The Glass Ceiling by Anabel Donald

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

The traffic thinned out past the Henley turn-off and the voice on the radio changed to an economist explaining why the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement crisis would be resolved by a decisive move by the Bank of England to lower interest rates. He was followed by another economist equally certain that the same crisis would be resolved by raising the interest rates. I began to feel drowsy. I was short on sleep, and patience. I wondered why economists were paid three times what I was, and were never sacked for being wrong. As far as I knew. Maybe if I’d had an Oxford education like the Vestal Virgins. I’d understand.

I opened the windows, groped for a tape and clicked it in.

The Eagles. Fair enough. I’d sing along and that’d keep me awake, and I’d concentrate on trying to get one simple thing right.

Who killed the hamster? Forget the Womun. Focus on the hamster.

Suspect Number One had to be Teddy. He’d been there the afternoon it died. He was a young male. He’d been entirely unmoved by its death. He resented his mother: ‘women want to get inside your head’. He must resent smug little Bella: he lived with her; I resented her, and I’d only met her twice. If I’d had to listen to non-stop twee burblings about Mopsy and Hamster Heaven day in and day out, I’d have reached for the upholstery needle.

I was happy with Teddy as first murderer. But he couldn’t be the Womun. It had definitely been a female voice on my answer-phone, and Teddy’s voice was unequivocally male, at times as near as Anglo-Saxon voices get to a genuine bass. Plus there was no reason to suppose that he knew anything about the Oxford activities of the Vestal Virgins – Melanie wasn’t likely to have told him.

The open windows were beginning to chill me and I couldn’t hear the tape for wind-noise, but I was still sleepy and I needed petrol. So I pulled in at the next service station, filled the car up, and entertained myself in the queue to pay by trying to count how many of the hundreds of objects for sale in the pay station anyone could conceivably want to buy. Oil, etc., OK. But how often, mid-journey, do you want a dried flower arrangement? Or a giant pink dinosaur? Or a cassette tape of The Best of Tom Jones? Was there a Best of Tom Jones?

Next to the pay-station was a telephone box. As I left I turned towards it, turned away, turned back and went in. I punched in my British Telecom card, then rang Barty’s number. A different answering service voice; still female, but much older. No, sorry, Mr O’Neill wasn’t available. Did I want to leave a message?

Yes, I did. From Alex Tanner. Could he please ring me to clear up a misunderstanding?

Ah. The voice had a message for Miss Tanner, if Miss Tanner rang.

‘I’m ringing.’

Rustle of papers. Clearing of throat. I read, for the third time, the prostitute’s card stuck up behind the instructions on use of the phone.

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