Shades of Death by Aline Templeton

Author:Aline Templeton [Templeton, Aline]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2013-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

It had been a hot day in London, one of those oppressive days when the damp air smells metallic and shimmers with petrol fumes. Kate Cosgrove could feel the greasy film of dirt clinging to her skin as she alighted from the Paddington express at Heathrow Airport. Her hair was frizzing into sweaty ringlets on her forehead, and her citrus-yellow linen dress felt limp and more than fashionably crumpled. She had been in a meeting since eight-thirty this morning, and its outcome had not been entirely satisfactory. She could feel the tightening band of a tension headache as she pulled out the handle of her overnight case to trundle it along, shifting her briefcase to the other hand.

Heathrow was even more unpleasantly crowded than usual. The holiday season was in full swing, air traffic controllers in half a dozen different countries were working to rule, delays were causing other delays, and the place was full of distracted parents with their bored and disorderly children and their crying babies.

She swept on purposefully through the aimless crowds, calculating how long it would be before she could get into her shower — three hours, probably, at the most optimistic estimate. She was scowling when the voice hailed her.

`Kate! Kate Cosgrove!'

That was all she needed. For a brief moment she thought of powering on as if she hadn't heard, but after all, it might be a potential voter. She swung round, smoothing her face into a professional smile.

Kate didn't recognise the woman who was beaming at her. She was wearing a white T-shirt with heavy gold embroidery, white pedal-pushers and gold thong sandals. She had very short, fantasy-blonde hair, bright red lips, nails and toenails, and she was bedizened with gold jewellery — well, gold-ish, anyway.

Behind her stood a fleshy man in navy shorts and an orange T-shirt which clung unkindly to the contours of his beer belly. Playing on a dangerously overloaded luggage trolley beside him were two small, bickering children in day-glo colours.

`Goodness, Kate, you haven't changed a bit!'

At least that was a clue, of sorts, and surely that was a Midlands accent? Someone from schooldays, perhaps? The husband was certainly showing no sign of recognition — or indeed any other identifiably human emotion.

`Don't recognise me, do you?' The woman wasn't offended, anyway; her tone of mock-reproof was positively triumphant. 'Well, I'd have to admit I've changed quite a bit since Burlow Primary. Len here couldn't even pick me out when I showed him the photos!' She cast a complacent look at Len, who was studying the go-faster stripes on his trainers with glum indifference.

`Burlow! Of course. I'm sorry.' Peering behind the make-up and the peroxide, Kate suddenly recognised the features of the dreariest girl in her class at school, a mousy creature called – called…

`Sandra! Sandra Bates!'

Sandra looked positively disappointed that transformation had not rendered her wholly unrecognisable. 'That's right, only it's Sandi Norman now, Sandi with an "i".'

`Right, right.' Kate nodded, almost as if she actually cared. ‘And what

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