Blood Guilt. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ was ages ago. I expect we talked about the usual things old school chums talk about when they haven't seen each other for years. Not that we were actually chums at school. But you know how it is - common ground and all that. Chel was the sporty type, and you know I was never interested in all those balls and bats and things. She, however, was into everything. She was sports captain in our final year and the star hockey player. The whole bit. Every girl at school had a crush on her; she was our champion.'

      'Are you sure we're talking about the same person?' Kit just couldn't picture the Celia Robinson she had met that morning with a jolly hockey stick in one hand setting young school girl hearts a-flutter as she inspired the school team to victory.

      'Honestly Katherine I thought your father and I had taught you better than to judge people by their appearance.' Lillian sounded quite miffed, as if she'd failed dreadfully in teaching one of the great lessons in life.

      'I'm not judging her Mum. I just don't think my imagination is up to the task.'

       'Well she might have got a little curly around the edges but she was quite a beauty in those days. And a little dynamo on the field. What work has she given you anyway?'

      'You know I can't tell you that, Mum. But thanks for the PR job you did on me. It obviously caused quite an impression.'

      'I don't remember saying all that much.' Kit recognised the ever-so-humble tone in Lillian's voice. It was a dead giveaway that said she been caught out at something. Like the way she always said 'um' before asking a favour or before admitting that she'd already done something that someone else was bound to consider questionable or premature.

      'So tell me about Celia.' Kit dragged the phone off the desk so she could reach the fridge to get another Coke.

       'I don't have a lot of time darling, so it will have to be the bare bones. I'm sure you could find out more, if you need to, by going through my old magazines.'

      Kit actually shuddered at the thought. Lillian had worked for years as a freelance theatre critic and that, combined with the short stories she used to write for women's magazines, meant her study was effectively insulated against nuclear fallout by 20 years' worth of arty magazines and copies of Cleo and New Idea. She'd had to buy every issue just in case her latest story was in it and no one had bothered to inform her. At least that had always been her excuse.

      'Chel came from somewhere in the Western District, if I remember correctly,' Lillian was saying. 'Not from one of the moneyed families out that way. I think her father was the manager of someone else's sheep or cows or whatever. Anyway her parents worked like navvies I gather to give her the best they could. And she turned up trumps, in a big way. She met Carl Orlando at the Boat Races one year.'

      'The Boat Races? That's where you met Dad. And didn't Constance and James spy each other across a crowded room on the same day?'

       'Well, it was the social event of the year for all of us, girls and boys alike, who'd been imprisoned in separate schools while we were being trained to be proper young ladies and gentlemen. The Races separated the men from the boys and the women from the wall flowers. They flexed their muscles and we scratched each other's eyes out to be the first to dance with them. I imagine it's all still going on. I'm sure it was the same in your last year at school darling, though knowing you I don't suppose you noticed.'

      'Obviously not,' Kit said.

       'Where was I? Oh yes, Carl Orlando. He was the cousin, I think, of Suzie Goodall. A splendid looking boy, well young man really. He'd been sent out from England by one of the publishing houses to do whatever it was the Poms regularly did to their colonial outposts. They're still doing it, from what I hear from Charlie Hindstead. Anyway it was apparently love at first sight, though Chel still had a year of school to get through. They were married the day after final exams. He was already well-off but I heard he came into an inheritance from his Spanish grandfather or someone. That's when they started Orlando House and, as they say, the rest is history.'

      'What about the rest of her story?' Kit asked, standing up to thump the side of the air-conditioner to remind it that its thermostat was lying again about having cooled the room down.

       'Well, she had a daughter a few years later. When we had lunch that day I remember Chel being so proud of her, of what she was doing for herself, although she seemed sad that they'd drifted apart a little. I gather the girl's been quite a handful over the years. She's doing journalism or some such thing in London and here and there. I got the feeling Chel was a little jealous too, in a way. The daughter, now what's her name...?'

      'Elizabeth,' Kit said.

       'Yes, Elizabeth, she virtually ran away at the first opportunity. It obviously hurt Chel but I suspect the problem lay with the girl's relationship with the step-father not with Chel herself. At least I inferred that much.'

      'So what happened to Carl?'

       'He was killed in a car accident. Such a tragedy. Chel loved him so much I would have thought she'd have stayed in widow's weeds till her turn came. But I suppose some people just can't take being on their own. Though god knows why she married that Robinson fellow. Katherine, I have to go now. I can hear Connie hoo-hooing up the side path and I'm not nearly ready to go.'

      'OK Mum. Thanks for all the goss. Give me a ring when you get home and try not to lose the farm on the roulette table. I love you.'

      'Love you too, Katherine,' Lillian said before the line went dead.

      Kit picked up the file on Geoffrey Robinson again and stared long and hard at the photo of the man who was giving Chel Everton such a hard time. Bastard! Kit was developing quite a soft spot for her new client.

      'Been to see the bank manager have we?'

      'Jesus Del! You frightened the life out of me,' Kit said bending to pick up the scattered contents of the file that had taken flight when she'd leapt to her feet. 'And what, pray tell, has the bank manager to do with anything?'

      'Your gorgeous legs have come out of hiding, sweetheart. The only time a sensible woman wears a skirt these days is to get money that's not already hers from a stingy man in a bad suit who behaves as if the cash comes from his own private superannuation fund.'

      'Very funny. I've been working, unlike some people I know.'

      'Well, that's one way of making sure you can pay the rent next week,' said Del bending over the sink to splash cold water on her tanned face and long, long neck. She undid another couple of buttons on her lavender blouse and leant her statuesque body into the breeze from the air-conditioner.

      Despite the fact that much of Del Fielding's daily banter consisted of smart one-liners, this handsome, grey-haired woman was one of Kit's best friends. She often wondered why, seeing the most insulting wisecracks were usually aimed in her direction. But Del was smiling now so Kit stopped wondering, as usual, and pulled a face instead.

      They had been firm friends since the day, 12 years ago, when Kit and her partner Marek had been called to a disturbance outside Aurora Press. Del was standing in the doorway, all six foot of her with arms folded, hurling abuse at three drunken yobbos who'd decided that a window belonging to a bunch of feminists was a really appropriate place to take a piss. They had also been accosting every female passerby, whether they had business at Aurora or not. Kit was still a uniformed cop then but that hadn't deterred one of the offenders from taking a swing at her as she tried to book him for indecent behaviour. СКАЧАТЬ