Mad Cows Read Free Page B

bombings.
    â€˜Look,’ Maddy sighed, acquiescing, ‘I was in Harrods. All I remember is someone shouting and a crush of people. The thief must have shoved the money pouch into the baby papoose. My only crime was to forget to pay for a packet of bloody prunes. I’m really tired. If this is some kind of joke, like, what’s the punchline?’
    â€˜The “punchline” is that you’re about to be put on remand at Holloway Prison. If you’d just cut the bollocks, come across and give us some names, we could do a deal.’
    Maddy nearly laughed out loud. The only bars she’d ever been behind were to pull schooners. The most dishonest things she’d ever done were to break a wholemeal recipe chain letter; not to leave a note under the windscreen wiper of a car she’d bumped; serving up M & S gourmet as her own. She was pathologically honest, well, except for the time she’d used the paraplegic cubicle to have sex with Alex. But they’d needed the elbow room. Maddy was the type to feel guilty if she wore a back-to-front baseball cap emblazoned with the name of an American city she hadn’t visited. Even when playing Monopoly, she never picked up the ‘Go to jail’ card.
    Things had gone far enough.
    â€˜My name is Madeline Wolfe, okay?’
    â€˜How do we know that’s not a load of old pony.’
    â€˜For Christ’s sake . . . okay, okay. There is someone you can call to confirm my identity. The baby’s father . . .’ Gosh, was she looking forward to
that
call. It was second on her list of fun things to do – after a clitorodectomy. Until now Alex had been about as useful as a . . . well, as a father in a delivery room. She didn’t want to be the first to get in touch, but shit a brick. At least he could get her the hell out of here. Humiliation, she lectured herself, is character building. But she had enough character already. Too
much
, according to Alex’s well-connected friends amongst London’s chattering classes.
    â€˜Ah . . .’ Slynne gave an impatient snarl. ‘So there is a man in this equation?’
    Maddy pondered. ‘Yes, I think he can be scientifically classified as a vertebrate.’
    â€˜Am I to take it you are not on good terms with the father of your child?’ It was the Sarcasm Olympics and both Maddy and Slynne were going for Gold.
    â€˜I’d like to tweeze out every single one of his pubic hairs and then transplant them back with a blunt needle . . . but otherwise we get on
fine
,’ she said, cutely.
    â€˜Oh, let me guess.’ Officer Slynne leaned back, balancing on the legs of his chair, and regarded her with listless mockery. ‘It was “
rape
” . . .’
    When he’d first entered the room, Maddy had mistaken the close-set eyes and hang-dog expression as taciturnity. She now knew that he’d just been studying his prey. She shook her head.
    â€˜If he’s such a pillock,’ he pried, derisively, ‘then why’d ya shag him?’
    â€˜I dunno . . .
somebody
had to do it.’ Maddy didn’t think the police would appreciate a description of her attraction to Alex’s highbrows. He was the first man she’d ever met who could listen to ‘Nessun Dorma’ and not think of the World Cup. Not only did he know all the Mozart K numbers and hold six degrees in biology, but he actually
read
the books short-listed each year for the Booker Prize. To Maddy, who’d left school at fifteen, this was pretty impressive stuff. The only examination
she’d
ever passed was her smear test.
    Yes, it had been love at first sight. But then she’d taken a second look. It was as if she’d been wearing a sign on her heart which read ‘In case of Emergency, Break’. The emergency being that no sooner had she ricocheted half-way across the world to be with him than she found out that he was married with twins and, as soon as