What Men Say by Joan Smith Page B

wild speculation in other papers about how long the unknown woman in the barn had been dead, and the current market value of what one of them had thoughtfully dubbed “Death Farm.”
    She collected the papers into an untidy pile on the passenger seat and fastened her safety belt, wondering how long the intense press interest was going to last. It only needed another big story to come along, a threat to “out” a soap-opera star or Princess Diana wearing the same dress two days running, and the reporters laying siege to Thebes Farm would leap into their cars and disappear. In the meantime, they would be riffling through their contacts books in a determined effort to find someone who knew Bridget’s temporary address. They might even have discovered it—Loretta pictured Bridget, half-asleep and her hair uncombed, hurrying downstairs to answer the front door and finding herself confronted with half a dozen snapping cameras and a crew from Central Television. They had managed to make Stephen Kaplan, who had no more than a walk-on part in thestory, look like the First Murderer; Bridget in her nightie would probably come out of it like Lady Macbeth in the sleepwalking scene. Regretting that she had left Bridget alone while she worked off the previous day’s stress at the gym, Loretta twisted the key in the ignition, reversed out of her parking space and drove hurriedly round to the exit.
    In Southmoor Road she breathed a sigh of relief: the sole evidence of human activity was a traffic warden idling along the street in the brilliant sunshine, glancing at car windscreens to make sure their residents’ parking permits were in place. Loretta, who had renewed hers the previous week, nodded to the warden as she struggled out of her car with her bags and the newspapers, which seemed to have doubled in volume since she had bought them. A woman with a ponytail came out of a house on the other side of the road, wheeling a bike, and waved to Loretta, reinforcing the illusion that it was an ordinary Monday morning. Inside the house she dropped her leotard and plimsolls on the floor, dumped the shopping and the papers on the hall table and returned to collect a pint of milk from the doorstep. Suddenly she stiffened, her hand tightening on the neck of the bottle, as she became aware of voices from the floor below. One was Bridget’s, there was no difficulty about that; the other, a man’s, was unfamiliar. It did not sound like Sam—Loretta moved quietly towards the stairs, straining to hear, and confirmed her impression that the visitor did not have an American accent. A reporter? The conversation sounded amicable, desultory even, and Loretta found it hard to believe Bridget was having a cozy conversation with someone from the
Sun
or even one of the local papers. A puzzled look on her face, sheseized the bag of shopping in her free hand and hurried downstairs.
    â€œLinda Hall—no, you’ve already got her.” Bridget was slouched at the kitchen table, supporting her head with one hand while she drew invisible patterns on the pine surface with the index finger of the other. She sighed heavily as Loretta walked into the room and recited more names in an uncertain voice: “Brian Baker, Janet Dunne—Loretta!” Her face lit up. “I wondered when you’d get back. This is Detective Constable—” She gestured to a man with dark curly hair sitting opposite her. “Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
    â€œDC Sidney.” He put down a ballpoint and got up. “Dr. Lawson?” He had a cocky grin which Loretta immediately distrusted. “Nice place you’ve got here.” He extended his hand, forcing her to look for a place to discard her shopping.
    â€œThere wasn’t—I don’t remember seeing a police car.” His hand was damp and she drew hers away, glancing surreptitiously at her other wrist as she did so. Five past