An Uncommon Murder by Anabel Donald

Author:Anabel Donald [Donald, Anabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Chapter Seventeen

I was back at my flat by twenty past seven. Time to get ready for Barty. I was poking through my wardrobe when Polly banged on my door.

‘They’re clamping in the street again, Alex, they did next door’s Mercedes and he was livid. Have you heard on the news the IRA have blown up another MP, isn’t it dreadful? I’ve never met him, though, he was a backbench Conservative. You look busy, shall I get you a coffee?’

I went back to the wardrobe. ‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Are you going out? Who with? Is it business or pleasure? Don’t tell me, I can guess from your grin.’

‘Am I grinning?’

‘Eat your heart out, Cheshire Cat. Is it Barty?’

‘Yup.’

‘I told you he fancies you.’

‘You said I fancied him.’

‘Both. Trust me, about this I am never wrong. About everything else, yes. You haven’t really looked at another man since you met him.’

‘I’ve done a great deal more than look.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Isolated lust. Doesn’t count. Here, let me help.’ She burrowed into the heap of clean clothes on my shelves. ‘Why don’t you ever hang things up?’

‘Because I never wear them. I just keep them for when I have to tart up for work, and then I iron them before I put them on.’

‘I’ve never seen these before.’ She hauled out an Italian outfit I bought in a mad moment in Venice, egged on by the costume designer for a feature film I worked on about the Doges in the sixteenth century. I’d blown all my ludicrously inflated feature film-rate expenses on the outfit, flowing trousers and top in a multicoloured Florentine print. I’d been younger then. I’d only worn it twice since. Polly had unerringly picked out my only expensive clothes. How is it people can do that? I can’t, just as I can’t tell great wine from drinkable stuff from the local offy.

Polly was giving little cries of distress. ‘How could you leave it crumpled in a ball, Alex? You didn’t WASH it, did you? Oh my God, it’s raw silk.’

‘Silk washes,’ I said, teed off.

‘Not when it’s made up like this – look at the facings and the buttons. Run a bath, quick. We’ll steam it first.’

‘Can I use the bath to wash in as well, please, miss?’

‘Drink it if you like.’ She bustled about, organizing me. I didn’t mind. I sat in the bath sipping the coffee Polly provided, with the sacred garments dangling from the shower rail. She genuflected to them every time she passed. ‘What time is he picking you up?’ she said, sorting through my make-up bag.

‘Eight o’clock.’

‘Only half an hour, help. Hurry up and get out of there. Your skin needs to cool down before I do your make-up.’

‘And then I’ll be transformed and Barty will fall at my feet, stunned at my newly revealed beauty? Come off it, Polly, face facts.’

‘Why won’t you ever give it a go? You’ve got to stop being so timid, Alex.’

‘Timid? Me?’

‘You’re shy and retiring, underneath, and not as far underneath as you think.

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