Ash & Bone Read Free Page A

for the lady,' Repton called. 'Scotch for me.'
    Maddy knew better than to protest.
    Five or so years younger than Mallory, slightly built, Repton was wearing a grey suit with a faint stripe, a dark blue tie with silver fleur-de-lis. His fingernails looked to have been trimmed and buffed. Dapper, was that the word? Once upon a time it probably was.
    Repton downed his whisky at a single swallow. 'There,' he said, 'that's my bit for race relations. Letting one of our brown-skinned brethren get the better of me, eighty-seven points to thirteen.' He winked. 'Hubris. The Atkins diet of the soul. And you. No after-effects from this morning, I see. Still looking like the proverbial million, give or take.'
    Maddy had deliberately chosen a green cord skirt that was full and finished well below the knee, a loose cotton top the colour of cold porridge, American Tan tights and shoes with a low heel. 'I look like shit,' she said.
    'Young Loftus didn't seem to think so. Practically coming in his pants just standing next to you.'
    Colour flared in Maddy's cheeks.
    'Sorry,' Repton said. 'Nothing out of line, I trust. Not going to haul me up before some board or other? Sexual fucking harassment.' He winked again. 'Load of bollocks, don't you think? Empirically speaking.'
    'I've heard worse, sir,' Maddy said.
    'I'm pleased to hear it.'
    Maddy sipped her drink.
    'Oh, oh,' Repton said, nudging her arm. 'Here comes George's speech.' He gave her flesh a generous squeeze. 'Mentioned in dispatches, I'd not be surprised.'

    * * *

    She left as soon as she possibly could, pulling the need-the-Ladies trick and grabbing her coat from the pile in the cloakroom below; a brisk stride to King's Cross and then the Northern Line to Archway. She could walk from there in ten minutes or less.
    When she'd first transferred down from Lincoln, three years ago now, she'd stayed in a hostel: forever taking other women's hair out of the bath; listening to their war stories in the corridors, Saturday nights when they'd been out on the pull; cleaning them up after they'd been sick in the sink, wiping their sorry faces and listening to their woes. Everyone's favourite auntie.
    As soon as she could she'd moved out, rented a room and looked around for something to buy, something she could afford. She'd been lucky to get the flat when she did, prices about to take a hike and families with young kids starting to colonise what had previously been the province of single mums on social security, economic migrants, labourers sharing three to a room and old jossers who'd been there long enough to remember the Blitz.
    Compared to what she'd had in Lincoln, a new-build maisonette just a bus ride from the city centre, it wasn't much. Three rooms and a bathroom on the ground floor, the kitchen no bigger than a cupboard; French windows leading out to the strip of garden she shared with the people upstairs. Whoever had lived there before had had a love affair with red paint; when she woke up in the mornings it vibrated behind her eyes.
    Gradually, when her shifts didn't leave her too knackered, she brought the place into line, made it feel more her own. Two lots of undercoat in both bedroom and living room and then a quiet pale green on top. Doing the same to the kitchen would have meant taking down too many shelves and she resorted to covering as much as she could with postcards and old photographs. Those sunflowers in garish reproduction; the village outside Louth where her parents used to live.
    Coming in this evening she threw her coat down on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and wandered into the living room, flicking through the TV channels before switching off again. She'd missed the news.
    She thought she'd make a cup of tea.
    Waiting for the kettle to boil, she phoned the hospital where they'd taken Paul Draper.
    'Are you a relative?'
    'A colleague. I was with him when…'
    'I'm sorry. We can only pass on information to the immediate family.'
    What the hell did that mean? Maddy