Murder Fortissimo Read Online Free PDF Page B

blazes.’
    Stifling a weary sigh Alice refolded the ivory silk, shuddering a little at the touch. I’ll never, ever have a silk nightdress, or anything else silk, she vowed silently. Somehow the fluid, supple softness of the fabric had come to epitomize her mother over the years. Christiane must wear silk next to the skin because of her extreme sensitivity, no matter what the state of their finances, no matter that during the bad times Alice had been driven to wearing her father’s old vests in winter to keep warm. Christiane must clothe her delicate frame in silk, and silk of the finest quality at that.
    Christiane could be like silk, smooth and slippery and, to strangers, a charming and delightful woman, but Alice was always aware of the worm at the heart of the apple.
    If I brought Neil Slater here, Alice thought, and introduced him and told her about his offer of a job, she’d be lovely to him and he’d be utterly charmed. That snowy hair in its elegant French pleat, those sparkling dark eyes and that still-attractive
jolie-laide
face, he’d fall like a ton of bricks, people always do. And then she’d put the boot in, oh so delicately, oh so reasonably, and stop me taking the job and I’d end up looking a callous, unfeeling bitch for wanting to neglect such a sweet old lady, confined to a wheelchair too. Shocking. As a child Alice had assumed all mothers were like Christiane; when she found she was mistaken she was wistful but resigned. Her mother was as she was and there was nothing to be done about it.
    The taxi arrived with all the commotion and hustle and bustle of manoeuvring Christiane and her wheelchair. The driver, the same one as on the initial trip to Firstone Grange, obviously remembered the dear old lady and her anxious spinstery daughter. Alice caught his sidelong glance and winced at the pity in his eyes.
    As they disembarked at Firstone Grange Alice broke out in a cold sweat born of a terror that something would intervene. Maybe the matron will say they’re full up after all, she trembled, or Mother will turn round with a peal of laughter and say it was all a joke and she was going home now. Nails digging painfully into the balls of her thumbs she prayed, a fervent, incoherent gabble of supplication. Please, oh please, oh God: don’t do that to me, let me have a respite, please, oh please,
please
.
    No, it was all right, they had negotiated the entrance hall and the matron seemed delighted to welcome them. Up in the lift, out on to the landing, along the carpeted corridor towardsChristiane’s room, no problems. A door opened and an old woman came out, spotted them and halted, holding back to let them pass, though there was ample room for all on the broad, Edwardian landing. Alice suspected the woman of being just plain inquisitive, wanting to suss out the new arrival, and why not? Time must hang heavily on the residents’ hands if they weren’t great readers or knitters or embroiderers.
    ‘Good morning,’ Christiane made a point of slowing down and smiling a bright, cheerful greeting.
    To Alice’s astonishment the other woman recoiled, staring, her mouth open in shock. She said nothing but cowered back in the doorway of her room, reaching out a shaking hand to lean on the door jamb for support.
    As Alice followed her mother she caught a faint thread of a whisper. ‘No, not her, not that one, not after all these years!’ It meant nothing to her, caught up as she was in her own dread that even now, her mother might call a halt to the experiment, but no. Christiane Marchant’s face radiated complacency and satisfaction, a cat-with-the-cream smirk, an air of delighted malice. Alice trembled even more, she had seen that expression once or twice in her life and it boded no good. What the hell was she so pleased about now? What mischief was she brewing?
    Installed in her comfortable bedroom Christiane turned to her daughter with an airy wave of dismissal. ‘Off you go, Alice, I’m sure you have