Blood Line by Lynda La Plante Page B

spray-tanning room. A notice informed them that the sunbeds were out of order. The place was jumping. Four women sat under dryers, a girl was blow-drying a customer’s hair, and another was having her hair washed at the row of sinks.
    ‘Well, she said she was busy,’ Paul murmured as they stood by a small reception desk. The receptionist was a girl with a fake tan, a mound of hair extensions, and thick false eyelashes. It also looked as if she’d had breast implants. Her pink Tina’s Salon overall hardly met across her bust, colliding with her name embroidered over the pocket—Felicity.
    ‘Could you ask Tina if we could see her, please?’ Anna showed her warrant card, not that it made much of a difference.
    ‘Do you have an appointment?’
    ‘We do.’
    Felicity dragged a fake nail down the customer lists.
    ‘Just go and tell her we would like to talk to her,’ Anna ordered.
    ‘I can’t leave the desk, and she’s doing a wrap so I can’t interrupt her for another ten minutes.’
    Anna was not sure what a wrap meant, but Felicity continued, explaining it was a seaweed wrap and would be finishedshortly. She then indicated a row of pink plastic-covered gilt chairs.
    ‘You can wait there.’
    They were only two feet away from the reception; it looked as if every inch of the place was taken up with all the various beauty treatments. As Anna and Paul sat down the girl offered the salon’s brochure and said there were several offers at half-price.
    ‘Do you know her boyfriend, Alan?’ Anna asked as she pretended to scrutinise the treatments on offer.
    ‘Yes, we all do, and it’s just terrible. Poor Tina has been in such a state about it.’ Her pink desk phone rang, and Felicity picked up, speaking in an over-modulated posh accent.
    ‘Tina’s Beauty Salon, can I help you?’
    Anna and Paul listened as she made an appointment for hair extensions and learned that it would take at least four hours if it was to remove the present extensions; it would take longer if the caller required new ones.
    Anna glanced at Paul, but he seemed enthralled by Felicity’s ongoing conversation.
    ‘If we didn’t actually put your extensions in for you, you should come in and have the hair matched. We only use real hair. No, there would be no charge for that, but is what you’ve got in real hair?’
    The row of customers waiting for their cuts and blow-dries began to thin out; the two girls were working as if they were on a factory floor. The thudding music, now on an Abba compilation, continued.
    ‘I’ll book you in for an afternoon then. What’s your name?’ Then Felicity looked at the pink phone in fury. ‘I don’t believe she hung up! Honestly!’
    ‘Could you please ask Tina to join us?’ Anna said testily.
    ‘I can’t. It’s a seaweed wrap and you can’t leave it half-done.’
    Anna stood up and pointed to the partition. ‘Is she behind there?’
    ‘No, upstairs, but you can’t go through, it’s a private consultation.’ Felicity moved from her stool and put her hand up. ‘I’ll go and ask her to come out, all right?’ She left.
    Paul glanced over to the hairdressing section, remarking, ‘She must be coining it in.’
    Anna nodded to a card on Felicity’s desk. ‘It’s half-price day and a few of the customers look like pensioners; they get a discount as well.’
    Tina came down the stairs at the rear of the salon, wearing latex gloves that looked as if they were covered in mud, and a rubber apron. She didn’t look very pleased to see them.
    ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes—I’m with a client.’ She didn’t wait for an answer but returned upstairs. Felicity asked if they would like a tea or coffee.
    ‘We’ve got a little rest room right at the back by the stairs,’ she said, ‘and there’s a coffee machine. Just help yourselves.’
    Little was the operative word. It was more or less a corner with more screens, a couple of chairs, and a table with coffee cups and mugs and packets of