Read Online The Cherry Blossom Corpse by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online Page B

She gave me her look again. “The mind boggles.”
    â€œWhat is her background?” I asked.
    Patti Drewe seemed to have heard most.
    â€œAll sorts of stories seem to go around. Maybe people make them up because nothing is actually known. The one about her having been a fairground wrestler I doubt. The ones that seem to surface most often are a stint in the armed forces, the CIA, a spell in Britain, and a smalltime opera singer.”
    â€œThe spell in Britain didn’t rub off on her accent,” said Mary Sweeny.
    â€œThat sort of accent is unalterable. It’s there for life, like freckles or a club foot. We’re used to it in the States—I suppose it grates on you?”
    â€œIt certainly doesn’t fall gratefully on the ear,” I admitted, “though somehow it seems to fit the whole personality so perfectly I’m not sure I’d want her to speak any other way. I presume the lady has never been married?”
    â€œWe don’t call women ladies any more in the States,” said Maryloo.
    â€œIt was a courtesy title only,” I murmured.
    â€œNo husband or ex-husband has ever been spotted, but it is rumoured there’s been one. One can imagine her grinding some poor devil down to a powder, then flushing him down the john, don’t you think?” She gaveme that look again. “A man has many uses, and for her one would guess the principal one would be as victim.”
    Well, we thrashed over the subject, and went on to this and that, or rather to him or her. We did over Arthur Biggs pretty thoroughly, in hushed voices, and the Americans went to town on the conference’s president. Maryloo, from time to time, trained her artillery on me, and after a bit I began to respond. Part of me still resisted, though. At five past nine I looked at my watch.
    â€œI promised to ring Jan at Oppheim. She should have got Daniel to bed by now.”
    It wasn’t true. I’m not sure whether it was a way of stiffening my virtuous resolve, or making sure she was there. Anyway, I slipped out, but not before Maryloo had smiled at me again with her Your Destiny smile.
    The phone was in a little nook off from the main lounge. I had no sooner got through to the hotel, and they were hunting through their book for Jan’s room number, than I saw Amanda swanning it down the stairs. Presumably she was taking time off from romps in the heather in ’45. She was in a purply-pink dress, without coat or handbag, and altogether au naturel. She wafted out through the front door, and on to the little lawn in the centre of the drive. It was twilight, but still warm, and she let the wind ruffle her hair caressingly. It would have made a lovely cover.
    â€œJan?” I turned away from the little window that gave me a view to the front of the house. “I thought I’d ring you and tell you I will be coming tomorrow.”
    â€œI know that. I didn’t think there would be anything at the conference to detain you.”
    â€œOr any one,” I said, rather too forcefully.
    â€œWell, I didn’t think so, but—”
    â€œHow’s Daniel?”
    â€œOh fine. He just loves it here. I think we had somehow given him the impression he’d be able to ski, but otherwise—”
    As Jan talked I turned back to the window. Amanda had stepped daintily across the lawn, and was now heading towards the little tree-lined path that led down to the boathouse. The gentle breeze was still ruffling her hair, for all the world as if she were standing on a Hollywood set in front of a wind machine.
    â€œAnd the hotel?”
    â€œPerfectly all right. Not so charming as KvalevÃ¥g, not by a long chalk, but the scenery . . .”
    We chatted for some time, and I kept it going with question and answer, because I thought Jan’s sensitive antennæ had picked something up, Finally I told her that I’d catch the same train she and Daniel had taken the