The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Read Online Free PDF Page A

find someone to marry.'
    Esme was thunderstruck. 'Will we?'
    'Of course. We can't very well spend the rest of our lives here.'
    Esme stared at her sister. Sometimes it felt that they were equals, the same age, but at others the six years between them stretched out, an impossible gap. 'I'm not
going to get married,' she announced, hurling herself back to the bed.
    Across the room, Kitty laughed. 'Is that right?' she said.
     
    Iris is late. She overslept, she took too long over breakfast and in deciding what to wear. And now she is late. She is due to interview a woman about helping in the shop on Saturdays and she is going to have to take the dog with her. She is hoping the woman won't mind.
    She has her coat over her arm, her bag on her shoulder, the dog on his lead and is just about to leave when the phone rings. She hesitates for a moment, then slams the door and runs back to the kitchen, which excites the dog, who thinks she's playing a game and he leaps up at her, tangling Iris in the lead so that she trips and falls against the kitchen door.
    She curses, rubbing her shoulder, and lunges for the phone. 'Yes, hello,' she says, holding the phone and the dog lead in one hand, her coat and bag in the other.
    'Am I speaking with Miss Lockhart?'
    'Yes.'
    'My name is Peter Lasdun. I am calling from—'
    Iris doesn't catch the name but she hears the word 'hospital'. She clutches at the receiver, her mind leapfrogging. She thinks: my brother, my mother, Luke. 'Is someone ... Has something happened?'
    'No, no,' the man chuckles irritatingly, 'there's no cause
for alarm, Miss Lockhart. It's taken us some time to track you down. I am contacting you about Euphemia Lennox.'
    A mixture of relief and anger surges through Iris. 'Look,' she snaps, 'I have no idea who you people are or what you want but I've never heard of Euphemia Lennox. I'm really very busy and—'
    'You're her contact family member.' The man states this very quietly.
    'What?' Iris is so annoyed that she drops bag, coat and dog lead. 'What are you talking about?'
    'You are related to Mrs Kathleen Elizabeth Lockhart, née Lennox, formerly of Lauder Road, Edinburgh?'
    'Yes.' Iris looks down at the dog. 'She's my grandmother.'
    'And you have had enduring power of attorney since...' there is the scuffling of papers '...since she went into full-time nursing care.' More paper scuffling. 'I have here a copy of a document lodged with us by her solicitor, signed by Mrs Lockhart, naming you as the family member to be contacted about affairs pertaining to one Euphemia Esme Lennox. Her sister.'
    Iris is really cross now. 'She doesn't have a sister.'
    There is a pause in which Iris can hear the man moving his lips over his teeth. 'I'm afraid I must contradict you,' he says eventually.
    'She doesn't. I know she doesn't. She's an only one, like me. Are you telling me I don't know my own family tree?'
    'The trustees of Cauldstone have been trying to trace—'
    'Cauldstone? Isn't that the – the...' Iris fights to come up with a word other than
loony-bin '...
asylum?'
    The man coughs. 'It's a unit specialising in psychiatry. Was, I should say'
    'Was?'
    'It's closing down. Which is why we are contacting you.'
     
    As she is driving down Cowgate, her mobile rings. She wrests it from her coat pocket. 'Hello?'
    'Iris,' Alex says, into her ear, 'did you know that two and a half thousand left-handed people are killed every year using things made for right-handed people?'
    'I did not know that, no.'
    'Well, it's true. It says so here, right in front of me. I'm working on a home-safety website today, such is my life. I thought I should ring and warn you. I had no idea that your existence was so precarious.'
    Iris glances at her left hand, gripping the steering-wheel. 'Neither did I.'
    'The worst culprits are tin-openers, apparently. Though it doesn't say exactly how you can die from using one. Where've you been all morning? I've been trying to get hold of you for hours with this piece of