Читать книгу The Girl with the Fragile Mind - Claire Seeber, Claire Seeber - Страница 23

Silver had insisted she take the weekend off, but by Monday night, Kenton had been champing at the bit to get back to work. The horrific images had begun to fade a little, and she had listened to Alison’s calming tape at least five times until frankly, she thought the images were probably increasing manifold in her supposedly relaxed mind. Severed limbs and the like strewn across the ‘safe place’ of her childhood, a long beach in Dorset with good fossils and an ice-cream van selling cider lollies on the cliff. It had been difficult keeping busy with not much to do.

On Saturday she had driven down to see her father in Kent, who had worried her rather by referring to her at least twice during the visit as ‘Lilian’, which had been her late mother’s name. She had taken him to Waitrose, which was a real treat in her eyes. She had picked up some lovely ginger cordial and a fantastic Beef Wellington – but Dad had just grumbled that it wasn’t what he was used to, and then grew apoplectic about the prices, so in the end she had given up and taken him down to Aldi.

On Sunday the rain had been Biblical, as her mother would have said, and Alison came over for lunch: Beef Wellington, green beans and lumpy mash. Cooking really wasn’t Kenton’s forte, but Alison had been nice about it all, even about the sticky toffee pudding, which had more stick than toffee and had been impossible to get off the bloody pan for days after; the custard that was in turn both liquid and powder. Kenton had kept sneaking looks at Alison’s pretty round face, slightly troubled now as one dark curl caught in the zip of her borrowed cagoule, as they had prepared to walk along the canal after lunch.

‘Here, let me,’ Kenton had said, and she had been both nervous and exhilarated as she helped free her hair, and she had wanted to stroke Alison’s face. Her skin was like alabaster, her mum would have said, and Kenton had wondered for the tenth time that day what Alison saw in her, in her own pleasant blunt-nosed face that no one could ever call pretty. Alison had slipped her hand into Kenton’s and Kenton had felt a kind of pride that she hadn’t for years, since Diana Grills had kissed her behind the science block after the Sixth Form disco. Before Diana had blanked her and got off with Tony Hall half an hour later, leaving her broken-hearted for the first but not the last time in her life.

‘How are you feeling?’ Alison had asked, and Kenton had grinned and said, ‘Happy.’

‘That’s nice,’ Alison had smiled too, but then looked more serious and said, ‘But I meant about work. You know. The bad dreams.’

‘All right,’ Kenton had became gruff. She didn’t like to show her weak side.

‘It’s OK to be freaked out,’ Alison had said gently, and she’d held Kenton’s hand tighter, as if she could feel that Kenton had been about to relinquish hers. ‘We can talk about it if you like.’

‘It’s just part of the job,’ Kenton had said, and Alison nodded, and said, ‘Yes I can see that.’

There’d been a pause. Then two Canadian geese had flown overhead in perfect symmetry; they wheeled and turned course together over the rooftops.

‘Amazing,’ Kenton had shaken her head. ‘How does one know where the other is about to go?’

‘Not sure,’ Alison had looked up into the sky. ‘Synchronicity, I guess.’

They had walked on in silence for a bit.

‘I’m going back tomorrow,’ Kenton had said eventually. ‘Or Tuesday. See how I feel.’

‘You do that,’ Alison had said, and squeezed Kenton’s hand.

And so, by 8.15 a.m. on a damp Tuesday morning, Kenton was back at her desk, papers stacked neatly. Not exactly raring to go, perhaps, but looking forward to putting the trauma behind her, and getting on with the case. She had been in Berkeley Square herself; now it was of paramount importance to find the culprit and lay it to rest.