Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly

Author:Paula Daly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780593071991
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2014-08-19T07:00:00+00:00

22

HOW CAN EVE not exist? How is that even possible? There must be some trail of Eve Dalladay, surely. Anyone running a business has to be listed somewhere.

Feverishly, I type in anything I can think of to find some kind of link. I go way back through Eve’s history – type in her maiden name, searching for Eve Boydell from Cheshire. Eve Boydell at Manchester University, Eve Boydell at—

‘Natty?’ comes a voice. ‘Natty, is that you? Good Lord, it is you!’

I look up. Sean’s mother is striding my way. She’s clutching two audio books to her chest. The pink Radley handbag I bought her last Mother’s Day is swinging from the crook of her arm.

‘Hello, Penny,’ I say. ‘What are you doing here?’

Her mouth gapes open, her face displaying both confusion and contempt, as though she’s come upon a trusted member of staff, their fingers inside the till.

‘W–what . . .’ she stutters, ‘. . . what am I doing here?’

I nod.

‘I’m collecting these for Valerie Warburton,’ she says, frowning, and holds out the audio books. The top one is a Barbara Taylor Bradford. I can’t see the one beneath.

She waits for me to respond, she’s expecting an explanation for my being here, and I find myself glancing around the room – as if something might rescue me from this discussion.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be with the police?’ she hisses. ‘Sean told me the police have been at the house and—’ All at once, she notices the girl sitting next to me is watching her. Penny drops her voice to a forced whisper, a look of distaste coming over her as she notices the girl’s nose ring. ‘Sean says the police are looking for you, Natty.’ The ferocity of her glare makes her chin shoot forward. ‘He told me you got yourself into an altercation with Eve.’

‘That’s right, Penny, I did.’ She flinches at my honesty.

‘Well,’ Penny continues, ‘Alice and Felicity are terribly upset about the whole thing, terribly upset. I plan on seeing them this evening when I’ve fulfilled my obligations with Valerie. The WI has a rota in place . . .’ Her accent becomes prim and dictatorial at the mention of the Women’s Institute. She lifts her chin a little as she speaks. ‘In fact,’ she adds, ‘I must remember to pick up the prawn salad when I . . .’

Her voice trails off as she thinks through the logistics of what she needs to do.

Incidentally, I have no idea who Valerie Warburton is. I assume I am supposed to know. She’s probably a woman of great standing in the community, probably a formidable woman who is now incapacitated – thus sending each member of the Windermere WI into a frenzy of usefulness and duty.

‘So,’ Penny says, snapping her attention back to the here and now, ‘I’ll take the girls out for an early-bird dinner, see if I can’t take their minds off all this nonsense. Is it Alice who likes Italian, or Felicity? Perhaps I’ll just take them for a roast.

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