Her grin broadened. 'Don't knock it,' she said. 'It's a damn sight more effective than beating the poor brute with a newspaper. That just made him vicious.'
'Mm.' Ripping throats out seemed fairly vicious to me, and I wondered how he'd react if I stood up unexpectedly. I glanced at my watch. 'I really ought to be going,' I said, putting reluctance into my voice. 'It's a long journey back to Dorchester and Sam will be wondering where I am.'
'Al'll be sorry to have missed you.'
I nodded. 'It's a shame. I'll phone first another time.' I finished my tea and stood up. 'Can I say good-bye to the children?'
'You surely can. They're in the sitting room. I'd be interested what you think of it.' She pointed to the floor as a growl rose in Satan's throat and he subsided immediately.
'So when does he get the biscuit?' I asked, following her into the hall.
'When I feel like it. That's why he does what I tell him. He's never too sure when the moment will come.'
'Does it work with husbands and children as well?'
She flattened her palm and made a rocking gesture. 'It depends what the treat is. Biscuits don't work so well on Al. He likes basques and black stockings better.' She grinned as I gave a splutter of laughter. 'The kids are in here,' she said, opening a door. 'You'd better like it because it took me two months to finish. I'll phone for a cab while you're looking.'
I did like it, although it was totally out of keeping with a 1930s semi. It can't have been bigger than five meters square, but it was decorated in Mexican style with an arched ceiling, tessellated floor, roughly stuccoed walls and an ornate bronze candelabra hanging from the ceiling. French windows opened out onto a tiny patio, and a huge rococo mirror, with a myriad of tilted facets in a scrolled gilt frame, reflected the light in indiscriminate dazzling shafts across every available surface. Even the fireplace had been transformed into something that would have been more at home on a ranch than in a back street in Isleworth, with a brass artillery shell laden with silk flowers standing in the hearth. I wondered why she'd done this room so differently from the rest.
'It's all fake,' said Jason from the corner where he and his sister were watching television. 'Mum just painted it to make it look real.'
I tapped my foot on the tessellated floor and listened to the hollow ring of wood. 'She's a clever lady,' I said, touching a hand to the rough stucco and feeling the smoothness of plaster. 'Did she make the mirror as well?'
'Yup. And the candy-laber.'
'What about the picture?' I asked, gazing at the Quetzalcoatl mosaic on the wall.
'That's Dad's.'
'The sofa and chairs?'
'Ten quid, job lot, from a junk shop,' said Beth proudly behind me. 'And five quid for the patchwork throws. I begged, borrowed and stole material ... dresses ... old curtains ... tablecloths ... whatever ... from everyone I knew. The five quid went on the reels of cotton to do the sewing. What do you think?'
'Brilliant,' I said honestly.
'But a bit OTT for Isleworth?'
'A bit,' I agreed.
'That's what Al thinks, but all I'm doing is setting out my stall. I can create any image you want, and I can do it for peanuts. This whole room cost under three hundred quid. Okay, it doesn't count my time, but you wouldn't believe how many of my friends say they'd pay me a tenner an hour to do it in their houses.'
'I bet they would,' I said dryly. 'They're probably paying their cleaners as much just to Hoover their floors.'
She looked crestfallen. 'Al doesn't want me to do it at all, says he won't even think about it unless I ask a hundred per hour minimum.'
'He's right.'
'Except none of my friends can pay a hundred quid per hour.'
I gave her hand a quick squeeze. 'It's a bad mistake to work for friends,' I said. 'You should photograph each room and put a portfolio together, then go out and sell yourself ... Get some fliers printed ... take out ads in the local newspaper. You're way too good to work for L10 an hour.' I patted my rucksack. 'If you like, I'll take some photographs now and send them to you. I've got my camera with me, and I'd love my husband to see what you've done. We're toying with buying the farmhouse we're renting, and you never know'-
Her face flushed pink with pleasure again. 'If you're sure.'
'Of course I'm sure.' I squatted down beside Jason and Tansy. 'Would you two like to be in the pictures?' They nodded solemnly. 'Then how about we turn off the telly and you sit on Mum's sofa, one at each end? It might be better if you stood behind me,' I told Beth as I sat cross-legged in front of the windows and lined up the shot. 'You're blocking the mirror.'
She scurried onto the patio. 'I hate having my picture taken. I always look so fat.'
'It depends how they're done,' I said, as I snapped off half a dozen shots of the sofa-side of the room before zooming in on the Quetzlcoatl. 'Why don't you sit on one of the chairs with the kids on your lap, and I'll see if I can get a view of the fireplace with the three of you to the left?'
I should have choked on my own duplicity, instead I marveled at how easy it was to cajole her into letting me make a record of everything in the room, including the bangles on her wrist and a collection of small china cats at one end of the mantelpiece. 'Who's the cat lover?' I asked, as I tucked my camera back into my rucksack, when the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of the minicab.
'Al. He bought them at a jumble sale years ago.' She jumped the children off her lap and stood up. 'You never
