Wexford 6 - No More Dying Then Read Online Free PDF Page B

it or - more likely - she had adopted it herself on the grounds of its originality. Suddenly impatient with himself, he wondered why he kept speculating about her in this irritating way, why every new piece of knowledge of her he acquired gave immediate rise to enquiry. Be cause she is, or soon will be, involved in a murder case, he told himself. He pushed open the living-room door, his mind full of the flamboyant, wild and outrageous image he had made, and stopped, taken aback at what he saw. Yet it was only what he had left behind, a white-faced frightened girl, crouched in a chair, waiting, waiting . . .
       She had switched on an electric fire, but it had done little to warm the room and she had wrapped herself in one of the shawls he had seen, a heavy black-and-gold thing with a long fringe. He found he couldn’t picture her with a child or imagine her reading bedtime stories or pouring out cornflakes. Sitting in some club, yes, singing and playing a guitar.
       “Would you like some tea?” she said, turning to him. “Some sandwiches? I can easily make sandwiches.”
       “Don’t bother for me.”
       “Will your wife have something for you when you get home?”
       “My sister-in-law,” he said. “My wife’s dead.”
       He didn’t like having to say it. People immediately became embarrassed, blushing or even recoiling slightly as if he had some infectious disease. Then came the rush of awkward insincere sympathy, meaningless words to be gabbled through and then as soon forgotten. No one ever looked as if they really cared, or no one had until now.
       Gemma Lawrence said quietly and slowly, “I’m so sorry. She must have been quite young. That was a great tragedy for you. Now I can see what has taught you to be kind to other people who are in trouble.”
       He felt ashamed of himself and shame made him stammer. “I - well . . . I think I would like those sandwiches if it isn’t any trouble.”
       “How could it be?” she asked wonderingly, as if the polite conventional phrase was new to her. “Naturally I want to do something in return for all you’re doing for me.”
       She brought the sandwiches in a very short time. It was evident they hadn’t taken long to make. Ham had been roughly placed between two doorsteps of bread and the tea was in mugs without saucers.
       Women had been spoiling Burden all his life, serving him food on dainty china from trays covered with lace cloths, and he took a sandwich without much enthusiasm, but when he bit into it he found that the ham was tasty and not too salty and the bread fresh.
       She sat on the floor and rested her back against the armchair opposite to him. He had told Wexford there were many more questions he wanted to ask her and he hazarded a few of them, routine enquiries as to John’s adult acquaintances, the parents of his school friends, her own friends. She responded calmly and intelligently and the policeman’s part of his mind registered her answers automatically. But something strange had happened to him. He was absorbing with a curious unease a fact which the average man would have observed as soon as he laid eyes on her. She was beautiful. Thinking the word made him look away, yet carry with him, as if imprinted on his retina, a brilliant impression of that white face with its good bones and, more disturbingly, her long legs and full firm breasts.
       Her hair was vermilion in the red firelight, her eyes the clear water-washed green of jewels that are found under the sea. The shawl gave her an exotic look as if she were set within the frame of a Pre-Raphaelite portrait, posed, unreal, unfitted for any ordinary daily task. And yet there was about her something entirely natural and impulsive. Too natural, he thought, suddenly alarmed, too real. She is more real and more aware and more natural than any woman has a right to be.
       Quickly be said, “Mrs. Lawrence, I’m sure you told John never to speak to