Blood Guilt. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ better,' she said to Thistle, as the deep space salvage team began their rescue of Ripley and Jones the cat for the forty-third time.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      'Thistle, please come out. Now, damn you!' Kit was down on her hands and knees opening one kitchen cupboard after another trying to coax out the creature playing percussion with the pots and pans. 'If you don't come out right now I shall shut all the doors and go on holiday for a week. I'm sure what's left of you when I return will make a fine calpac.'

      'That's no way to talk to that beautiful feline,' Del said from the doorway.

      'You get her out then,' Kit said, crossing her arms and throwing her back against the cupboard with her legs splayed out before her.

      Del strolled over, her gaze travelling from the wild black hair, down the slender neck and body till it was arrested with what seemed to be admiration by the naked, tautly-muscled thigh revealed by a strategic slit in Kit's tight black skirt. 'That's a most unattractive way to sit,' she said and knelt down to peer into the open cupboard. 'Come on baby,' she cooed. 'Come on out precious, or your mean mother will turn you into a hat.'

      Thistle came bounding out, her tail flicking irreverently at Kit while she rubbed around Del's ankles as if greeting a long lost friend.

      'Brazen hussy,' Kit snarled as she got to her feet and pulled her skirt down to straighten it just above her knees.

      'Stockings would be a nice touch Katherine,' Del said adjusting the collar of Kit's turquoise silk shirt.

      'I do believe you're right, Ms Fielding. But I shall put them on in the car because Mad Manx here can't resist my ankles at the best of times, and stockings send her wild with desire.'

      'I don't know how you sleep in here with all these people watching you,' Del said from the doorway of the huge bedroom, across which Kit was throwing shoes in her search for the pair to the one she was holding.

      'They help me dream,' Kit said with a wave at the gallery of beautifully framed prints adorning the walls. Amongst them Katherine Hepburn stared with barely contained excitement from the stern of the African Queen; Ingrid Bergman stood on a rocky crag wearing her shining partisan's face while the bells tolled for someone or other; and Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle made her grand entrance at Ascot; while Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner reined in the sexual attraction during one of the most famous dancing lessons on celluloid. And that was just one wall.

      Above Kit's queen-sized futon, which rested on a carpeted platform two steps up from floor level, an exquisite Catherine Deneuve lounged in a chair offering her shirt to an unsuspecting Susan Sarandon; while over by the window the stunning and silent Louise Brooks contemplated the ramifications of opening Pandora's Box.

      'Well I hate to rush you Ms Make-believe but this thing starts in half an hour and as you know I'm only going so you've got a reason to be there.'

      'I know, I know. I'm ready, already.'

      'Hair,' said Del simply.

      Kit stomped back to the full length mirror by the window. 'What's wrong with it?' she asked, offering her customary palms-up gesture.

      'It looks like a bird's nest.'

      'It is. I've got a whole flock of finches in here somewhere,' she said running her hands through her short hair trying to quieten it down a bit.

      Ten minutes later they were in the thick of a traffic jam en route to the Hilton Hotel. At least they were en route to the Hilton, the rest of the jam was going to a night cricket match at the MCG Kit was trying to struggle into her pantihose in the confined space of Del's Volkswagon while Del was swearing out the window at no one in particular.

      'My god I'm melting,' Kit complained. 'I need another cold shower already.'

      'We could go to Angie's instead,' Del suggested hopefully. 'It would be cool there.'

      'It wouldn't help my case but,' Kit stated, finally managing to get her skirt down again.

      'Don't call me but or I'll keep driving till we run out of petrol. I really hate these things, you realise,' Del added for the tenth time.

      'I know already. But you're such a martyr, Saint Delbridge.'

      Kit had discovered, quite by accident, that Del had shelved an official invitation to the very same publishing function that Geoffrey and Celia were due to attend at the Hilton. Del had a great many connections in a lot of surprising places and it never ceased to amaze Kit who her friend knew and why. In this case the cap she wore was that of literary critic, highly regarded for both her regular contributions to weekend newspaper supplements and the reviews of less mainstream fiction published in her own Aurora Press.

      Despite her reputation she rarely attended publishing or media industry soirees unless the guest speaker was an author she particularly wanted to meet. She'd had no desire to get within three suburbs of tonight's special guest but Kit had finally managed to talk her into attending after agreeing that Del could join any stakeout of Geoffrey afterwards. Kit had warned her that it would probably just be hot and boring - but that was the deal. Kit was to be Del's assistant editor for the duration of the Hilton affair, then Del would get to play detective for a night if Geoffrey decided he needed stimulation of something other than his brain.

      The cocktail party was the last thing on the agenda for Week One before Kit met with Celia Robinson again the next day. Although, knowing Geoffrey, it would be just the first part of the last thing.

      She thought back over the events of the last couple of days while Del raged at the traffic. Kit had followed Geoffrey on Tuesday to his luncheon rendezvous with Ian Dalkeith at a pub bistro in South Melbourne, where she'd had to drink a glass of water for every beer she ordered so as not to get drunk sitting at the bar for two and a half hours. Her subjects ate a casual lunch and then gave their undivided attention to a collection of neatly bound reports of some kind. There seemed to be nothing furtive in their discussion and they had taken a table by the window rather than a booth at the back so whatever they were up to appeared to be above board. There was, however, something about the immaculately-dressed Ian Dalkeith that made Kit's skin crawl so when their meeting was over she'd followed him instead of Geoffrey.

      She'd tailed him to an expanse of desolate, weedy riverfront land, littered with twisted metal and huge dislocated cranes and bordered in parts by the battered remains of a corrugated iron fence. Totally incongruous in this vision of post-nuclear devastation was the shiny new cyclone wire fencing, about 20 metres in from the street, that cordoned off a row of dilapidated wooden warehouses and a sagging wharf. Dalkeith had obviously not visited this wasteland to revel in his dream of transforming it into a 'state-of-the-art integrated district'. All he did was drive along the fenceline, stopping only to get out and check the gate.

      Kit had picked up her tail on Geoffrey again when he'd turned up at The Patrician at 8 that night. A long and stiflingly hot two hours later he emerged and Kit once again followed him to the house in St Kilda. This time he'd picked up a woman of similar build, and no doubt disposition, to the crimson tart of Monday night, although this floozy was a blonde, and together they selected a matching blonde boy to play with.

      It was on that occasion that Kit wondered whether the apartment or maybe even the whole house belonged to Geoffrey, as it was he who punched in the combination that unlocked the door. Or perhaps he was part-owner in what Kit's ex-partner Marek called an Accordion Conglomerate, where a bunch of so-called respectable businessmen СКАЧАТЬ