Read Online Fell Purpose by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - Free Book Online Page B

did your sister have to say about that?’
    ‘Abi wasn’t here. She was staying with her boyfriend. Anyway, she’s cool, as long I don’t bug her.’
    ‘And your parents are away?’
    ‘They’re skiing in the Andes. Abi’s got a contact address for them, but we’re not supposed to bother them unless it’s an emergency.’
    ‘Any other brothers and sisters?’
    ‘Hector and Theo are at camp in Colorado. They’re younger than me. And Oscar’s hiking in Chamonix with his girlfriend. He’s at Durham, so he’s hardly ever here anyway.’
    She sounded sulky, and Hart said sympathetically, ‘So everyone gets away except you?’
    ‘Yeah, I get left to look after the dogs!’ She rolled her eyes in a martyred way, but quickly lost the attitude and said, ‘I don’t care, though. I like being on my own. I could have gone to Chile but I hate skiing. It’s more fun here. And I thought it’d be nice for Zellah to have a bit of fun too. Only she had other ideas,’ she added morosely. ‘As it happens.’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘Well, it turns out she was never planning on going to the Carnival anyway. She came over Sunday about six, the way we arranged. Chloë was already here. We’d been out in the afternoon – Zellah’s dad wouldn’t let her come earlier, said Sunday was a family day or some such shit.’ Another eye roll. ‘Anyway, she turns up, and Chloë says, “OK, girl, let’s get wrecked,” and then Zellah calmly tells us she’s got a date.’
    ‘A date? With a boy?’
    ‘Of course with a boy! But she wouldn’t tell us who. We kept asking but she just shrugged and said nobody we knew.’
    ‘Was it Mike Carmichael, do you think?’
    The question didn’t surprise her, but she shook her head. ‘Why wouldn’t she have told us if it was him? But she wasn’t still seeing him. She did for a bit, after her dad told her not to – well, you’ve got to, haven’t you? – but I razzed her about him because he was such a dork and she dropped him’
    ‘ Was he a dork? I heard he was cool.’
    ‘Per-leese! He comes from a council estate. He’s got a motorbike. He’s, like, some old greaseball rocker. I wouldn’t go out with anyone that doesn’t have his own car,’ she added proudly.
    ‘So she didn’t give you any hint about who it was?’
    ‘No, like I said, she was being all mysterious and wouldn’t-you-like-to-know, as if it was someone really good.’
    ‘Was she excited?’
    She frowned. ‘I wouldn’t say excited, exactly. More sort of tense. Well, if it was the first date she would be nervous. Anyway, I said, “you can’t go dressed like that.” All her clothes were terrible, like a kid’s clothes, and she had hardly any make-up. Her dad wouldn’t allow it. She said it didn’t matter, but I said she couldn’t go on a date looking like that, not from my house. So we had a bit of fun, dressing her and making her up with our stuff, and Chloë made a few cocktails while we were doing it, so it was all right, we still had a good time. Then she went off.’
    ‘This date didn’t call for her?’
    ‘We’d have seen him if he did, wouldn’t we?’ she said, with a sigh at Hart’s stupidity. ‘She said he was meeting her outside the Black Lion, in the car park.’
    ‘And you were expecting her back that night, were you?’
    ‘Yeah. She was still coming to the Carnival with us. She said she might be late back, so I gave her a spare key, in case we were asleep.’
    ‘And you were in the whole evening?’
    ‘Yeah. We did think about going to the pub, but in the end we just stayed in, talking, having a laugh, a few drinks. Just hanging out.’
    ‘What time did you go to bed?’
    ‘I dunno. About one o’clock, I suppose. Zellah wasn’t back, and when we got up she still wasn’t. Chloë said, “She’s doing all right for herself.” We just thought she was staying over with him.’
    ‘Did she phone you at any point?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And the next day you went to the