The Nature of the Beast by Frances Fyfield

Author:Frances Fyfield [Fyfield, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780753165997
Goodreads: 942792
Publisher: ISIS Publishing
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

This time they went back together on the train, although to different destinations. They were driven to the station by Jimmy in a beaten-up hatchback with suspicious stains of long standing on the upholstery and so old that everything about it creaked ominously. Another attempt to discommode them, Elisabeth thought as she sat in the front with Jimmy who stared ahead and flung the car around bends as if both he and it hated the road. John and the solicitor sat in the back and clutched at the handles, talking to one another. She pulled the seatbelt across herself, clipped it, then used the time to push the exhibit bag into her own empty briefcase. The case was the wrong shape, but the bag could not be carried around naked and the arranging of it made a chorus of polythene creaking sounds. Jimmy had the windows shut; he wanted them to be hotter and stickier than they were, eyed her sideways and went faster. The ten minutes seemed longer. She looked across and down, marvelled at the skinniness of his thighs, like a jockey’s, nothing but muscle and bone held together with threads of thin fuse wire beneath the frayed cotton of his trousers as he changed gear with the same aggression as a man whipping a horse to win. There was something about that tan-coloured bag he wanted to devour: once it was out of sight and they reached the outskirts of the town, he went slower. In the back, they continued talking, tight-lipped.

At the station, Jimmy leapt out and opened the back doors officiously, saluting like a chauffeur without a hat, a parody of insolence. Out of sight of the others as they parted in the car park, Elisabeth slapped him on the shoulder, her hand meeting a sharp ridge of bone.

‘Thanks,’ she said pointedly. ‘That was fun.’

‘Fuck off,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Fuck off.’

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