The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Read Free Page A

Really, she knows, she would like to keep it.
But she stamps on the thought immediately. She cannot keep it. She hasn't even allowed herself to try it on because if she did she'd want never to take it off. You cannot afford to keep it, she tells herself severely. Whoever buys it will love it. At that price, they'd have to. It will go to a good home.
    For want of something to do, she pulls out her mobile and dials Alex's. She casts another, baleful, look at the window as she hears the ringtone click off and she inhales, ready to speak. But Fran's voice is on the line: 'Hi, Alex's phone.' Iris pulls her mobile away from her ear and shuts it with a snap.
    In the middle of the afternoon, a man comes in. He spends a long time wiping his shoes on the mat, darting glances around the room. Iris smiles at him, then bends her head back over her book. She doesn't like to be too pushy. But she watches from under her fringe. The man strikes out across the empty middle of the shop and, arriving at a rack of négligés and camisoles, rears away like a frightened horse.
    Iris puts down her book. 'Can I help you with anything?' she says.
    The man reaches for the counter and seems to hold on to it. 'I'm looking for something for my wife,' he says. His face is anxious and Iris sees that he loves his wife, that he wants to please her. Her friend told me she likes this shop.'
    Iris shows him a cashmere cardigan in the colour of heather, she shows him a pair of Chinese slippers embroidered with orange fish, a suede purse with a gold clasp, a
belt of crackling alligator skin, an Abyssinian scarf woven in silver, a corsage of wax flowers, a jacket with an ostrich-feather collar, a ring with a beetle set in resin.
    'Do you want to get that?' the man says, lifting his head.
    'What?' Iris asks, hearing at the same time the ring of the phone under the counter. She ducks down and snatches it up. 'Hello?'
    Silence.
    'Hello?' she says, louder, pressing her hand over her other ear.
    'Good afternoon,' a cultured male voice says. 'Is this a convenient time to talk?'
    Iris is instantly suspicious. 'Maybe.'
    'I'm calling about –' the voice is obliterated by a blast of static on the line, reappearing again a few seconds later '– and meet with us.'
    'Sorry, I missed that.'
    'I'm calling about Euphemia Lennox.' The man sounds slightly aggrieved now.
    Iris frowns. The name rings a distant bell. 'I'm sorry,' she says, 'I don't know who that is.'
    'Euphemia Lennox,' he repeats.
    Iris shakes her head, baffled. 'I'm afraid I don't—'
    'Lennox,' the man repeats, 'Euphemia Lennox. You don't know her?'
    'No.'
    'Then I must have the wrong number. My apologies.'
    'Wait a sec,' Iris says but the line cuts out.
    She stares at the phone for a moment, then replaces the receiver.
    'Wrong number,' she says to the man. His hand, she sees, is hovering between the Chinese slippers and a beaded clutchbag with a tortoiseshell fastening. He lays it on the bag.
    'This,' he says.
    Iris wraps it for him in gold tissue paper.
    'Do you think she'll like it?' he asks, as she hands him the parcel.
    Iris wonders what his wife is like, what kind of a person she might be, how strange it must be to be married, to be tightly bound, clipped like that to another. 'I think she will,' she replies. 'But if she doesn't, she can bring it back and choose something else.'
    After she has shut the shop for the night, Iris drives north, leaving the Old Town behind, through the valley that once held a loch, traversing the cross streets of the New Town and on, towards the docks. She parks the car haphazardly in a residents-only bay and presses the buzzer on the outer door of a large legal firm. She's never been here before. The building seems deserted, an alarm light blinking above the door, all windows dark. But she knows Luke is in there. She leans her head towards the intercom, expecting to hear the relay of his voice. There's nothing. She presses it again and waits. Then she hears the door unlocking