Funeral Music Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sue, and while Sara was reading over her shoulder and trying not to feel supercilious, she saw the big man from Waitrose come into the foyer. As he was almost the only man and certainly the largest person in sight, he immediately seemed to fill the place up. He was with a woman, and together they had a tense, straight-from-the-office look. She was on the short side, carrying only a little surplus weight for her forty-eightish years and clearly not in the habit of asking herself if she might be wearing too much makeup. She was wearing plenty, and broadly speaking to good effect; her round grey eyes had been edged expertly in black, which made her look rather sultry in a slightly dim sort of way. They were only just visible under her coarse fringe, which had apparently been nibbled by something small and very hungry. The original colour of the shoulder-length hair could only be guessed at, because her rough bob had been so mercilessly streaked with bottled colours that it had a strange, defeated patina and curved flat over her head and under her chin like a low cottage roof of thatched aluminium. Through her hair she was peering with interest at the tables of leaflets.
    ‘Can’t make head nor tail of this,’ Sue whispered. ‘I’m going to ask.’ She wandered further up the hall to a desk marked ‘Enquiries’ and was soon engaged in consultation. From her position against the wall just inside the vestibule Sara observed that a row was starting. The woman in the pay kiosk was agreeing with the big man that, indeed, there were several people here. Yes, she was saying, those people could go round the Museum of Costume in the basement because they were attending a private event at the Assembly Rooms on the ground floor, but the museum was actually closed to the general public from six p.m. It was now five past six, and no, they could not get into the museum until tomorrow morning unless they were participating in the private event, which they were not, were they? This was not going down well. Sara was wondering why these two people should be here at all instead of starting off their evening with a leisurely bottle of champagne somewhere. And since they were obviously together, obviously not married, and had the makings of a delightful and intimate dinner somewhere in the background, would not the most sensible place be in bed, as a postlude to urgent, passionate love-making? Given what Sara presumed were their other options, this consuming interest in historic textiles seemed not altogether healthy. But they really were taking it very seriously, or rather the man was, pointing out that as the premises were actually open, it was surely a little churlish to refuse them entry. His very loud and slow manner of speaking was in itself an insult, implying that he was a patient and forbearing man and she was a pitifully unintelligent woman. That he certainly was not, or that she might have been, was not really the point, and it was having not the slightest effect on the lady in the kiosk.
    ‘Let it go, Derek,’ his companion was saying quietly behind him.
    ‘I have
no intention
of letting it go,’ he said furiously, wheeling round at her. Perhaps they were married after all. But she wore no rings except for two God-awful nuts of turquoise and silver on her right hand.
    ‘My name is Derek Payne,’ he announced loudly, turning back to the kiosk and pausing as if he expected this information to produce some change of heart. Miraculously it did, or seemed to, for just then the double doors further down the passage behind the kiosk opened and a tall figure in evening dress emerged. Sara was momentarily taken aback, for in the gloom of the corridor the figure looked uncannily like Matteo. The black tie partly created the impression, but also the long legs, the swing of the walk and the thick dark hair, just for a second, unsettled her. The bright light of the vestibule did not quite dispel the impression for, also like Matteo, this