Antman Read Free Page B

argument.
    'If the alternative is your average male in wellies, with beer gut and boxing gloves, give me a twelve hour love-making session between a pair of hermaphroditic giant snails any day.'
    'Why hermaphroditic for goodness sake?'
    'Basically because until they've explored each other's bodies they don't decide which is to be the man and which the woman. He sticks his love dart into her side and injects her with a massive dose of calcium carbonate plus various aphrodisiacs.'
    'Robin, is this true?'
    'Well the love dart and the calcium carbonate are, but the rest is speculative.'
    'As usual,' she said, 'accurate on the pedestrian bits, while indulging wildly on the male fantasy front. Men!'
    'Come back to bed.'
    'No, I'm meeting Laura at ten-thirty and I have to do some shopping after the hairdresser.'
    'You never said earlier you had to be anywhere.'
    'You never listen.'
    'That gives us at least half an hour.'
    'Five minutes.'
    'Pessimist.'
    'You're incorrigible. You'll have to cut the description and forget the slowness of those snails.'
    'My love dart is already quivering.'
    'What makes you think it's your stab. It could be mine. Fancy snails having solved the problem of liberating women. Simply exchange genders.'
    'Tease.' He was standing behind her, sliding his hand round to unbutton her blouse.
    Helen was in that matter-of-fact mode he didn't fancy. 'Hurry, or I'll be late. You'll have to drop me in town before going to work.'
     
    *  *  *
     
    Laura had planned to be in town shopping with the children. She knew Helen was intending to pop into Marks and Spencer's that morning to try to change a skirt which she now felt was too short. Of all mornings, this day of the resumed inquest was the one to be out of the house, and hopefully distracted. So they had arranged to meet for coffee and a chat at Quenchers opposite Princes Quay between nine forty-five and ten. Normally, when their paths crossed casually on the street, Laura couldn't have a proper conversation with Helen for more than a minute or two. There was always some interruption, or a reason for not stopping longer. She thought about congratulating Helen. Tom had found out late last night about Robin's successful grant for the expedition to equatorial Africa. That would be a relatively safe topic of conversation. Tom was going to leave a message for Robin first thing. Helen would know by now. On another tack, it wasn't the occasion to ask about whether the inquest brought back all that emotion associated with Detlev's shocking death. Helen probably wouldn't have talked in any case. Perhaps it would release feelings which would somehow make too public her affair with the most senior research fellow in the tightly-knit Research Centre in which Robin and Tom were deputy director and director respectively. Helen had always said to Laura what a disaster it would be if Robin found out about her and Detlev.
    'He'll use it to justify going for anyone he fancies,' she confided.
    Laura had got the children up early, breakfasted, braved the early morning traffic jams and driven into town with them for nine o'clock. She parked in the long-stay park in the Old Town, but having arrived couldn't settle to shopping. Instead, she irritated herself and the children by passing in quick succession through several department stores without a clear notion about what style of summer outfit she was looking for and where she might find it. The kids grew increasingly restive. Sarah wanted the toilet and Matthew a drink. This took more time and chipped further away at her patience. She was able to change the skirt at M&S on the way. She finished up hunting through children's clothes stores for bargains and impulse buying one or two totally unsatisfactory items which neither Sarah nor Matthew liked. By ten o'clock she'd dropped the shopping back at the car and was already hanging about with the kids near the Ferens Art Gallery, but it was ten-fifteen before Helen turned up. They walked