right with you, I'm out of here, so I am, now.'
Kevin Naylor was looking at the photograph. Marlene Kinouhon. The name meant nothing to him. He. would pass it on down the line and, as long as she was still working the city, they would bring her in. He knew that both men were looking at him, waiting for him to say something positive, send them on their way. His back was aching from bending over the albums for so long and he knew he could do with a pint, but it was at least an hour before he would get one, possibly longer. Always, jarring at the edge of his mind, the conversation he had had with Debbie over breakfast, over children, another baby.
'Thanks,' he said.
'Thanks for all your time. You've been very helpful.'
Twenty-three Frank Carlucci had picked up the first edition of the local paper on his way back from the. municipal pool. Thirty minutes of steady lengths, interrupted only by the arrival of the first batch of school kids of the day. Juice and coffee hadn't been as difficult to find as the last time he was in the country, ten years before, but even so, his request for a ca fee lane had been treated with disbelief and the cappuccino he ordered instead was weak and boasted no more than a quarter-inch of froth. Let me into this market, Frank thought, and I could clean up.
Cathy was in the shower when he got back, between the groans and the splashes singing one of those old Brill Building songs by Carole King, Neil Sedaka, one of those. Later that day was when Shots on the Page, the literary segment of the festival, began, and she would be at her busiest, fans simpering round her for autographs coming off with the same stupid questions 'Who are your favourite mystery writers, Ms Jordan?'
'Where do you get all your ideas?',
'Just how much of you is there in Annie Q. Jones? Is she really you?' One major difference between them, Frank knew for sure, no way his wife was a dyke.
The water stopped and a few moments later Cathy came through from the shower, a towel about her hair.
'Jesus H. Christ!' Carlucci whistled in wonder.
'You still got a great body, you know that?'
'Frank,' Cathy smiled, her voice slipping into the mock-innocent tone with which she often teased him, 'you didn't drown. You're back. '
For once, Frank refused the bait.
'Maybe it's 'cause you never had kids, I don't know, but you're in as great shape now as when you was twenty-one.'
'Bullshitter! You didn't know me when I was twenty- one.'
Carlucd laughed.
'More's the pity.' He cupped one of her buttocks with his hand and she slapped him away.
'Hey, you don't want to get felt up, shouldn't walk around that way.'
'What's that, Frank, rape defence A? Your honour, she was asking for it' ' What you talking, rape? Husband pats his wife's ass, that's not even sexual harassment. Not even today. '
Cathy pulled on a pair of white underpants and began sorting through her tights.
'I know, Frank, you're right. It's just, well, sometimes I have difficulty remembering that you're my husband, I mean.'
'Listen,' said Frank, serious now.
'I ever force myself upon you?'
Cathy straightened away from the bed.
'No, Frank, I can't say you have. Not recently anyway. Not since that time in Atlanta I broke your nose.'
'You didn't break my nose. A few seconds maybe, it was out of joint.
Hey, you ev^n helped pop it back, remember? ' / ' And got snot and blood all up my arm for my trouble. '
She had her back to him, snapping on a brassiere, and he waited until she turned, wondering if she were really mad, remembering. She didn't look mad. Standing there. white bra with some cleavage and a little lace, blue jeans, even with her snarled-up hair, she looked great He told her so.
'Look,' he said.
'I'm serious. You don't think we could…' Eyes straying towards the bed.
126 'Come on, Frank. I just got out the shower. And I've got this radio interview in less than half an hour. Mollie's coming by to pick me up.'
Right, thought Frank, always something. He tossed her the paper and Cathy caught most of it, the second section sliding from the bed down to the floor.
'Maybe you should take a look at this before you go.
Hung on to your front page spot, but only just. I'll see you later,' he said and left the room.
The piece describing the affray in the bookshop was boxed towards the bottom of the page, two columns. Beneath the headline, STAR US CRIME WRITER ATTACKED, Cathy Jordan's face smiled out from one of her standard issue publicity shots.
'Presumed feminist protest…' it read. And: 'Although clearly shaken by the unprovoked assault, the visiting best-selling American author insisted she would not be curtailing her very full programme during the city's top film and fiction festival. This evening. Miss Jordan is appearing on a Shots on the Page panel discussing the future of crime fiction. 9 Terrific, Cathy thought, every weirdo and closet voyeur coming out of the woodwork, eager to see what I'm going to get doused in this time.
But she didn't think about that for long; her eyes kept being pulled back to the top of the page: Police Probe Hotel Slaying. DEAD MAN FOUND NAKED IN BATH
Police launched a major inquiry today after the body of 53-year-old Wymeswood man, Peter Farleigh, was found in his hotel room earlier this morning. Farleigh, a married man with three grown-up children, who worked as a sales executive for Myerson Chemical and Fertiliser, had been stabbed a number of times in the chest and abdomen. His body was discovered when Mane- Elisabeth Fourier, a maid employed by the hotel, entered Mr Farleigh's room. She found Mr Farleigh's naked body lying in the heavily blood-stained bath.
Miss Fourier, who is nineteen, and studying English here in the city, works at the hotel on a part-time basis. She is understood to have been sedated and treated for shock.
An incident room has been set up at Canning Circus police station and the inquiry is being headed by Det Insp Charlie Resnick.
A police spokesman said they were not sure if there was any link between Mr Farleigh's murder and a recent incident in which an unidentified man, apparently naked, was found with stab wounds in the Alfreton Road area of the city. This man, whose injuries were treated at Queen's Medical Centre, has since disappeared without trace.
Forensic experts are continuing to examine the room in which Mr Farleigh was found for clues and a postmortem examination will be carried out by Home Office pathologist Prof Arthur Parkinson.
Det Insp Resnick declined to give any further details of the death until the post-mortem has been carried out, or to 128 detail any lines of inquiry being followed.
Speaking from her five-bed roomed detached home in the village ofWymeswood, a grief-stricken Sarah Farleigh said,
'Peter was a model husband and a perfect father to our children. We are all heartbroken at the news of what has happened.'
Well, Cathy Jordan thought, that puts the occasional pot of paint into perspective, doesn't it? She slid a green silk shirt from its hanger in the wardrobe and held it against herself in front of the mirror. Radio, for God's sake, she was about to do radio. What did it matter what she looked like? Now that he had his very own murder inquiry, she doubted that good old Charlie Resnick would have much time left over to think about her.
Mollie Hansen was waiting for her in the lobby, one of Cathy's books and a folder of publicity material under one arm.
'The car's waiting. It isn't far.'
'Fine. And, look, I hope you made it clear. I'll talk about anything but that stupidity with the paint.'
'Of course,' Mollie said, holding open the door.
'I've spoken to the producer twice.'
