’ Even if Michael had been watching her, even if he knew Toni’s address and succeeded in getting past the building security system, there was always the dog to protect her. Still trying to reassure herself, Loretta returned to the cramped bathroom, hung the damp towel over the shower rail and sprayed perfume on her wrists and the backs of her knees. In the living-room she wriggled into a sleeveless black body, snapped the poppers together between her legs with practised efficiency and stepped into slingback shoes with two-inch heels. Her skirt, which she had absent-mindedly left on the sofa, had acquired a light coating of dog hairs which she brushed off with her hand before fastening it round her waist.
    Loretta looked at her watch and saw she had twenty minutes to spare before she needed to set off for the theatre. She frowned, thinking there was no point in ringing the number Toni had left, she probably hadn’t even arrived in Sag Harbor yet, and a mildly obscene phone call was hardly a reason for dialling nine-one-one. But she wanted to talk to
somebody;
she fastened a necklace, pulled a long scarf from her weekend case to cover her bare arms later in the evening and picked up her notebook. The number she wanted was scrawled in biro at the top of a page and she knelt by the phone, dialling a Washington DC number.
    â€˜Reception. How may I help you?’
    â€˜I’d like to speak to one of your guests, he’s called John Tracey.’
    â€˜Do you have Mr Tracey’s room number?’
    â€˜No, sorry.’
    â€˜One moment.’
    Tracey answered on the first ring, his tone immediately conveying to Loretta that this was not a good time to call. ‘John, it’s me. Are you busy?’
    â€˜Mmm. Where are you? Can I call you back?’
    â€˜New York, Toni’s flat, but I’m about to go out.’
    â€˜So am I. Where’ll you be later on this evening?’
    â€˜At the theatre.’
    â€˜Gh. Sorry, Loretta, can it wait till tomorrow?’
    He sounded harassed and she remembered how uncommunicative he had been when he called from London to say he was flying to Washington on a story. He had muttered something about Whitewater, the failed Little Rock loan company which was causing