Home through the Dark

Home through the Dark by Anthea Fraser Page B

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Authors: Anthea Fraser
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spinning. A hotel. Then 127 would be the room number. I remembered Jack’s reply in the hotel garage. “There’s no Picardy Street that I know of, nor anything like it where any friend of yours might be.” No doubt he knew of the Picardy Hotel and its unsavoury reputation but it would not have occurred to him that that was the place I was enquiring about. And the phone call. Could it have been “ the Picardy” and “Room” 127? It was possible – he’d been speaking so rapidly and I was straining to grasp the overall information rather than individual words. It was a lead, anyway, the first I’d had. What could I do about it?
    â€œ... Miss Durrell?”
    Hastily I dragged my thoughts back to Mr. Sinclair. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œI said if you let me have your glass I’ll get it refilled for you.” He was watching me closely, his eyes full of curiosity.
    â€œOh, thank you. And for the hanky. I’ll wash it out and let you have it back.”
    â€œNonsense.” He took it firmly out of my hand and put it in his pocket. Somehow I managed to make light conversation for another half hour or so until the guests began to leave.
    â€œThank you so much, Sarah,” I said sincerely. “I feel much more at home now. You and Andy must come over to me one evening.”
    â€œWe’d love to. See you soon, anyway.” Her eyes darted to Mr. Sinclair at my side and she gave me a swift, concealed wink. He walked back the length of the house with me to our respective front doors.
    â€œDon’t forget what I said about parking the car.”
    â€œThank you, I won’t. Goodbye, Mr. Sinclair.”
    â€œThe name’s Marcus.” His finger moved along the printed card by his bell. “Marcus Montgomery Sinclair. How about that?”
    I smiled involuntarily. “Sarah thought the initials stood for Mystery Man.”
    â€œReally? I’d no idea I’d excited such interest!”
    Before I could think of a suitably crushing retort, he had gone. Back in my own fiat I moved restlessly up and down the drawing room. It was no good. I’d have to go along to the Picardy, just to have a look at it. Even such an unsalubrious place should be reasonably innocuous on a Sunday afternoon. I went quickly to the bedroom, collected headscarf and sunglasses with some half-formed idea of disguise, and let myself silently out of the flat. I glanced apprehensively up at
    Marcus’s window but no one appeared. I walked swiftly back the way I had just come and round the corner of the building. Andy and Sarah’s front door still stood open and I could imagine them upstairs washing glasses and ashtrays. The garage door swung up and over and a moment later I was driving out of the square and along Grove Street. A quick glance at my Esso map had given me the number of the Amesbury road.
    After a while I found myself among the dingier suburbs where Mr. Henry had reluctantly taken me last Thursday. The farther I went, the more run-down the houses became. Front doors opening onto the street stood ajar, revealing dark hallways with torn linoleum and occasionally children played on the doorstep. The heat hung like a blanket over the town, a thousand dust motes caught in the rays of sunshine.
    I drew in to a garage at the side of the road to fill up with petrol. “Could you tell me where the Picardy Hotel is?” I asked the attendant offhandedly.
    â€œCertainly, miss.” There was a leer in his voice which brought the colour to my face. “Half a mile along there, on the right. Opposite what used to be the Roxy Cinema and is now a bingo hall.”
    â€œThank you,” I said carefully.
    â€œHave a good time!”
    With burning cheeks I put my foot down and shot back onto the road, hearing him laugh. I asked for that, I told myself, but it was unavoidable, I’d had to check I was on the right road. And here, after all my

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