The Cinderella Moment. Gemma Fox

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СКАЧАТЬ at the sitting-room door, anxiously wringing her paws as she looked from one face to the other, finally settling on Margaret with those big brown watery eyes of hers.

      ‘Missis Devlin?’ The au pair smiled wanly at her. Margaret glared right back. This, after being told on numerous occasions that she wasn’t to interrupt when Margaret had guests, even if the guests were in this case the police.

      ‘Yes?’ said Margaret, feigning interest; she still wasn’t altogether sure what the girl’s name was, despite her having been with them six months. It was something Eastern European, maybe Romania, which sounded like a cross between a sneeze and a hacking cough, and refused point-blank to stay in her head, even after she had written it down phonetically on a whole pile of post-it notes and stuck them at various key points around the house.

      ‘What is it, dear?’ she added, mostly for DI Turner’s benefit. ‘Only, as I’m sure you can see, I am a little busy at the moment.’

      The girl smiled nervously. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but this eeeez important.’

      Margaret sniffed; that remained to be seen. Probably another defrosting, how-many-minutes-to-let-it-stand-between-microwaving emergency. She was tempted to suggest whatever-her-name-was went back into the kitchen and read the bloody packet, but held fire. The girl took this to be a green light.

      ‘This won’t take long, I just want to tell you that I have to leave now.’ Margaret had to pick her way through the words, the girl’s accent was as thick as a hand-knitted vest.

      Margaret smiled indulgently at DI Turner and then back at what’s-her-name. ‘No, dear, not yet. It’s barely three o’clock,’ she began, her eyes narrowing. ‘It’s not time for you to finish work yet. You finish later.’ She tapped her watch for added emphasis. ‘Later. Six o’clock.’

      But the girl was insistent. ‘No,’ she said emphatically, shaking her head. ‘No, I hef to go now.’

      ‘No, you don’t. You leave off at six, after you’ve cooked the children’s supper. Then it will be time for you to go to your language class.’ Margaret talked slowly, her smile stretched as tight as a drumskin as she enunciated every last word. God, the girl was such a bloody moron. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t we talk about this later. I’m rather busy at the –’

      But the girl would not be stopped. ‘No, no, no, you not make of me any understanding. I have to go. Really. I do.’ She mimed walking away, using two pale, podgy fingers to represent those dumpylard white legs of hers. ‘Now.’

      ‘Oh, I understand perfectly, dear,’ said Margaret, keeping her tone as even as she could manage, while pulling a jolly ‘sorry, what-can-you-do-face’ for DI Turner. ‘But you don’t leave off until six. Six.’ She held up six fingers. ‘Six o’clock.’

      The girl frowned. ‘No, not six, I know six. I have to go to my mother’s.’

      ‘Your mother’s?’ snapped Margaret incredulously. ‘What on earth do you mean, your mother’s? Your mother lives in, in…’ Margaret fished around for the exact location and, coming up empty, settled for, ‘abroad.’

      The girl’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, that is it. Abroad, yes.’

      ‘Yes?’ said Margaret grimly, her awareness of DI Turner slipping away as her patience finally began to fail her. ‘What the hell do you mean, yes? Yes what?’

      ‘Yes, please, I am having to going to my mother’s abroad.’

      Margaret’s eyes narrowed. ‘When?’

      The girl smiled beatifically ‘Soon. But I have to leave here tonight. Now.’

      ‘Excuse me for one moment,’ said Margaret brightly to DI Turner as she got to her feet. ‘I’m not sure precisely what is going on here.’ And then to the girl, in a cooler tone: ‘Perhaps we should discuss this later, my dear, or at least go into the kitchen to finish our conversation. The Detective Inspector really doesn’t want to hear all our domestic –’

      But the girl shook her head. ‘No, no. I have not got to talk. I have no time. I have to go now. I have to pack.’ It sounded like i-heftogonow-I heftopec.’

      ‘No, you don’t,’ Margaret growled. ‘We need to talk about this.’

      The girl pulled herself upright, mouth narrowing down to an angry little slit. ‘It is in my contract.’

      Margaret stiffened. ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’

      The girl pulled a great, dog-eared many-folded wedge of paper out from her overall pocket. ‘Page four, it is in my contract, it says my mother’s health it is not good. She is a sick woman.’

      She waved the paper under Margaret’s nose and then, for good measure, under DI Turner’s. ‘It says here that I am able go to assist her any time if she ring me.’

      ‘And she rang you?’ asked Margaret icily.

      The girl nodded. ‘Oh, yes. She ring me.’

      ‘When?’ snapped Margaret. ‘When did she ring you?’

      ‘A little while ago, maybe a few minutes, on my mobile. She say I have to go home. Excuse me, I have to go and pack now. I’m sorry.’

      You will be, thought Margaret murderously.

      The girl turned on her heel and made for the door at around the same time that DI Turner continued, ‘As I was about to say, Mrs Devlin, I would appreciate if you could answer one or two small points. Although I can see that this may not be the moment. Perhaps you would like me to come back at a mutually convenient time?’

      Margaret painted on a smile and waved the words away. ‘No, not at all. It’s fine, Inspector. I’m sure I can sort er…’ the girl’s name refused to come ‘…sort things out when you’ve gone. She has always been a little volatile, and her command of English, well, you know.’ Margaret held up her hands to encompass all manner of craziness and misunderstanding. The Inspector smiled and nodded encouragingly, so Margaret carried on. ‘James drew up her contract of employment. I really had no idea about the sick mother clause,’ she said with false heartiness. ‘Laughable, really. But it’s so like him. Ah well. Now, what did you want to know?’

      The Inspector seemed delighted that she had brought James up voluntarily. ‘Did your husband always deal with your domestic arrangements? You know, the hiring and firing of staff and that sort of thing?’

      ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,’ agreed Margaret; why not blame James for her dilemma? She had completely forgotten about the stupid girl’s sick bloody mother. Fancy bringing it up now, at a time like this when it was quite obvious Margaret needed all the help she could get. Selfish little cow. Margaret felt a great wave of self-pity settling over her. What on earth was she going to do now? Who was going to clean and cook for the children? Good Lord, it was dreadful, unthinkable. Mrs Hill, her daily, would never be able to manage it all on her own.

      Inspector Turner leaned forward. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Devlin? Can I get you something? A glass of water?’

      She pulled out a lacy hankie and sniffed back the tears. ‘No, thank you. It’s very kind, but I’ll be fine, Inspector. James usually interviewed the girls we employed. In fact СКАЧАТЬ