Original Sin Read Free Page B

recommending which files should be retained, which destroyed. The Peverell Press has been publishing since 792. There's some interesting material in the old files and it ought to be properly catalogued.' Mandy followed Miss Etienne down the wide curved stairs, across the hall and into the reception room. Apparently they were to use the lift and it ran only from the ground floor. It was hardly, she thought, the best way to get an idea of the layout of the house, but the comment had been promising; it looked as if the job was hers if she wanted it. And from that first view of the Thames, Mandy knew that she did want it. The lift was small, little more than five feet square, and as they groaned upwards she was sharply aware of the tall silent figure whose arm almost brushed her own. She kept her eyes fixed on the grid of the lift but she could smell Miss Etienne's scent, subtle and a little exotic but so faint that perhaps it wasn't scent at all but only an expensive soap. Everything about Miss Etienne seemed to Mandy expensive, the dull sheen of the shirt which could only be silk, the double gold chain and gold stud earrings, the cardigan casually slung around her shoulders which had the fine softness of cashmere. But the physical closeness of her companion and her own heightened senses, stimulated by the novelty and excitement of Innocent House, told her something more; that Miss Etienne wasn't at ease. It was she, Mandy, who should have been nervous. Instead she was aware that the air of the claustrophobic lift, jerking upwards with such maddening slowness, was quivering with tension. They shuddered to a stop and Miss Etienne hauled back the
    12
    double-grille gates. Mandy found herself in a narrow hall with a facing door and one on the left. The door ahead was open and she saw a large cluttered room filled from floor to ceiling with metal shelves tightly packed with tiles and bundles of papers. The racks ran from the windows to the door with just enough room to walk between them. The air smelt of old paper, musty and stale. She followed Miss Etienne between the ends of the shelves and the wall and to another smaller door, this time closed.
    Pausing, Miss Etienne said: 'Mr Dauntsey works on the tiles in here. We call it the little archives office. He said that he'd leave the tape on the table.'
    It seemed to Mandy that the explanation was unnecessary and rather odd, and that Miss Etienne hesitated for a second, hand on the knob, before turning it. Then with a sharp gesture, almost as if she expected some obstruction, she pushed the door wide open.
    The stink rolled out to meet them like an evil wraith, the familiar human smell of vomit, not strong but so unexpected that Mandy instinctively recoiled. Over Miss Etienne's shoulder her eyes took in at once a small room with an uncarpeted wooden floor, a square table to the right of the door and a single high window. Under the window was a narrow divan bed and on the bed sprawled a woman.
    It had needed no smell to tell Mandy that she was looking at death. She didn't scream; she had never screamed from fear or shock; but a giant fist mailed in ice clutched and squeezed her heart and stomach and she began shivering as violently as a child lifted from an icy sea. Neither of them spoke but, with Mandy close behind Miss Etienne, they moved with quiet almost imperceptible steps closer to the bed.
    She was lying on top of a tartan rug but had taken the single pillow from beneath it to rest her head as if needing this final comfort even in the last moments of consciousness. By the bed stood a chair holding an empty wine bottle, a stained tumbler and a large screw-top jar. Beneath it a pair of brown laced shoes had been neatly laid side by side. Perhaps, thought Mandy, she had taken them off because she hadn't wanted to soil the rug. But the rug was soiled and so was the pillow. There was a slime of vomit like the track of a giant snail gummed to the left cheek and stiffening the pillow.