Greg looked at the address of Mrs Sarah Hamilton on the fax. A broad grin spread across his face. He remembered his first visit to Bruno. ‘Mrs Bulstrode. Mrs Bulstrode,’ he said aloud. ‘Oh, yes. Mrs Bulstrode. Yes, yes, yes.’
He did not stop to change but raced from the flat and drove like a maniac through empty streets to 11, Cornwall Street. Somebody who had once owned that house ‘on the wrong side of the park’ had fallen on hard times and sold it to Bruno Lowenthal. That somebody had been involved in wartime espionage, had probably told the authorities what she knew about Adrian Pym in the 1950s when he had fled. Then she had gone to ground, hiding out to enjoy a happy private life.
That somebody was still there, still living in the same house …
Greg parked, went down the basement steps and banged heavily on the door.
A tall, brown-skinned young woman of about his own age opened the door. She looked at him and smiled. ‘Bruno said you’d come.’ She nodded him in.
There was an internal lobby, then a long room where a lighted Christmas tree stood. At a table, at which Christmas dinner had evidently been eaten and on which still stood cheese, fruit and the remains of a Christmas pudding, sat eight people, two couples in their fifties, and a young man who, by his appearance, seemed to be the brother of the woman who had let Greg in. Near the end of the table was an untouched place, with a full complement of knives, forks and glasses. At the head of the table was an old woman, bright-eyed, heavily made up and smiling. Beside her was Bruno, who stood up.
‘Welcome, Greg, we saved a place for you,’ he said.
The old woman now also got up. She was wearing a black beaded dress. She held a gold-tipped black cigarette holder. Bright-eyed, wreathed in smoke, Sally Bowles cried, ‘Darling! I’ve heard so much about you! Come and sit down. Will someone open a bottle of champagne?’
A Note on the Author
HILARY BAILEY was born in 1936 and was educated at thirteen schools before attending Newnham College, Cambridge. Married with children, she entered the strange, uneasy world of '60s science fiction, writing some twenty tales of imagination which were published in Britain, the USA, France and Germany. She has edited the magazine New Worlds and has regularly reviewed modern fiction for the Guardian. Her first novel was published in 1975 and she has since written twelve novels and a short biography. She lives in Ladbroke Grove, London.
Discover books by Hilary Bailey published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/HilaryBailey
After the Cabaret
All the Days of My Life
As Time Goes By
A Stranger to Herself
Cassandra
Connections
Elizabeth and Lily
Fifty-First State
Hannie Richards
In Search of Love, Money and Revenge
Mrs Rochester
Polly Put the Kettle On
Mrs Mulvaney
The Cry from Street to Street
Miles and Flora
The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1998 by Little, Brown and Company.
Copyright © 1998 Hilary Bailey
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
ISBN: 9781448209422
eISBN: 9781448209439
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