“No, it’s not OK, but I’ll see what I can do. Will you be in this evening?”
“Yes, twiddling my thumbs.”
“Well, try twiddling them round your keyboard,” said Iris acidly.
“I’m fed up with being the only one who does any meaningful work in this lopsided relationship of ours.”
She should have had the film developed at a one-hour booth in her local High Street while she did some shopping. Now she spread the prints over her coffee table and studied them. She put the ones of Svengali, the two close-ups of his face and some full-length shots of his back as he walked away, to one side and smiled at the rest. She had forgotten taking them. Deliberately, she thought. They were of Rupert and Alice playing in the garden on Alice’s birthday, a week before the accident.
They had declared a truce that day, she remembered, for Alice’s sake.
And they had kept it, up to a point, although as usual the responsibility for refusing to be drawn had been Roz’s. As long as she could keep her cool and smile while Rupert let slip his poisoned darts about Jessica, Jessica’s flat, and Jessica’s job, everything was hunky-dory. Alice’s joy in having her parents back together again shone from the photographs.
Roz pushed them tenderly to one side and rummaged through her carrier bag of shopping, removing some cellophane, a paintbrush, and three tubes of acrylic paint. Then, munching into a pork pie, she set to work.
Every now and then she paused to smile at her daughter. She should have had the film developed before, she told Mrs. Antrobus, who had curled contentedly into her lap. The rag doll of the newspapers had never been Alice. This was Alice.
“He’s legged it,” said Iris baldly down the wire two hours later, ‘and Gerry has been threatened with all sorts of nasties if he doesn’t reveal his client’s whereabouts the minute he knows them. There’s a warrant out for the wretched man’s arrest.
Where on earth do you find these ghastly creatures? You should take up with a nice one, like Gerry,” she said severely, ‘who wouldn’t dream of beating up women or involving them in criminal activities.”
“I know,” agreed Roz mildly, ‘but the nice ones are already taken. Did they mention what the charge is against Hal?”
“Charges, more like. Arson, resisting arrest, GBH, absconding from the scene of a crime. You name it, he’s done it. If he gets in touch with you, don’t bother to let me know. Gerry’s already behaving like the man who knew the identity of Jack the Ripper but kept it quiet. He’ll have a heart attack if he thinks I know where he is.”
“Mum’s the word,” Roz promised.
There was a moment’s silence.
“You might do better to hang up if he calls. There’s a man in hospital with appalling facial burns, apparently, a policeman with a dislocated jaw, and when they arrived to arrest him he was trying to set fire to his restaurant. He sounds horribly dangerous to me.”
“I think you’re probably right,” said Roz slowly, wondering what on earth had happened after she left.
“He’s got a lovely arse, too. Aren’t I the lucky one?”
“Cow!”
Roz laughed.
“Thank Gerry for me. I appreciate his niceness even if you don’t.”
She went to sleep on the sofa in case she missed the phone when it rang. It occurred to her that he might not want to trust himself to an answer machine.
But the telephone remained stubbornly silent all weekend.
SIXTEEN
On Monday morning, with the black dog of depression on her shoulder again, Roz went to the Belvedere Hotel and placed the photograph on the desk.
“Is this Mr. Lewis?” she asked the proprietress.
The amiable woman popped on her glasses and took a good look. She shook her head apologetically.
“No, dear, I’m sorry.
He doesn’t ring a bell at all.”
“Try now.” She smoothed the cellophane across the photograph.
“Good heavens. How extraordinary. Yes, that’s Mr. Lewis all right.”
Marie agreed.
“That’s him. Dirty bugger.” She screwed up her eyes.
“It doesn’t flatter him, does it? What would a young girl see in that?”
“I don’t know. Uncritical affection perhaps.”
“Who is he?”
“A psychopath,” said Roz.
The other whistled.
“You want to be careful then.”
